Expedition documentation and archaeological evidence of the fort and Native American culture both exist. Archeologists believe the Plaquemine people were the ancestors of historic Tunica Indians. Resettled Farmers and the Making of a Mississippian Polity. The final occupation at Transylvania may represent a late migration of Mississippian people down the Mississippi River into Louisiana. The site was occupied from AD 1100 to around AD 1450, inhabited by up to 1000 individuals at its peak. Elaborate funerary objects signifying elite status often accompanied the remains of these individuals. [19] Political structures collapsed in many places. The Adena were not one large tribe, but likely a group of interconnected communities living mostly in Ohio and Indiana. Many funerary items from the Spiro site were decorated with motifs representing the local expression of a ceremonial complex that drew participants from a wide area. One symbol, the cross-in-circle, illustrates the world, suspended from the sky by cords located at the cardinal directions. Communities from the Atlantic and Gulf coasts to the edge of the Great Plains to as far north as the Great Lakes took part in this ceremonial complex, which originated around A.D. 900 near the Cahokia site. Be sure to visit the Virtual Hampson Museum, a state-of-the-art website where you can view 3D images of Nodena phase ceramic vessels, tour a 3D visualization of the Upper Nodena village, and learn more about the Nodena people and their place in Arkansas history. The inhabitants constructed a large 55ft tall mound with a spiralling staircase, in addition to a large burial mound and various circular earth lodges. It spread over a great area of the Southeast and the mid-continent, in the river valleys of what are now the states of Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Arkansas, Missouri, Kentucky, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio, with . Soil nutrients and timber resources were depleted. Omissions? Since the natives lacked immunity to new infectious diseases, such as measles and smallpox, epidemics caused so many fatalities that they undermined the social order of many chiefdoms. Composed of many tribes, the Caddo were organized into three confederacies, theHasinai,Kadohadacho, andNatchitoches, which were all linked by their similar languages. They grew much of their food in small gardens using simple tools like stone axes, digging . The chronicles of theNarvez expeditionwere written before the de Soto expedition; the Narvez expedition informed the Court of de Soto about the New World. In Louisiana, the influence of Mississippian culture was evident by 1200 CE. Most tellingly, no burials have been found that have the abundance and kinds of high-status artifacts found at major Mississippian sites in the Southeast. The SECC was frequently tied into ritual game-playing, as withchunkey. Sites in this area often contain large ceremonial platform mounds, residential complexes and are often encircled by earthen ditches and ramparts or palisades.[10]. The Mississippian Period lasted from approximately 800 to 1540 CE. This is the belief system of the Mississippians as we know it. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. Sites in this area often contain large ceremonial platform mounds, residential complexes and are often encircled by earthen ditches and ramparts orpalisades.[10]. Cultures in the tributaryTennessee RiverValley may have also begun to develop Mississippian characteristics at this point. Their societies may also have had a somewhat lower level ofsocial stratification. Like Transylvania, Sims had a Plaquemine culture component that exhibited some Mississippian influence, but also may have had a later Mississippian culture occupation dating to circa 15001700 CE. The various cultures collectively termed Mound Builders were inhabitants of North America who, during a 5,000-year period, constructed various styles of earthen mounds for religious, ceremonial, burial, and elite residential purposes. Discoveries found at the massive site include evidence of copper working (Mound 34), astronomy (Cahokia Woodhengeand the symbolicmaximum southern moon risealignedRattlesnake Causeway), andritual retainer burials(Mound 72). Archeologists use the term "Mississippian" to refer to cultural developments in the Southeast between A.D. 900 and the 1539-1543 Spanish expedition led by Hernando de Soto. There were once many temple and burial mounds in Nashville, especially along the Cumberland River. 36-43. The Adena tribe frequented the Ohio Valley area, among other states, while the Hopewell tribe came after the Adena tribe, replacing them and growing into a larger group. The chronicles of the Narvez expedition were written before the de Soto expedition; the Narvez expedition informed the Court of de Soto about the New World. Fayetteville, Arkansas Archeological Survey Research Series No. Rees, Mark A. This distinct cultural name is derived from its development in the central part of the Mississippi River valley. It was composed of a series of urban settlements and satellite villages linked together by . Chronologically this area became influenced by Mississippian culture later than the Middle Mississippian area (about 1000 CE as compared to 800 CE) to its northwest. [18] Emerald Mound: A Plaquemine Mississippian period archaeological site located on the Natchez Trace Parkway near Stanton, Mississippi. While the journal focuses on the publication of new and primary prehistoric and historic period archaeological data from this heartland region of the United States and Canada, it also regularly publishes on broader theoretical and methodological issues relevant to an understanding of the archaeology of the midcontinent. It is believed that the peoples of this area adopted Mississippian traits from their northwestern neighbors.[10]. Emerald Mound: APlaquemine Mississippianperiod archaeological site located on theNatchez Trace ParkwaynearStanton, Mississippi. Other items, possibly used as badges by the elite, show individuals engaged in games or at war (games were called little wars by historic American Indian groups, so these can be difficult to distinguish in prehistoric imagery). However, there is no concrete evidence of direct contacts between the Mississippian Southeast and Mesoamerica. The spread of cultivation into North America seems to have proceeded along two separate courses, one from northern Mexico into the southwest and the other from an unknown Middle American source into the Mississippi Valley. [3] Such mounds were usually square, rectangular, or occasionally circular. Metallurgical analysis of copper artifacts from Cahokia. The Parkin Site: Thetype sitefor the Parkin phase, an expression of Late Mississippian culture, believed by many archaeologists to be the province ofCasquivisited by Hernando de Soto in 1542. Good examples of this culture are theMedora Site(thetype sitefor the culture and period) inWest Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana, and theAnna,Emerald Mound,WintervilleandHolly Bluffsites located in Mississippi. Indian stews mixing corn, beans, and squash with bits of deer or turkey meat or fish provide a nearly complete nutritional complex. The termSouth Appalachian Provincewas originally used byW. H. Holmesin 1903 to describe a regional ceramic style in the southeast involving surface decorations applied with a carved wooden paddle. The construction of large, truncatedearthworkpyramid mounds, orplatform mounds. The beginnings of a settlement hierarchy, in which one major center (with mounds) has clear influence or control over a number of lesser communities, which may or may not possess a smaller number of mounds. The Mississippian Culture was another mound . Parts of the Tensas Basin and all of the Yazoo Basin eventually became Mississippian territory (Brain 1974). The list Plaquemine Mississippian culture includes Plaquemine culture, Natchez people, Glass Site, Atchafalaya Basin Mounds and Sims Site. These mounds are not natural formationsancient Native Americans built them. The Ocmulgee Mounds was a religious and political centre of the Macon Plateau culture, a local expression of the South Appalachian Mississippian culture, located near the banks of the Ocmuglee River in the present-day State of Georgia. Indirectly, however, European introductions dramatically changed these native societies. The vacuum the Hopewell left was filled with and continued by the Mississippian Culture. The Mississippian period is the chronological stage, while Mississippian culture refers to the cultural similarities that characterize this society. The roof of the house was made from a steep A shaped framework of wooden poles covered with grass woven into a tight thatch. Fayetteville, Arkansas Archeological Survey Research Series 43. Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto brought diseases and cultural changes that eventually contributed to the decline of many Mississippian cultures. [5], Archaeological culture in the lower Mississippi River Valley, United States.
Mississippian culture, the last major prehistoric cultural development in North America, lasting from about 700 ce to the time of the arrival of the first European explorers. In Arkansas and elsewhere in eastern North America, Native Americans built earthen mounds for ritual or burial purposes or as the location for important structures, but mound-building ceased shortly after European contact . It seems, based on the traditional trait list, that Mississippian cultures were different in degree, not kind, from Woodland cultures in the Warfare between groups and transmission of Old World diseases moving ahead of direct contact with Europeans might also have contributed to declines in some areas. Weinstein, Richard A., and Ashley A. Dumas. This area covers the central Mississippi River Valley, the lower Ohio River Valley, and most of the Mid-South area, including western and central Kentucky, western Tennessee, and northern Alabama and Mississippi. A typical Mississipian town was built near a river or creek. Mark A. Rees, Rebecca Saunders, Courtesy of Department of Sociology and Anthropology Archaeology Laboratory, University of Mississippi, Davies Collection 3359. These maintained Mississippian cultural practices into the 18th century.[5]. The Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture. The Nashville area was a major population center during this period. There were large Mississippian centers in Missouri, Ohio, and Oklahoma. At AD 1200, in the wake of the Mississippian florescence, the late Woodland occupants of the Lower Mississippi Valley (LMV) underwent a major reorganization of lifeways. It was known for building large, earthen platform mounds, and often other shaped mounds as well. Political structures collapsed in many places.By the time more documentary accounts were being written, the Mississippian way of life had changed irrevocably. The Spread of Shell-Tempered Ceramics along the Northern Coast of the Gulf of Mexico.Southeastern Archaeology27, no. The site was occupied between AD 1200 and 1730, with the construction of a large flat top mound and subsidiary mounds during the Emerald Phase. TheMississippian culturewas aNative Americancivilization that flourished in what is now theMidwestern,Eastern, andSoutheastern United Statesfrom approximately 800 CE to 1600 CE, varying regionally. Maize-based agriculture. The list consists of 27 members. [1]The Mississippian way of life began to develop in the Mississippi River Valley (for which it is named). Parkin phase settlement pattern, by Jane Kellett (Arkansas Archeological Survey). These incl By 1350, a late Mississippian town was established about 2 miles down the Ocmulgee River from the Macon Plateau at a site known today as Lamar. The Plaquemine culture was an archaeological culture (circa 1200 to 1700 CE) centered on the Lower Mississippi River valley. Mississippian Mortuary Practices: Beyond Hierarchy and the Representationist Perspective. | Indians Before Europeans | First Encounters | Historic Arkansas Indians | Indians After Europeans | Current Research | Writing Prompts | Learning Exercises | Project Background and History |, The Mississippi Period: Southeastern Chiefdoms, Last Updated: February 17, 2013 at 10:58:45 PM Central Time, The Daughters and the Serpent Monster (Caddo), Lightning Defeats the Underground Monster (Caddo), The Calumet Ceremony in the Mississippi Valley, Gentleman of Elvas: Chapter XXXII and XXXIII, Smoking Ceremony from the Songs of the Wa-Xo'-Be (Osage). Its people are considered descendants of the Troyville-Coles Creek culture. [1] It had a deep history in the area stretching back through the earlier Coles Creek (700-1200 CE) and Troyville cultures (400-700 CE)[2] to the Marksville culture (100 BCE to 400 CE). Wide distribution of Braden style artifacts across the Southeast by A.D. 1200 shows how the style spread outward from the Cahokia area in the centuries immediately following its origin. Platform Mounds. Others are tall, wide hills. Southeastern Archaeology 25(1):29-47. A serpent 1300 feet long. Keyes, Charles R.Prehistoric Man in Iowa. It is considered ancestral to the Natchez and Taensa Peoples.[18]. Five regions are considered, the focus being the Natchez Bluffs of western Mississippi. At its peak, the city was the largest urban centre north of the Mesoamerican civilisations of Central America and was home to a population of up to 20,000 inhabitants. Scholars have studied the records ofHernando de Sotos expedition of 15391543 to learn of his contacts with Mississippians, as he traveled through their villages of the Southeast. At a particular site, each period may be considered to begin earlier or later, depending on the speed of adoption or development of given Mississippian traits. The expansion of Mississippian culture from circa 1050 to 1200 CE involved major realignments in many aspects of American Indian life. Sixteenth-century Spanish artifacts have been recovered from the site, marking the first European colonization in the interior of what became the United States.[20]. InWestern North Carolinafor example; some 50 such mound sites in the eleven westernmost counties have been identified since the late 20th century, following increased research in this area of the Cherokee homeland. Indian fighting generally consisted of skirmishes, in which small groups of warriors struck quick and damaging blows. While other tempers like grog (the traditional temper in Louisiana) and sand also improve clay workability, the chemicals released by the shell during firing reduce the temperature at which fine silicates in the clay vitrify (turn glassy), and they also reduce shrinkage. Such mounds were usually square, rectangular, or occasionally circular. Occupation at the site appears to have ended by AD 14001450, possibly due to the exhaustion of local resources such as timber and game, a period in which archaeologists call the vacant quarter. 534-544. This settlement pattern was typical of most of Middle America (central and southern Mexico and Guatemala) since as early as 850 bce, but it had not diffused into North America until the advent of the Mississippian culture. [13] South Appalachian Mississippian area sites are distributed across a contiguous area including Alabama, Georgia, northern Florida, South Carolina, central and western North Carolina, and Tennessee. Although hunting and gathering plants for food was still important, the Mississippians were mainly farmers. David Stahles studies of tree ring data collected from across the Southeast indicate an extensive drought in the late 15th century, which added to the stress on an agricultural system lacking large-scale irrigation. It is clear that through time there are increasingly greater structural similarities between the Natchez Bluffs and regions to the south, perhaps reflective of greater contact in other realms of life. A.D. 900 to 1600 comprise the Mississippian culture. Some of the mounds are low, simple cone shapes. 8 miles from the Mississippi town of Natchez. The locations of burials and the kinds of funerary objects interred with the dead show that Mississippian social distinctions surpassed the status differences represented in Woodland era burials. Some groups adopted European horses and changed tonomadism. There were a number of Mississippian cultures, with most spreading from the Middle Mississippian area. Different groups adopted the new practices to a greater or lesser degree. Potters molded their clay into many shapes, sometimes decorating them with painted designs. Plaquemine culture, although constantly changing, can . There is evidence of salt-making at salines in several areas of the Southeast, including in Caddo territory, during the Mississippi period. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1984. In one example, de Soto negotiated a truce between thePacahaand theCasqui. Plaquemine, Louisiana, about 10 miles south of Baton Rouge on the banks of the Mississippi River, seems an unassuming southern community for which to designate an entire culture. [4] The type site for the culture is the Medora site in Louisiana; while other examples include the Anna, Emerald, Holly Bluff, and Winterville sites in Mississippi. [citation needed]. Many parts of Arkansas and the mid-South were unsuitable for intensive field agriculture. This is the belief system of the Mississippians as we know it. Thousands of Mississippian-era graves have been found in the city, and thousands more may exist in the surrounding area. Though other cultures may have used mounds for different purposes, Mississippian cultures typically built structures on top of them. Archaeologists disagree about whether the individuals depicted represent the Mississippian elite, culture heroes, mythic heroes, or gods. People also gathered at the larger towns for community rituals and ceremonies. The walls of a house were built by placing wooden poles upright in a trench in the ground. While archaeologists are still debating the meanings of the symbols, they do understand some. They sculpted human figures and other objects in stone. Craftwork was executed in copper, shell, stone, wood, and clay and in such forms as elaborate headdresses, ritual weapons, sculptured tobacco pipes, effigy pottery, effigies, and masks of wood or copper-jacketed wood. Almost all dated Mississippian sites predate 15391540 (whenHernando de Sotoexplored the area),[4]with notable exceptions beingNatchezcommunities. The culture was based on intensive cultivation of corn (maize), beans, squash, and other crops, which resulted in large concentrations of population in towns along riverine bottomlands. The beginnings of asettlement hierarchy, in which one major center (withmounds) has clear influence or control over a number of lesser communities, which may or may not possess a smaller number of mounds. In historic Southeastern Indian towns, such rituals were performed to renew and reaffirm relationships between humans and the spirit world. The development of institutionalizedsocial inequality. Shell tempering may have been widely adopted because it was functional. It's called "Mississippian" because it began in the middle Mississippi River valley, between St. Louis and Vicksburg. Encyclopedia of Arkansas Link
The agricultural boom of the Mississippian culture concentrated wealth at the top. Here, artesian springs bring briny water to the surface from salt deposits deep below the ground. The hand-and-eye motif represents a constellation of stars (the hand) that is very close to the horizon and a portal (the eye). Mississippian people were horticulturalists. Mowdy, Marlon
Recent scholarship has shown, however, that while these are widely shared characteristics among A comparative study of Plaquemine culture (A.D. 1200-1730) structural patterns from 12 sites in the Lower Mississippi Valley is undertaken. Mississippian culture. AtJoara, nearMorganton, North Carolina, Native Americans of the Mississippian culture interacted withSpanishcolonizers of theJuan Pardoexpedition, who built a base there in 1567 calledFort San Juan. The historic and modern day American Indian nations believed to have descended from the overarching Mississippian Culture include: the Alabama, Apalachee, Caddo, Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muscogee Creek, Guale, Hitchiti, Houma, Kansa, Missouria, Mobilian, Natchez, Osage, Quapaw, Seminole, Tunica-Biloxi, Yamasee, and Yuchi. Major sites such asSpiroand theBattle Mound Siteare in theArkansas RiverandRed RiverValleys, the largest and most fertile of the waterways in the Caddoan region, where maize agriculture would have been the most productive. [21]Other Native American groups, having migrated many hundreds of miles and lost their elders to diseases, did not know their ancestors had built the mounds dotting the landscape. Enter your email address to receive notifications of new posts by email. Mississippian culture, the last major prehistoric cultural development in North America, lasting from about 700 ce to the time of the arrival of the first European explorers. First major work to deal solely with the Plaquemine societies. Proceeds are donated to charity. Still others are shaped like huge animals. [21] Other Native American groups, having migrated many hundreds of miles and lost their elders to diseases, did not know their ancestors had built the mounds dotting the landscape. Archaeologists believe that the Plaquemine culture builders were the ancestors of the historic Natchez, who inhabited the area using Emerald Mound site as their main ceremonial centre when the first Europeans explored the region. Plaquemine culture did not end, but its domain shrank. After the destruction and flight of the de Soto expedition, the Mississippian peoples continued their way of life with little direct European influence. [3] The largest city was Cahokia, believed to be a major religious center located in what is present-day southern Illinois. Emerald Mound is a Plaquemine culture Mississippian period site in the present-day state of Mississippi. Many parts of Arkansas and the mid-South were unsuitable for intensive field agriculture. These items, especially the pottery, were also copied by local artists. Brewminate uses Infolinks and is an Amazon Associate with links to items available there. Schambach, Frank F.
Moreover, warfare, which was apparently frequent, produced larger alliances and even confederacies. The water evaporated, leaving the salt behind. Indian communities in many parts of the Southeast turned from mixed economies to agricultural economies between A.D. 900 and 1200. Some groups adopted European horses and changed to nomadism. The people constructed 13 earthen mounds, 6 of which are large platform mounds, and hundreds of residential dwellings over an area of 100 acres.