Cahokia and the Mississippi Mound Builders
Mississippian Culture

 Table of Contents     Bibliography  Mound Sites

Introduction
The Mississippian Period of the Eastern United States (approximately A.D. 1000 to 1600) was preceded by the Late Woodland or Emergent Mississippian (A.D. 800 to 900/1000) period.  Geographically, Mississippian Societies were seen in a large portion of the Mississippi drainage basin, as far north as Minnesota, as far west as Texas, and as far south as the Florida panhandle.  The focus of much of the studies on the Mississippian period has been on an area known as the American Bottom, a section of the Mississippi River flood plain of fertile soil ideal for agriculture that is near the confluence of the Missouri, Illinois, and Missouri Rivers. The Mississippian Period is divided into Early (A.D. 1000 to 1200), Middle (A.D. 1200 to 1400) and Late (A.D. 1400 to 1500) Periods.  Europeans may have come in contact with some of the Late Mississippian Societies, with the arrival Spanish explorers, such as Hernando De Soto in Florida in 1539.
 

How Did Mississippian Societies Emerge?
Mark Meher and James Collins stressed that "there was no dramatic revolution or replacement of local populations with outlanders at the onset of the Mississippian period.  Indeed, the transition from Emergent Mississippian to Mississippian is characterized more by continuity than it is by contrast in terms of technology and art" (Meher & Collins, 1995, pp. 54-55).   Although this is an idea shared by Raymond Fowler, who has done much research on the Mississippian period, it is not shared by all.  Donald Lathrap and his students at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign believe that there may have been a migration of MesoAmericans and/or Caddonians.  This may have meant the migration of a fully developed Mississippian culture to the American Bottom.  A compromise theory has the development of Mississippian Culture, with some migration from other areas affecting its development.  For example, James Porter has hypothesized that the Emergent Mississippian society was made up of smaller farmsteads, which may have had one or two smaller mounds at their center.  A "true Mississippian Culture" developed when an "intrusive merchant class" from the lower Mississippi Valley took over the American Bottom.  This intrusive merchant class developed considerable control over these farmsteads, developing centralized power, such as that seen in the urban centers of  Cahokia and Moundville.
 

Structure of Society
Fowler hypothesized four types of Mississippian community types (based on research specific to Cahokia).  James Porter has also developed a "chain settlement model" that describes the composition, size and structure of various levels of communities.  These models have meaning because they guide research that helps us to learn about how Mississippian Societies could differ in the presence, number, and power of these varying types of communities and how this was related to social differentiation and other aspects of how they lived.  This is an active area of research, with many unanswered questions remaining.

Mississippian society differed in its hierarchical structure from prior populations, with people differentiated according to social, religions, economic, and occupational status.  This hierarchical structure was typified by the existence of chiefdoms, which have been the focus of much study.  A common thread of Mississippian culture is a reliance on agriculture, in particular - corn, as well as beans and squash.  Larger population densities were seen in the urban center, which often had a mound at the center, where the chiefdom held its power.  The mounds were not burial centers but, rather, ceremonial centers.  The rich lands that the Mississippian Societies occupied (with dense, rich forests and fertile soil for agriculture) along with a developed trade network between Mississippian cities, villages, and farmsteads is thought to have been responsible for the amassing of wealth in the urban centers.  The chiefdoms gained and maintained power by controlling this wealth.  Although much of the research on the Mississippian Period has focused on the urban centers and on the structure of chiefdoms, it is believed that many people living in Mississippian Period lived in smaller communities, which were relatively self-sufficient and not heavily affected by chiefdoms.  The point is, that while chiefdoms were an important development, there was believed to be wide variability in the extent to which specific Mississippian Societies were affected by them.

Palisades were built at some sites and during some periods to protect the ceremonial centers (mounds) from invaders - suggesting that warfare was a meaningful event in some Mississippian societies - perhaps as a way for chiefdoms to maintain power.  Most of the urban centers (such as Cahokia, Moundville, and Etowah) have palisades, with the exception of  Spiro - which for a yet unknown reason appears to have had no protective palisades.

Link

University of Illinois RiverWeb - Mississippian Period
The RiverWeb site is an educational and outreach site of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.  This section of the site focuses on the environment, society, technology, economy and art of Mississippian culture.

National Parks Service Mississippian Period
This National Parks Service Site give an excellent presentation on the Mississippian Period, with links to dozens of Mississippian period sites.

One Page Summary of Mississippian Period
This site gives a one page overview of the Mississippian Period.