User:The Hsinging Tree/Mississippian Period

For other uses, see Mississippian.

Mississippian Period
c. AD 1000 – c. AD 1600
Woodland Period Late Woodland Period Early modern period Mississippian shatter zone
The Willoughby Disc from Moundville, Alabama Wooden mask with deer antlers from Spiro, Oklahoma Depiction of Cahokia Copper headdress found at Upper Bluff Lake, Illinois Citico Gorget from the Coosa Paramountcy in the Appalachian Mountains
Duration	c. 600 years
Location	Eastern Woodlands
Including	Early Mississippian Period Middle Mississippian Period Late Mississippi Period
Leader(s)	Tuskaloosa, The Lady of Cofitachequi, Zamumo
Key events	Spread of the Corn-Mother Religion Cahokian Big Bang Cofitachequi-Ocute War Rise of the Datura Ritual Complex Rise of the Southeastern Longbow De Soto Expedition

The Mississippian period is an archaeological cultural era in the history of the Southern United States and adjacent areas of the Eastern Woodlands spanning the end of the 10th century to the 16th century. It was preceded by the Late Woodland period and succeeded by the colonial-era Mississippian shatter zone. The Mississippians were characterized by theocratic governance, population centers, and the predominance of maize agriculture. This stood in contrast to the peoples of the preceding Woodland period, who primarily used EAC crops, and whose mound-building activities were more limited to burial mounds. The Mississippian period is itself subdivided into the Early, Middle and Late Mississippian periods.

Although there were substantial changes in society and political structures, the break with the preceding Woodland period was incomplete. Despite the emphasis on maize, the old Eastern Agricultural Complex remained in use by Mississippians. The flat-topped platform mound, once thought to be a uniquely Mississippian trait, has been found to have its origins as far back as the Archaic period (although summit structures still appear to be a uniquely Mississippian occurrence). Most Mississippians retained the Hopewell clan system, where each clan functioned like a ritual society rather than solely kin groups, and travelers were able to obtain hospitality from a fellow clan member thousands of miles from their original home.

Founded in 1050, the city of Cahokia likely had at its peak around 1124 with at least 22,400 people. Between 1050 and 1150, the Cahokians briefly established a series of missionary outposts as far as 500 miles north of Cahokia. Despite its failure and rejection by the local woodland population in the north, other Cahokian projects seem to have greater success, like in Angel Mounds, which was used as a pilgrimage site for Cahokians. The end of the Medieval Climate Anomaly (around 900 to the early 1100s), and the start of a decades long drought (1150–1200) in Illinois brought political instability to the region.

These developments resulted in an exodus of some 50% of Cahokians at the time to the Nashville area (likely ancestral to the Koasati people), that region peaking in population around 1275, as well as the exodus of several thousand more to other regions like Angel on the Ohio and Etowah in the Appalachians, kickstarting the Middle Mississippian period. Many Mississippian mound centers outside Cahokian influence began to rise in prestige, like Moundville in Alabama, the Yazoo basin in Mississippi, and the Oconee basin in Georgia. As the elite of these mound sites drew in more and more exotic trade goods, the Mississippian world saw an influx of religious concepts from the west around 1300, notably the Datura Ritual Complex.

The Late Mississippian period (1400–1600) was marked by less elaborate, but territorially larger paramount chiefdoms. These various paramountcies functioned less like the Middle Mississippian complex-chiefdoms, with a powerful center and a less powerful periphery, but more as a confederation of various mound sites headed by a paramount, a primus inter pares known as the "Gran Cacique" by Spanish settlers. Many settlements nucleated, increased defenses with larger defenses, and furthered development of archery technology. Entire river basins, like the Savannah River, were transformed into 'Vacant Quarters'; sparsely settled buffer zones that lay between growing paramount chiefdoms.

Chronological History

Emergent Mississippian/Terminal Late Woodland (c. 900 – c. 1000)

The Post-Hopewell Late Woodland Period, was characterized by the use of new bow and arrow technology, an uptick in maize consumption, emergence of platform mound construction, and new forms of political organization. This period transitioned to the Emergent Mississippian or Terminal Late Woodland period by 900 AD. The Emergent Mississippian period continued much of the same trends as the Late Woodland period, and began building summit structures on the mounds, as well as growing trade networks across the Mississippian world. The Emergent Mississippian/Terminal Late Woodland is categorized as distinct from the rest of the Late Woodland because of the growth of Cahokia during this period.

Early Mississippian period (c. 1000 – c. 1200)

The city of Cahokia, including downtown Cahokia near Collinsville, and the East St. Louis precinct, likely had at its peak around 1124 with at least 22,400 people. It was primarily constructed during the Edelhardt phase (1000-–1050) and Lohmann phase (1050–1100). Archaeologists believe it to be a planned social and religious project, towering mounds built by a mix of Caddoan, Natchezan, Muskogean, and Dhegiha Siouan peoples, perhaps related to astronomical events like Halley's Comet or SN 1054.

Between 1050 and 1100, Cahokia briefly established a series of missionary outposts in the Midwest as far as 900 kilometres (560 mi) to the north, like Trempealeau Mounds, Aztalan, and the Apple River Valley. There have been various theories for these various regions on why Cahokians came and were allowed to stay in these regions. For Cahokians, their principal reasons were likely centered around spreading their way of life and religion, as well as certain natural geography that affirmed their religion. For the native woodlanders, embracing Cahokian way of life was pragmatic; for alliance purposes, access to resources, and to legitimize a growing elite centered around the collection and display of sacred objects. All of these outposts were abandoned by 1250.

Despite its eventual failure, other Cahokian projects seem to have greater success, like in the Central Illinois River Valley, whose ruling elite are thought to have come from Cahokia. or Angel Mounds, thought to be reliant on Cahokia and founded in part by Cahokians (or at least Angel priests educated in Cahokia). The end of the Medieval Climate Anomaly triggered the start of a decades long drought in Illinois (1150–1200), bringing much political instability to the region. This instability resulted in an exodus of some 50% of Cahokians at the time to the Nashville area (likely ancestral to the Koasati people), peaking in population around 1275.

Middle Mississippian period (c. 1200 – c. 1400)

The waning of Cahokian dominance in the Mississippian world created a power vacuum, giving rise to the Middle Mississippian period; a multipolar Mississippian world dominated by many polities competing with each other to obtain prestige goods. Examples include Apafalaya in Alabama, centered on Moundville; Itaba in the Appalachians, centered on its namesake Etowah (a pro-Cahokian center); Holly Bluff and Winterville in the Yazoo Valley, allies of Moundville; Angel Mounds, capital of the Taarsite/Arkansa (formerly a Cahokian mission); and Okeeheepkee Mounds, capital of the Apalachee Province. As the elite of these mound sites drew in more and more exotic trade goods, the Mississippian world saw an influx of religious concepts from the west around 1300, notably the Datura Ritual Complex. Because the Central Mississippi River Valley was located closer to these trade routes, the old rituals based on Cahokia likely declined in favor of the new Datura-based Central Mississippian rituals.

In the second half of the Middle Mississippian period, nucleated ceremonial capitals, like Moundville and Etowah, declined in population. The capitals became limited to the elite, used for rituals and ceremonies. These ceremonies involved intricate works of art like Etowah's copper plates and Moundville's stone palettes.

Several Mississippian states rose in political power, like the Cofitachequi in South Carolina, the Chiscas in Virginia, the aforementioned Apalachee in Florida, and the Ocute in Georgia. This was likely related to two factors: the global Little Ice Age, and the development of the Nodena Point arrow type.

Late Mississippian period (c. 1400 – c. 1600)

The Late Mississippian period was marked by less elaborate, but territorially larger paramount chiefdoms. These paramountcies functioned less like the Middle Mississippian complex-chiefdoms, which had a powerful center and a less powerful periphery, but more as a confederation of many chiefdoms headed by a paramount, a primus inter pares known as the "Gran Cacique" by Spanish conquistadors.

The Little Ice Age caused instability in the maize growing Southeast, resulting in the development of the Nodena Arrow Point and the powerful southeastern longbow. Many settlements nucleated and increased defenses with larger palisades and moats, accompanied by the rise of a new warrior system based on merit. Entire river basins, like the Savannah River, were transformed into 'Vacant Quarters'; unsettled buffer zones that lay between growing paramount chiefdoms. Several Mississippian paramountcies rose in political power, like the Cofitachequi in South Carolina, the aforementioned Apalachee in Florida, the Ocute in Georgia, and Coosa in the Appalachian mountains.

Regional Histories

Middle Mississippian

Replica of a Mississippian house excavated at the Aztalan site in an exhibit at the Wisconsin Historical Museum

Cahokia, the largest Mississippian culture site

Kincaid, showing its platform mounds and encircling palisade

The term Middle Mississippian is also used to describe the core of the classic Mississippian culture area. 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. Sites in this area often contain large ceremonial platform mounds, residential complexes and are often encircled by earthen ditches and ramparts or palisades.

Middle Mississippian cultures, especially the Cahokia polity located near East St. Louis, Illinois, were very influential on neighboring societies. High-status artifacts, including stone statuary and elite pottery associated with Cahokia, have been found far outside of the Middle Mississippian area. These items, especially the pottery, were also copied by local artists.

• Cahokia (fl. 1050–1350 CE): The largest and most complex Mississippian site and the largest Pre-Columbian settlement north of Mexico, Cahokia is considered to have been the most influential of the Mississippian culture centers. Discoveries found at the massive site include evidence of copper working (Mound 34), astronomy (Cahokia Woodhenge and the symbolic maximum southern moon rise aligned Rattlesnake Causeway), and ritual retainer burials (Mound 72).
• Angel Mounds: A chiefdom in southern Indiana near Evansville. It is thought by some archaeologists that the Late Mississippian Caborn-Welborn culture developed from the Angel phase people around 1400 and lasted to around 1700 CE.
• Kincaid site: A major Mississippian mound center in southern Illinois across the Ohio River from Paducah, Kentucky.
• Moundville: Ranked with Cahokia as one of the two most important sites at the core of the Mississippian culture, located near Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
• The Parkin site: The type site for the "Parkin phase", an expression of Late Mississippian culture, believed by many archaeologists to be the province of Casqui visited by Hernando de Soto in 1542.

South Appalachian Mississippian

Stone effigies found at the Etowah site (circa 1250-1375 A.D.)

The term South Appalachian Province was originally used by W. H. Holmes in 1903 to describe a regional ceramic style in the southeast involving surface decorations applied with a carved wooden paddle. By the late 1960s, archaeological investigations had shown the similarity of the culture that produced the pottery and the midwestern Mississippian pattern defined in 1937 by the Midwestern Taxonomic System.

In 1967, James B. Griffin coined South Appalachian Mississippian to describe the evolving understanding of the peoples of the Southeast. 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. Chronologically this area became influenced by Mississippian culture later than the Middle Mississippian area (about 1000 as compared to 800) to its northwest. It is believed that the peoples of this area adopted Mississippian traits from their northwestern neighbors.

Typical settlements were located on riverine floodplains and included villages with defensive palisades enclosing platform mounds and residential areas. Etowah and Ocmulgee in Georgia are both prominent examples of major South Appalachian Mississippian settlements. Both include multiple large earthwork mounds serving a variety of functions. These large networks of mounds and settlements coalesced into larger polities such as Moundville, Cofitachequi, and Ocute.

Villages with single platform mounds were more typical of the river valley settlements throughout the mountainous area of southwest North and South Carolina and southeastern Tennessee that were known as the historic Cherokee homelands. In Western North Carolina for 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.

Caddoan Mississippian

Main article: Caddoan Mississippian culture

Map of the Caddoan Mississippian culture

The Caddoan Mississippian area, a regional variant of the Mississippian culture, covered a large territory, including what is now eastern Oklahoma, western Arkansas, northeastern Texas, and northwestern Louisiana. Archaeological evidence has led to a scholarly consensus that the cultural continuity is unbroken from prehistory to the present, and that the Caddo and related Caddo language speakers in prehistoric times and at first European contact are the direct ancestors of the modern Caddo Nation of Oklahoma.

Spiro, in eastern Oklahoma

The climate in this area was drier than areas in the eastern woodlands, hindering maize production, and the lower population on the plains to the west may have meant fewer neighboring competing chiefdoms to contend with. Major sites such as Spiro and the Battle Mound Site are in the Arkansas River and Red River Valleys, the largest and most fertile of the waterways in the Caddoan region, where maize agriculture would have been the most productive. The sites generally lacked wooden palisade fortifications often found in the major Middle Mississippian towns. Living on the western edge of the Mississippian world, the Caddoans may have faced fewer military threats from their neighbors. Their societies may also have had a somewhat lower level of social stratification.

The Caddoan people were speakers of one of the many Caddoan languages. These languages once had a broad geographic distribution, but many are now extinct. The modern languages in the Caddoan family include Caddo and Pawnee.

Hernando de Soto led an expedition into the area in the early 1540s, he encountered several native groups now thought to have been Caddoan. Composed of many tribes, the Caddo were organized into three confederacies, the Hasinai, Kadohadacho, and Natchitoches, which were all linked by their similar languages.

Plaquemine Mississippian

Main article: Plaquemine culture

Map showing the geographical extent of the Plaquemine culture and some of its major sites

The Plaquemine culture was an archaeological culture in the lower Mississippi River Valley in western Mississippi and eastern Louisiana. Good examples of this culture are the Medora site (the type site for the culture and period) in West Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana, and the Anna, Emerald Mound, Winterville and Holly Bluff sites located in Mississippi. Plaquemine culture was contemporaneous with the Middle Mississippian culture at the Cahokia site near St. Louis, Missouri. It is considered ancestral to the Natchez and Taensa Peoples.

• Emerald Mound: A Plaquemine Mississippian period archaeological site located on the Natchez Trace Parkway near Stanton, Mississippi. The site dates from the period between 1200 and 1730. The platform mound is the second-largest Pre-Columbian earthwork in the country, after Monks Mound at Cahokia.
• Grand Village of the Natchez: The main village of the Natchez people, with three mounds. The only mound site to be used and maintained into historic times.

Society

Priestly Organization

Developing from Woodland shamans, powerful clan priesthoods or similar organizations has been speculated to exist all over the Mississippian world. During the Mississippian period, political dominance in the towns shifted between powerful priests and civic town leaders depending on the time and region. No matter the region, organizations who drew their legitimacy from the supernatural remained prominent throughout the time period, often being the principal force behind the massive monumental projects that the Mississippians are known for today.

Keller figurine, thought to be a depiction of "The Weaver", a priestly position among the Osage

Osage Clan Priests

The role of Osage clan priesthoods involved power in military initiatives, certain positions in government, and management of hunting expeditions. several sacred bundles, sacred pipes (Wa-wathon), and management of hunting expeditions. Ceremonially, the priesthoods also held control of the supernatural forces, certain rites and songs. Several positions existed within the priesthood like the Sho’-ka (priestly messenger) and the Xo’-ka (a spirit sponsor; someone who takes on various spirits' personas). In theory, anyone could rise through the ranks through divine fate, gaining additional ritual knowledge and powers each time. In reality it costed various insider initiation rituals, the gifting of goods, and sponsorship by the Xo’-ka.

Such clan priesthoods have not only been compared to clay figurines at Cahokia, but also to the Moundville mound layout, suggested to represent the clans and their clan priesthoods. This layout may be similar to the Osage system of government, where the main government was the "House of Mysteries", or a coalition of 21 gentes or clans split into 3 divisions, with each clan having its own ranked set of 7 priesthoods.

Plaquemine Suns

The Natchez Sun being carried around on their litter by several Honored men

Plaquemine culture groups like the Natchez, Avoyel, Taensa, and Chitimacha had their own form of priestly organization. Though the Natchez and the Chitimacha records don't have any evidence of a unique clan system like much of the Southeast, what was recorded was a system in which the majority Stinkards venerated the upper classes and supplied them with resources and obedience. The upper classes were composed of the Honored men (Stinkards who had been promoted by the Suns), and above them the ruling aristocracy of Suns themselves. Although it was once thought that the Suns had to marry Stinkards and drop a rank, causing a paradox that would make the ruling class unsustainable, there are now many solutions, such as suggestions that this exogamy was only implemented to accommodate immigrants caused by colonial chaos, or simply that this exogamy was exaggerated and not as enforced as once thought. French explorer Antoine-Simon Le Page du Pratz, who lived among the Natchez for over a decade, recorded Natchez elders who claimed that the Natchezan caste system centered around the Sun clan once stretched as far north as the Wabash River and as far south as Bayou Manchac.

Caddoan Priesthoods

Sketch of a Beaver pendant from the Belcher Mound Site

Among the Caddoans, there were three main social classes: village leadership (the Caddi) who inherited their position, the elite who served as civil officers or lower religious leadership, and commoners. Above everyone was the Tsah Neeshi (Mr. Moon). Mr. Moon was empowered by the Moon (Neesh) and possibly a Creator (a 'a caddi qyo; Father Above Chief) which may've been the same as Moon. The wives of the Tsah Neeshi and the Caddi were referred to under the title aquidau. Among the elite, the Caddo had three kinds of doctors or shamans; the strongest one was Beaver (T'ao), the next strongest being the Oracle (Yuko) and the last called daitino or Mescal Bean doctor. These doctors and shamans would belong to an animal lodge cult, possibly related to animal spirit ancestors. The Beaver can be found in Caddoan Mississippian pendants, valued as a creature of the land and the water.There were also powerful witches, mostly men, known as naiiti, neildi’, or naite.

South Appalachian Nicotani

Copper plate found at Etowah Indian Mounds, likely used as a divine symbol

The Ani-Kutani, or Nicotani, were a secret society or powerful priestly clan among the Cherokee who oversaw all religious ceremonies. They were possibly related to the firekeepers or fire priests who enjoyed similar privileges. They were either wiped out by pestilence or overthrown when one of the priess sexually assaulted the wife of a prominent warrior or politician. In the overthrowing narrative, the Cherokee then swore to never tolerate hereditary privileges again. The similarity of the word Nicotani to other entities in Southern Appalachia is noteworthy, like the Apalachee Nico (the sun), of whom the Nicoguadca is named after, and the Mico, revered 'lords' encountered by early Spanish expeditions. The Nicotani has also been reported by less authoritative sources to have built the mounds in Cherokee territory.

Political Organization

Although internal political organization varied from region to region,

Since the mid-20th century, Mississippian polities have been known as chiefdoms. The term chiefdom originates from the mid-20th century works of Elman Service and Kalervo Oberg, with two distinct meanings. Oberg uses it in an administrative fashion, in which chiefdoms are governed by a paramount chief who controls districts and villages under various subordinate chiefs. He considered all chiefdoms to have no standing armies, permanent administrative bodies, subject tribes, or payments of tributes. Service on the other hand, used as a type of society in cultural evolution. A society above band-level societies, but still not as developed as states. Both of these models are flawed and outdated. Service's model perpetuates subtly racist ideas of the 19th century, that European-style states were superior to other forms of political organization, and basically claims that the political organizations different from Europeans were just on their way to becoming European states. Meanwhile, using Oberg's definition of chiefdom is simply false, as Mississippian chiefdoms have been shown to have tribute payments and permanent administrative bodies.

There have been numerous attempts to introduce a new term with less baggage for Mississippian polities, such as "mini-states", "civilizations", and kingdoms.

Military

Choctaw military hierarchy

Several Mississippian groups and Mississippian-descended groups had a meritocratic warrior system. The Apalachee for example, had scalp requirements for each rank. A man who had obtained a single scalp was a Warrior (Apalachee: Tascaia). One who had taken three scalps was a Noroco. The highest title a warrior could attain was Nicoguadca, or "lightning." Attaining this legendary title required one to have killed ten enemies, and three of these had to be high ranked warriors known as Hita Tascaia. During the contact-period Choctaw,, and Muscogee, there were at least two military ranks attainable above the basic designation as Warrior (Choctaw: Nakni Taska, lit. 'male warrior; politically-dependent warrior'): The lieutenants (Choctaw: Taska Minkochi, lit. 'Chiefly Warriors'), and the majors, who also acted as masters of ceremony (Choctaw: Tishu Minko, lit. 'Assistant Chief'). All three ranks received their titles in recognition of their having performed warlike feats, the war chiefs having accomplished the most. One of the lieutenants was designated by the Beloved Men as "Great Warrior" (Creek: Tastanaigi Tako) and had the duty of leading his chiefdom in war, aided by the lieutenants. Great Warriors supposedly held immense amounts of power, but only for matters of war. When war was declared, it was announced by the Great Warrior. He also arranged with the Great Warriors of other chiefdoms to have ball games. These ball games, Toli, known as "the younger brother of war," were not just games, but had important political functions.

Choctaw Toli or ball game

Along with the ranks of war, there also exists the Supporting Men (Choctaw: Hatak Imatali). These are males who've not achieved any scalps or who have killed only a woman or a child. They did the menial tasks in war, like carrying equipment as porters. During the contact period, they were often elevated through participating in attacks with close relatives, who would award him some share of the scalps to improve his ranking. A raising of rank involved a naming ceremony, wherein the advancing individual is, especially in the higher ranks, awarded a war epithet. For example, Hopaii Hacho, Hopaii being the rank he's obtained (war-prophet) and Hacho being a war-related adjective, meaning mad or crazy.

An example of what a Mississippian Temple could look like (top)

It's noteworthy that warrior rank systems likely affiliated with religious organizations throughout the Southeast. For example, in Choctaw territory there was the Unkala, a priestly order who worked as custodians of the Taskatchúka (lit. 'House of Warriors'). This temple was allegedly the oldest settlement among the Choctaws, and stood on the banks of the Cushtusia Creek in Neshoba County, Mississippi. The Clan Speakers (Choctaw: I′ksa A′numpule) prepared the bones of great warriors for burial, and the Unkala priests went at the head of the mourners to that temple, chanting hymns in an unknown tongue.

Culture

Languages

The Mississippian world was incredibly multilingual. In a broad sense, Muskogean was the predominant language family in the southeast, Caddoan speakers propagated in the west, Natchezan and Tunican languages around the Mississippi River, and Siouan languages in the north. There were however, many exceptions and this distribution wasn't absolute. Siouans like the Catawba existed to the east, as well as likely many languages that simply weren't documented in the early expeditions or in oral history, which were subsequently wiped out in the centuries after contact by slave raids and disease.

Mississippian peoples communicated with each other in various ways. They may've used a trade jargon which evolved into the Mobilian Jargon known to Europeans considering factors like its distribution and its participants, though there's no way of confirming. When Hernando de Soto and other European explorers made expeditions into the Mississippian Southeast, they used a string of interpreters (Creek: Yatiki, Yuchi: Yatikˀi, lit. 'Receiver of fire') to traverse a very multilingual world. At least two of the paramount chiefdoms encountered by De Soto and Juan Pardo were multilingual, with speakers of Siouan, Iroquoian (Cherokee), and various Muskogean languages.

Proto-Writing

The Willoughby Disc

Although the Mississippians didn't have a system of alphabetic writing, there were numerous methods that were used to communicate ideas, many of them resembling other systems of proto-writing or writing like the Aztec Script. One unique example of Mississippian proto-writing is the Willoughby Disk, thought to describe the process for a death-related ritual. This ritual involved Datura-based substances which is represented by the Sphinx Moth, a Sacred bundle, the bilobed arrow representing the soul, and the hand-and-eye symbolizing the Milky Way or the Path of Souls. Antoine-Simon Le Page du Pratz reported a standardized method which the indigenous peoples of Louisiana 'wrote' declarations of war engraved on bark. Read from left to right, the declaration starts with the hieroglyphic sign of the attacking nation, followed by a man with a tomahawk in his hand; then an arrow pointing at a woman flying away. Between the arrow and the woman is the sign of the defending nation. Below are several more hieroglyphics representing when they would strike, the number of warriors, and insults which represent the defending nation as a fleeing woman.

Thruston Tablet, a narration of the Hero Twins myth circa 1300

Another type of proto-writing among Mississippians involved sequential pictographs that tell a narrative. For example, the Nashville-area Thruston Tablet, created around 1400, likely narrates the tale of the Hero Twins. This tradition continued to the Historic period, though on less durable material. In 1776, Bernard Romans recorded Creek 'hieroglyphics' that narrated an ambush against the Choctaw, and William Bartram describe similar Creek 'hieroglyphics' on walls and tattooed on government officials.

Creek 'hieroglyphics' recorded by Bernard Romans

Other examples of proto-writing are a little more abstract. For example, an inscribed sandstone found in the Noel Farm cemetery near Nashville by a black laborer under the employ of Gates P. Thruston, who also recovered the Thruston Tablet. The inscribed stone, though more complex, has been noted for its similarity to coal tokens found in burial mounds along the Mississippi. These coal tokens have been interpreted as currency, but there hasn't been any evidence either way, though they were certainly significant enough objects to be buried in mounds. Outside of conspiracy theories, this stone has not been interpreted since Thruston himself in the 1890s.

Inscribed stone found near Nashville

Tokens found along the Mississippi River in Burial Mounds, mostly carved on lignite or coal

Cartography

Another form of visual communication compared to proto-writing were Mississippian maps. The practice of cartography was likely very sophisticated during the Mississippian period, though we only have a handful of examples as most were drawn on perishable material like deerskin or perhaps tree bark.

A translated copy of a Catawba deerskin map, c. 1721

Engraved shell from Spiro c. 1400

There are two main examples of some form of cartography from the Mississippian period, each representing a different type of 'map'. One is an engraved shell from Spiro, believed to represent a sociogram map similar in style to the deerskin map gifted from a Catawba leader to South Carolina governor Francis Nicholson in 1721, as well as a Chickasaw deerskin map given to the French. These sociograms represent political connections between towns and political entities, and the paths between them. The Chickasaw Mingo explained that the how the visual style of the path (color, size) may represent different types of diplomatic, commercial, and military connections.

The second type is a literal map of the natural geography, exemplified by the Commerce Quarry and Petroglyph site, likely created sometime between 1200 and 1400 in the Middle Mississippian period. The map attempts to show several communities' literal geographic position, as well as natural features like rivers and lakes.

Clothing

Traditional Romani dress, which was compared to Mississippian clothing by Spanish explorers

Because biological material doesn't survive well in archaeology, and because iconography is fairly limited to ritual paraphernalia, the descriptions of Mississippian clothing come mainly from the earliest European expeditions, notably the Spanish expeditions of De Soto and Juan Pardo. The Gentleman of Elvas and Rodrigo Rangel, two chroniclers of the De Soto expedition, claim that women in the South Appalachian region covered themselves with shawl-like blankets. Some were made from inner Mulberry bark and others were made from Caesarweed or false sisal. One was draped from the waste down, and another on the left shoulder, leaving the right arm exposed. Elvas compared their clothing to the Romani, while Rangel compared it to wandering Egyptians or Bohemians. Mississippian shawls are supported in effigy bottles found in the Nashville area, which depict women in patterned shawls.

The men on the other hand use red-dyed buckskin, one as a loincloth and another placed on the shoulders like a shawl. Buckskin was also used to make shoes. These descriptions of male clothing are startlingly similar to those of Aztec men.

Nezahualpilli of Tetzcoco dressing similarly to the Spanish descriptions of Mississippian clothing.

The Mississippian rulers, called cacique, holata, or mico by the Spanish, had a different regalia. The ruler of Coosa for example, wore a robe of marten hides and a crown of feathers. Tuskaloosa, ruler of Atahachi, wore a type of turban as well as a blanket of feathers which stretched down to his feet.

Music

An Eastern Woodlands turtle shell rattle.

A Chickasaw flute that flew on STS-133 on display at the National Museum of the American Indian.

Several musical instruments, such as rattles, drums, flutes, and bone rasps have been recorded in early expeditions as well as in archaeological investigations. Two flutes have been found archaeologically, both made from river cane. The more intact flute has been dubbed the Breckenridge flute. It is significant for its two chambers, signaling continuity with modern Native American flutes. The exterior bore zigzag lines which may've represented scales and vibrato, and/or represented the energy of lightning. Flutes were recorded in the De Soto expeditions as a sign of peace, and were often played when important rulers were presented to De Soto or when they were entering a substantial town, and remain an important instrument for Native Americans today.

There were several types of rattles. Adorno rattles have been discovered at the Holy Bluff site in the Yazoo Valley, made in the shape of animal and human heads. Muscogee and Cherokee consultants have suggested these rattles were used mimic human heartbeats and used in community-wide festivities. Although only one gourd rattle has been recovered, from Northwest Arkansas, there have been several rock paintings and carved effigies from the period carrying gourd rattles. One notable effigy is the "rattler frog". The rattle held by the frog effigy likely replicated a real rattle that mimicked frog sounds. Other types of rattles recovered from Mississippian sites include turtle shell rattles and wooden face rattles, as well as bison bone and cane rasps. Drums have not been recovered archaeologically, though there are circle-and-dot petroglyphs that may represent drums.

Art

Sources to be used:

Human effigies found inside stone box graves

Science and technology

Agriculture

In most places, the Mississippian period coincided with the adoption of comparatively large-scale, intensive maize agriculture, which supported larger populations and craft specialization. They expanded by sectioning off land and working one plot at a time.

Architecture

Wattle and daub

In the construction of houses, Mississippians primarily used wattle and daub architecture, a practice inherited by predecessors as far back as the Paleoindian period. In the Lower Mississippi region, the amount of wattle-and-daub construction exploded to a level not seen since the Late Archaic Poverty Point period. In other parts of the Mississippian world however, like in the Midwest, there was more direct continuity with the preceding Woodland period.

Wattle and daub house at Etowah Indian Mounds, reconstructed in the first type.

Wattle and daub involved a woven lattice of wooden strips (the wattle) packed with a sticky matrix of mud, clay, and animal materials (the daub). These houses usually lasted around a decade before being replaced again. Construction of these houses occurred year round. There were likely two types of Mississippian houses. The first is a rigid construction with a framed plate, rafters, and a hipped roof, resembling a European-style or Mesoamerican-style house. This model is how Mississippian period houses in the Southeast have been traditionally interpreted to the public. It has been described for Chickasaw houses in the 1700s by James Adair. The second model is akin to a wigwam, that of a flexed pole or flexed roof, involving bent poles meeting at the top to form a dome structure. This model has been described by several French authors in the 1700s for the Natchez, Choctaw, and several other groups. The size of the house posts, which would've determined flexibility, are used to determine the type.

Wigwam, likely similar to the second type of wattle and daub houses.

For the texturing and covering of the exterior wall, there were several variations. Cypress or pine bark, grass, moss, and maize leaves were all used. As for the roof covering, grass and cane thatch was the norm, at least for the everyman. According to chronicles of the De Soto Expedition, temples and important buildings were covered in more intricate and ornately decorated cane mats, as well as being of a larger size.

The placement of houses was used as a tool of those in power. A quarter of Angel phase households between 1300 and 1450 aligned with the Angel Axis (though Angel site itself only had 5% of their households in this position). This alignment likely enforced the divine 'power' or blessings of the elite of the Angel site. Such celestial alignments existed in other parts of the Mississippian world, likely corresponding to mythological concepts like the Path of Souls and constellations associated with deities, though investigations into their housing patterns have not been conducted.

Monumental stone architecture

Ruins of the Fort Mountain wall.

Although the use of stone as a building material among Mississippians might not have been as prolific as the neighboring Oneota, Aridoamerican cultures and the Northeastern Woodlands, they still created and maintained monuments of stone architecture. The boundary marker between the Ocute on the Oconee River and the "short haired people" in the Atlanta region was reported by Spanish expeditions to be Stone Mountain, on which sits a rock wall dating to the Middle Woodland period. This rock wall may've still been used between the Ocute and Short-Haired people, or else may've been the reason for the choice of Stone Mountain as the boundary between them. For most of the Mississippian period stone monuments were limited to polygonal rock piles, rock mantles (layer of rock over an earthen mound), and possibly stone mounds. During the Late Mississippian period though, stone monuments was more common, appearing as boulder burials, stone effigies, rock mounds, and stone box graves. These monuments were used for religious ceremonies, used as a form of art, as well as a way to honor the dead. Many of these monuments are gone today however, such as Stone Mountain's rock wall, as tourists kept taking rocks from the mountain as a souvenir.

Platform mounds

Main article: Platform mound

A mound diagram of the platform mound

Although circular forms exist, platform mounds are usually four-sided truncated pyramids built from soil and clay, with ramps, stairs, and ladders made of wooden logs ascending one side of the earthworks. Unlike platform mounds of the preceding Woodland and Archaic periods, Mississippian mounds usually held summit structures that were inhabited year-round. These mounds were built through the offloading of baskets of dirts. The size of the mounds likely reflected how long it was used for, and how powerful its political leaders were.

They were almost always grounded in the cosmos, tied with ideas of the Above World, Beneath World, and death, related to its use for mortuary purposes. For example, the mound axes of Moundville, Angel, and Cahokia are oriented to the Milky Way (Path of Souls) on the night of the summer solstice. An example from the early contact period is the Temple of Cofitachequi, which was either dedicated to a deity known as El Cu, or to the Lady of Cofitachequi's ancestors. The temple held an armory, statues, and royal treasures (like pearl and copper). Idols were fashioned with, along with other precious materials, pearls.

Conical burial mounds were also used to a lesser extent.

Metallurgy

Mississippian elites at major political and religious centers throughout the midwestern and southeastern United States used ritual copper artifacts as a sign of their status, rather than as tools like the Old Copper complex. Ritual copper in the Southeast had two main sources for their copper: Ducktown Basin in Tennessee and Georgia, and Lake Superior. During the Early Mississippian period, ritual coppers were mostly monopolized by Cahokia, though by 1250, Cahokia's ritual coppers had spread to several other sites like Moundville, Etowah, Ocmulgee, and Lake Jackson began using coppers, some even straight from Cahokia.

Although metal casting in North American history was extremely rare or non-existent, likely because of the extremely high amount of native copper deposits in Lake Superior, there have been several artifacts from the Old Copper complex which indicates the possibility that metal has been casted a few times, though it's still a couple dozen casted artifacts compared to thousands of copper artifacts made from native copper. There have also been crucible-like structures found in Cahokian copper workshops, and the temperature necessary to melt copper has been achieved by Hopewell pyro engineering before. The most popular method was hammering and annealing the copper into sheets over a fire.

With the advent of European colonization, copper still retained a place in Native American religious life as a special material. Among 19th century Muscogee Creeks, a group of copper plates carried along the Trail of Tears are regarded as some of the tribe's most sacred items.

Religion and mythology

Mississippian religion is pieced together based on linking the artifacts of their time period with the religion and artifacts of the following period during European contact, principally the religious beliefs from Dhegiha Siouan, Natchezan, Muskogean, and Central Algonkian sources.

Sources to be used:

Afterlife

The Path of Souls (Creek: Poya Fik-tcalk Innini lit. 'The Spirit's Road') in Eastern Woodland cosmology was the Milky Way, associated with death motifs like skull and bones. The entry to the Path of Souls often represented in Mississippian art with an eye in the Hand. The free-soul, someone's personality and consciousness, leaves the life-soul in the dead body. Once the free-soul has entered the portal, he is transported to the Path of Souls which leads far to the south to the Realm of the Dead. Many narratives describe the Path of Souls as a path on a simple reflection of our world, while others describe it as a river of light. There is disagreement on the number and nature of the encounters and the beings along the Path, there is widespread agreement on two features: a bridge and a dog. Because ghosts cannot cross water, the free-soul will arrive at a stream that must be crossed over by a special log bridge (some say it is really a serpent) which must be made to fall across the chasm. Among Algonquian groups, as well as some Siouans, there is a ferocious dog which must be dealt with before advancing either before or after the bridge.

For the Southeastern Mississippians, the main antagonist was the Great Eagle rather than the dog (Creek: Talaki-Thlacco, Alabama: Talaktochoba, lit. 'Great Eagle'). Dead bodies were equipped with weapons like bow-and-arrows, burnt wood, and knives to fight this Great Eagle. The Great Eagle can be identified in the night sky as the equivalent to the Greek constellation Cygnus.

Other beings sometimes encountered include an old man dressed in a Buffalo robe who judged the soul, allowing a shortcut to the Realm of the Dead for those who have been good, or lesser serpents.

The Scorpio constellation, which is known as the Great Serpent among Mississippians

At the end of the Path of Souls sits the Great Serpent, who has a red jewel on its forehead. The Great Serpent is one of many underwater/Beneath World creatures, including the Uktenas, the lesser Horned Serpents, and Underwater Panthers. The serpent reigned as Lord of the Realm of the Dead. The Yuchi believe in reincarnation, and that the journey from the Realm of the Dead to the world of the living took four days.

Cosmology

The Mississippian cosmos consisted of three worlds: in addition to This World, an Above World existed above the sky vault, an inverted bowl of solid rock which rose and fell each day, at dawn and at dusk, so that the sun and moon could pass beneath it, and a Beneath World existed below the earth and the waters. This World was visualized as cross in a circe. In Osage cosmology, the Above World was connected to the Below World by a red oak tree. In the Above World, things existed in an orderly manner, grander and purer form than in this world, while the Below World was conceived of as a realm of disorder and change. This World stood somewhere between perfect order and complete chaos.

Deities

Turtleman:

Ytonanslalaq (demon of banked fires)

Ochuna Nicoguadca (the lightning bolt demon)

Red Horn (he-who-wears-human-heads-as-earrings)

The Datura Ritual Complex (c. 1300 – c. 1450)

During the 1300s, a new type of religious ceremony from the west was gripping the Mississippian world, The Datura Ritual Complex. Datura is a flowering plant sacred to many American groups containing psychoactive alkaloids that, when consumed, can induce hallucinations. It has long been argued that ceramic vessels with exterior surfaces that are covered with small nodes are Datura seed pod effigies, and represented a strand of native ritual associated with the Datura plant, the moth that pollinates the Datura, Datura flower motifs, the night sky associated with Datura and the Beneath World associated with the night sky.

The distribution of Datura ritual usage in the contiguous USA stretches from the Chumash in southern California to the Algonquians on the East Coast. Beginning in the Southwest of the United States as early as 850 among the Hohokam, it quickly spread throughout the Southwest, persisting into the 1300s among the Hohokam and Mogollon, and centuries longer among the Ancestral Puebloans. Through the Caddoans in the 1200s-1300s, comprising parts of eastern Texas, southeastern Arkansas, and northeastern Louisiana, it spread into the Mississippi Valley and then to Moundville around the same time.

The principal deity associated with the Datura Ritual Complex has been nicknamed "Mothra" by academics, after the namesake Japanese kaiju. Possibly known as "sho̱shi" by the Moundvillians (Choctaw for moth), it's likely that Mothra was an underworld deity, adopted by the Mississippians to be a reincarnation of the deity Evening Star and a reincarnation of Birdman. Evening Star is associated with the night and the beneath world, making the Mississippian interpretation of Mothra, based around the night time and beneath world Datura drug, as a reincarnation of Evening Star a natural adoption. This was not to say Mothra was sidelined in any way, and in fact Mothra was first identified at Moundville itself.

Mothra/the Datura Ritual Complex is featured most famously on the Wiloughby Disc at Moundville, likely symbolizing the Datura needed to conduct a ritual to contact the dead. The two skulls in the middle was meant to symbolize a sacred bundle also involved in the ritual, while the Bilobed Arrow and Eye-in-Hand motif on the bottom symbolized the Soul and the Path of Souls respectively.

TO DO LIST:

A number of cultural traits are recognized as being characteristic of the Mississippians. Although not all Mississippian peoples practiced all of the following activities, they were distinct from their ancestors in the adoption of some or all of these traits.

1. The construction of large, truncated earthwork pyramid mounds, or platform mounds. Such mounds were usually square, rectangular, or occasionally circular. Structures (domestic houses, temples, burial buildings, or other) were usually constructed atop such mounds.
2. Maize-based agriculture.
3. Shell-tempered pottery. The adoption and use of riverine (or more rarely marine) shells as tempering agents in ceramics.
4. Widespread trade networks extending as far west as the Rocky Mountains, north to the Great Lakes, south to the Gulf of Mexico, and east to the Atlantic Ocean.
5. The development of the chiefdom or complex chiefdom level of social complexity.
6. The development of institutionalized social inequality.
7. A centralization of control of combined political and religious power in the hands of few or one.
8. 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.
9. The adoption of the paraphernalia of the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex (SECC), also called the Southern Cult. SECC items are found in Mississippian-culture sites from Wisconsin (see Aztalan State Park) to the Gulf Coast, and from Florida to Arkansas and Oklahoma. The SECC was frequently tied into ritual game-playing, as with chunkey.

The Mississippians had no writing system or stone architecture. They worked naturally occurring metal deposits, such as hammering and annealing copper for ritual objects including Mississippian copper plates and other decorations, but did not smelt iron or practice bronze metallurgy.