Mississippian Tradition

Late Woodland Stage chiefdom-based farming cultures living in the southeastern parts of North America in the period c. ad 700–1500. The origins of the tradition are a matter of some debate, there being evidence of continuity from the Hopewellian Culture as well as some evidence for the diffusion or adoption of cultural traits from Mexico and Mesoamerica.

The standard plan of Mississippian settlements comprises platform mounds supporting temples and residences for the elite arranged around an open plaza and surrounded by numerous dwellings. Most settlements were situated on the floodplains of major rivers, but there were also some shifting farmsteads in adjacent uplands. Mississippian communities used shell-tempered pottery, including painted and effigy bowls, and a bow with arrows tipped by triangular chipped stone points. Maize and squash were cultivated in river valleys, and after ad 1200 beans were grown too. Hunting and fishing were also sources of food, as was the harvesting of wild food such as nuts.

Their religious system appears to have been devoted to maintaining the fertility of the land, centring on a god with solar attributes and associated with fire. Ceremonies at the mound-top temples were connected with the supernatural, expressions of ancestral obligation, success in food production, and burial rites for social leaders. Society was stratified and local chiefs appear to have been rulers of autonomous groups. Thus the Mississippian embraces a wide range of essentially localized groups: the Middle Mississippian, Fort Ancient, South Appalachian Mississippian, Plaquemine Mississippian, Caddoan Mississippian, and the Oneota. In the later phases, increasing competition for land seems to have provoked an increasing warfare, the fortification of settlements, and the practice of beheading and scalping.