Anth 3511 Professor Gibbon

The Mississippian Climax

Introduction. 6000 years of gradual evolution in the Eastern Woodlands climaxed in the Mississippian tradition (c.AD 800-1500). A. The Mississippian is defined by:

(1) Maize-beans-squash agriculture supplemented by local wild foods. (2) An adaptation to linear, environmentally circumscribed floodplain habitat zones (agricultural fields were located in the floodplains). (3) A ranked form of social organization (i.e., a chiefdom) that varied widely in complexity from one locality to another, from huge centers like Cahokia in the American Bottom and Moundville in Alabama to fairly small communities.

(a) Cahokia (AD 900-1250): in Illinois across from St. Louis. More than 100 earthen mounds, including Monk's Mound (100' high, covers 16 acres). A high status burial in Mound 72 contained large amounts of expensive grave goods, high status retainer burials, and c. 50 women 18-23 years in age.

(4) A distinctive ceramic complex characterized by shell-tempered pottery in most areas.

(5) Large sites with platform mounds around plazas. Rectangular walltrench houses.

The Weeden Island Culture (AD 200-1000) A. A Late Woodland culture in the Southeast that exhibits many transitional traits between the Woodland and Mississippian traditions. B. It also displays many of the processes that may have produced the Mississippian tradition. Among these are:

(1) Sharp population increases beginning in the Late Archaic and Early Woodland (are these all increases or examples of aggregation?). (2) Development of more complex settlements and more elaborate forms of social organization as adaptations to higher population densities - which we see already in the Middle Woodland (e.g., Hopewell). (3) Sharper distinctions between the sacred and the secular, with widespread uniformity in ceremonial paraphernalia, mound construction, and settlement hierarchies balanced by numerous local variations in secular life.

(a) By AD 200, lineages and other forms of social status were well established in the Southeast. Weeden Island social organization was somewhere in between Archaic band-tribal societies and Mississippian chiefdoms.

(b) A chiefdom or two could have been present in the Southeast at this time or earlier as well (e.g., Poverty Point culture). (4) Examples of famous sites are Kolomoki in Georgia and McKeithen in northern Florida. Contemporary centers have platform mounds, some of which are positioned for astronomical observations (as in later Mississippian centers), with temples, charnel houses, and ritual spaces on top of the platforms. Burials in the mounds probably included retainers and slaves.

(5) Large centers were most likely the residence of a 'Big Man,' who was the head of the most important lineage and who was later buried in the mounds to affirm the sacredness of the center and the status of his lineage.'Big Men' conducted inter-lineage (inter-community) relations (e.g., resources, alliances, conflict) and organized work efforts within the social unit.

(6) Between AD 700-1000, villages like McKeithen and their religious specialists assumed ever-greater importance as maize agriculture and harvest rituals became more central features of Southeastern life.

Mississippian life emerged between AD 800-1000 over wide areas of the Southeast and in many major river valleys in the southern Midwest. A. This emergence is characterized by:

(1) More intensive maize agriculture, with improved strains of maize (primarily eight-rowed, hardy Maiz de Ocho). Beans after AD 1200.

Meat came primarily from deer and turkey.

(2) Rectangular houses built with wall trench foundations. Sedentary life

ways.

(3) Shell-tempered pottery - thought to be an important innovation, for it allowed the manufacture of more durable and larger vessels. (4) EMorescence of sacred ceremonial complexes over much of the Southeast and the lower Midwest.

(5) This emergence may have been a result of stress related to population aggregation into larger settlements (a social rather than an external, environmental explanation).

(6) Although the household was the primary production unit, 'surplus' food was stockpiled and redistributed by the chief (redistribution now rather than reciprocity). Among other things, redistribution was a way of mitigating risks for households and villages.

(7) A low degree of specialized production, with chert and salt two suggested examples.

(8) A two-tiered settlement pattern with major and minor centers and residential sites. (early states have three-tiered patterns) (9) An absence offull-time traders.

B. Famous Mississippian sites include Cahokia, Moundville, Etowah in Georgia, and Spiro in Oklahoma.

C. By their nature, chiefdoms are fragile institutions that depend heavily on kin ties and notions of reciprocity to fUnction properly. There must have been frequent changes in leadership, unrest, etc., fUeled by power struggles and the inequality of access to goods.

Mississippians and Mesoamericans A. Mississippian architecture, cosmology, art, and religious symbolism have a Mesoamerican cast to them. Were they derived from Mexico like maize and beans?

B. General opinion today is that they were indigenous Eastern Woodlands developments that grew out of some shared trans-America ideologies (etc.) that have roots in the Archaic and probably the Paleo-Indian. C. An example is the 'Southern Cult." While its axes with head and shaft carved from a single piece of stone, copper pendants adorned with circles or weeping eyes, shell disks or gorgets showing woodpeckers, rattlesnakes, elaborately decorated clay pots and effigy vessels, copper plates, and engraved shell cups adorned with male figures in ceremonial dress resemble Mexican counterparts, precursors can be found in the eastern Woodlands.

Natchez, Coosa, and the 16fh Century A. At historic contact in the 16" century, numerous chiefdoms existed in the Mid-South and Southeast. Some, such as Moundville and Etowah, are still known for the well-excavated sites that were their center. Some of these chiefdoms, such as that of the Natchez on the Lower Mississippi and Coosa in Georgia, were described by the Spanish. These historic descriptions provide good (if at times problematic) descriptions of what life was like in a Mississippian cultural system.