Mississippian

Mississippian culture represents the apex of indigenous culture in the lower Midwest and Southeast of what is today the United States from 900 to 1600, and after flourishing for approximately 700 years, it finally collapsed in the face of contact with Europeans and the epidemic diseases they introduced.

The Mississippian era lasted from A. D. 900 to 1600. Characteristics of this cultural period include the expanded use of platform mounds, population nucleation, the development of chiefdoms, the increased importance of maize (see corn) horticulture in subsistence systems, an extensive trade in prestige goods, and a ceremonial complex with a shared iconography.

From 900 to 1200 Mississippian culture spread throughout the lower Midwest and Southeast of what is now the United States. During this early Mississippian period Native societies began to reorganize from an egalitarian society to a ranked society known as a chiefdom, with residents gathering in palisaded towns. Several types of chiefdoms existed: simple, complex, and paramount. A simple chiefdom developed when an elite group exercised influence over several villages from a ceremonial center implementing a single decision-making level. A complex chiefdom had two decision-making levels in which one chiefdom controlled two or more simple chiefdoms. A paramount chiefdom maintained influence over several complex chiefdoms indirectly and several simple chief-doms directly. However, chiefdom levels were inherently unstable, and the constant rise and fall of chiefdoms over a given area created long-term political instability. For most of the early Mississippian era, chiefdoms rarely moved to the complex level.

Throughout this era dependence on maize horticulture spread, and two basic types of subsistence systems developed, riverine and coastal. Those Mississippians living in river valleys depended upon beans, gourds, maize, marsh elder, squash, sunflower, and tobacco, with maize being the most important crop. They supplemented their horticultural production by gathering local wild plants, collecting aquatic resources, and organizing hunting parties to pursue game, primarily deer, in the late fall and winter. These societies tended to be sedentary. Mississippians who participated in the coastal subsistence systems tended to depend less on growing crops and more on gathering wild plants, aquatic resources, and hunting. As a result, for part of the year these peoples had to be more mobile than sedentary.

The middle Mississippian period, from 1200 to 1400, saw the development of more complex and paramount chiefdoms and the spread of an iconograph-laden religious complex know as the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex. This led to an increase in population nucleation, the size of ceremonial centers, and the number of platform mounds built within these towns. Platform mounds demonstrated and reinforced the position of chiefly elites as the leaders of their communities and religious ceremonies. In general, control of the trade in religious and prestige items expanded and perpetuated the authority of these chiefly/ priestly elites. Toward the end of this era, leadership in warfare started to replace control of religious life as a means to legitimize political authority.

Localized population dislocation and warfare marked the late Mississippian period, from 1400 to 1600. Chiefdoms continually rose and fell whenever war disrupted the ability of chiefly elites to provide protection for their people and challenged elites’ claims to ceremonial legitimacy. During this period of turmoil, Europeans first appeared in the Southeast and added to native problems. In some areas Europeans threw off the balance of power through slave raiding (see slavery) and warfare. They also introduced epidemic diseases that caused demographic collapse in some areas, which led to political reorganization by the survivors. Thus, the arrival of Europeans ultimately caused or hastened the end of the Mississippian era.

Further reading: J. Daniel Rogers and Bruce D. Smith, Mississippian Communities and Households (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1995); John F. Scarry, ed., Political Structure and Change in the Prehistoric Southeastern United States (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1996); Bruce D. Smith, Mississippian Settlement

Patterns (New York: Academic Press, 1978);--, ed.,

Mississippian Emergence (Washington, D. C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1990).

—Dixie Ray Haggard