Mississippian Culture
Mounds of the Pre-contact Period
The tribes of the Hopewell Tradition increased their sphere of influence through a sophisticated web of trade contacts. By 250 A.D., the Hopewell had forged a trade empire that was larger than any that had come before. By 700 A.D., however, they had vanished. Many of the constituent tribes that had made up the Hopewell Tradition survived and evolved into culturally diverse states of their own, but the unifying tradition that had forged their empire was gone. A variety of causative factors may have contributed to the disappearance of the Hopewell Tradition. War with rival entities, perhaps an alliance of powerful western tribes, may have disrupted trade routes. Internal conflict could have contributed to the breakup of their organization. Mass epidemic and periods of intense drought could have plagued the member tribes and hastened the collapse of the cooperation that forged their empire. Any combination of these factors could have contributed to the end of the Hopewell Tradition. Mound culture, however, did not come to an end and would flourish anew with the Mississippian tribes.
Origins of Mississippian Culture
Growing along the banks of the fertile Mississippi River, the tribes that constitute the Mississippian culture would eventually dominate an area as far south as Florida and as far north as Wisconsin. An agricultural people, they cultivated corn and tobacco and had established a sedentary existence that was already rooted along the Mississippi River when the Hopewell vanished. As the Hopewell influence waned, the Mississippian culture began to emerge as a dominant society. Although there is no evidence of a centralized federation before 700 A.D., the individual tribes that made up the Mississippian culture worked together in a trade system that allowed them to prosper.
The City of Cahokia
Sometime between 650 to 700 A.D., the city of Cahokia was first settled. There is some debate as to whether this site was an independent city-state or perhaps served as a central hub for the greater Mississippian culture itself. Most likely, the original settlement grew from a small village into a larger, more structured city throughout the developmental stage of Mississippian culture. The tribes of the Mississippian culture were organized as highly structured chiefdoms, each one with its own ruler. If Cahokia grew into a focal point for the Mississippian culture, this would represent the evolution of mound cultural from a tribal to a city-building society. While there is no evidence that supports Cahokia as a capital city of the Mississippian culture, its sheer size and wealth does support that claim that it was a focal point for their culture.
Mounds at Cahokia
Covering 4000 acres at the confluence of the Mississippi and Illinois Rivers, Cahokia contains 85 burial and ceremonial mounds and may have housed up to 30,000 people. After 1050 A.D., the population exploded to record heights and necessitated the city’s expansion into five additional subdivisions. By 1100 A.D, Cahokia was the largest and most advanced indigenous city in North America. The mounds discovered there represent a departure from previous designs. Burial mounds were domed and followed the same design as previous mounds cultures, but ceremonial mounds were designed to look like platforms. Burial mounds housed the tombs of important religious and political figures. As with previous mounds cultures, the tombs were constructed of logs and filled with pottery, stone effigies, knives, and armor before being covered with earth. The ceremonial mounds were constructed with steeply sloping sides and flat tops, upon which temples and large houses were constructed. As the Mississippian peoples were a highly structured society, the size of the mounds represented the societal importance of the individual. Large temples were centers of religious worship. Excavation of burial mounds and surrounding sites shows that almost every member of Mississippian culture was interned, yet only the powerful were entombed.
Fate of the Mississippian Culture
As they expanded, the individual groups that made up the greater Mississippian culture began to drift away from the root culture. Sometime after 1200, Cahokia was abandoned and subsequent Mississippian sites began to break up into their own regional units. Gradually, the tribes that constituted the Mississippian culture evolved their own distinct identities. Mound building continued until the late 1400s, but by the time the Europeans arrived in North America, the tribes of the Mississippian culture had gone their separate ways. The Alabama, Cherokee, Chickasaw, Creek, Miami, Natchez, Seminole, and Shawnee are just a few of the tribes that can trace their ancestry back to the Mississippian culture.
Sources:
Le Roy H Appleton, American Indian Design and Decoration. (New York: Dover Publication, Inc., 1971).
Marck C Carnes, Ed. U.S. History. (New York: MacMillan Library Reference, 1998).
David M. Jones and Brian L. Molyneaux. Mythology of the Native American Nations. (London: Hermes Press, 2006).
Carl Waldman, Atlas of the North American Indian. (New York: Checkmark Books, 2000).
Carl Waldman, Encyclopedia of Native Tribes. (New York: Checkmark Books, 2006).
Artist rendering of Mississipian settlement
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