Mississippian culture

Last major prehistoric cultural development in North America, с AD 800–1550.

It spread over much of the southeast and the mid-continent, especially in the major river valleys. It was based on intensive cultivation of corn, beans, squash, and other crops. Each large town dominated a group of satellite villages. Each had a central ceremonial plaza with one or more pyramidal or oval earthen mounds surmounted by a temple, a pattern indicating a connection to Central America. The immense Cahokia Mounds near present-day Collinsville, Ill., U.S., was the culture's largest urban centre. Craftwork was executed in copper, shell, stone, wood, and clay. The culture had already begun to decline by the time Europeans first penetrated the southeast. See also Southeastern Indian; Woodland culture.

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▪ ancient North American culture

      the last major prehistoric cultural development in North America, lasting from about AD 700 to the time of the arrival of the first European explorers. It spread over a great area of the Southeast and the mid-continent, in the river valleys of what are now the states of Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Arkansas, Missouri, Kentucky, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio, with scattered extensions northward into Wisconsin and Minnesota and westward into the Great Plains. The culture was based on intensive cultivation of corn (maize), beans, squash, and other crops, which resulted in large concentrations of population in towns along riverine bottomlands. Politically and culturally each large town or village dominated a satellite of lesser villages; government was in the hands of priest (priesthood)-rulers. Thus the complexes might be called theocratic village-states. Moreover, warfare, which was apparently frequent, produced larger alliances and even confederacies.

      A central ceremonial plaza provided the nucleus of a Mississippian town, and each settlement had one or more pyramidal or oval earth mounds, surmounted by a temple or chief's residence, grouped around the plaza. This settlement pattern was typical of most of Middle America (central and southern Mexico and Guatemala) since as early as 850 BC, but it had not diffused into North America until the advent of the Mississippian culture. The scale of public works (public utility) in the Mississippian culture can be estimated from the largest of the earthworks, Monks Mound, in the Cahokia Mounds near Collinsville, Ill., which is approximately 1,000 feet (300 m) long, 700 feet (200 m) wide, and 100 feet (30 m) high. The magnitude of such public works and the distribution of temples suggest a dominant religious cult and a cadre of priest-rulers who could command the services of a large, stable, and docile population, as well as several artist-craftsman guilds.

      Craftwork was executed in copper, shell, stone, wood, and clay and in such forms as elaborate headdresses, ritual weapons, sculptured tobacco pipes, effigy pottery, effigies, and masks of wood or copper-jacketed wood. The elaborate designs included feathered serpents, winged warriors, swastikas, spiders, human faces with weeping or falcon eyes, as well as human figures and many geometric motifs. These elements were delicately engraved, embossed, carved, and molded.

      The Mississippian culture had begun to decline by the time European explorers first penetrated the Southeast and described the customs of the people living there. The Natchez are the best-known of the Mississippian cultures to have survived French and Spanish colonization; they numbered about 500 members in the early 21st century.

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