The Mississippian culture was a Native American civilization that flourished in what is now the Midwestern, Eastern, and Southeastern United States from approximately 800 CE to 1600 CE, varying regionally. It was known for building large, earthen platform mounds, and often other shaped mounds as well.
What was Mississippian culture based on?
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.
What are some important facts about the Mississippians?
HISTORY. People have lived on the land now called Mississippi for at least 12,000 years. Native Americans have lived on the land for thousands of years. Tribes in Mississippi have included the Biloxi, Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Natchez lived on the land.
How old is the Mississippian culture?
The Mississippian Period began about 1,000 years ago. It’s called “Mississippian” because it began in the middle Mississippi River valley, between St. Louis and Vicksburg. This culture spread over most of the Southeast.
How was Mississippian culture organized?
Mississippian people were organized as chiefdoms or ranked societies. Chiefdoms were a specific kind of human social organization with social ranking as a fundamental part of their structure. In ranked societies people belonged to one of two groupings, elites or commoners.
What did the Mississippians believe in?
Mississippian people shared similar beliefs in cosmic harmony, divine aid and power, the ongoing cycle of life and death, and spiritual powers with neighboring cultures throughout much of eastern North America.
What gods did the Mississippians worship?
Most of the Mississippians were polytheistic meaning believing in more than one god. An important aspect of their religion was the belief in life after death.
What is unique to Mississippi?
Mississippi is home to the world’s only cactus plantation. Woodland Mountain, at 806 feet, is the state’s highest point. Mississippi’s lowest point lies along the Gulf of Mexico’s shore. The state has around 825 cotton fields that produce around 1.4 million bales each year.
Why did the Mississippian culture disappear?
Then, Climate Change Destroyed It : The Salt The Mississippian American Indian culture rose to power after A.D. 900 by farming corn. Now, new evidence suggests a dramatic change in climate might have led to the culture’s collapse in the 1300s.
What did Mississippian Indians eat?
These included deer, elk, bison, fish, small mammals, and many wild plants such as fruits, berries, and nuts. A big change for Mississippian people was beginning to farm crops of corn. The introduction of farming provided a more stable food source than just hunting and gathering.
What is the meaning of Mississippian?
Definition of Mississippian
1 : of or relating to Mississippi, its people, or the Mississippi River. 2 : of, relating to, or being the period of the Paleozoic era in North America following the Devonian and preceding the Pennsylvanian or the corresponding system of rocks — see Geologic Time Table.
What did the Mississippians call themselves?
The Mississippian Period lasted from approximately 800 to 1540 CE. It’s called “Mississippian” because it began in the middle Mississippi River valley, between St. Louis and Vicksburg. However, there were other Mississippians as the culture spread across modern-day US.
What weapons did the Mississippians use?
Mississippian and Oneota projectile pointsMississippian people continued to use the bow and arrow and made small triangular arrowheads. They also used the same kinds of other stone tools that earlier people have used-knives, scrapers, modified flakes, hammerstones, and so forth.
What technology did the Mississippians use?
The bow-and-arrow technology had been developed toward the end of the Woodland period. Mississippian ceramics (jars, bowls, bottles, and plates) were both visually appealing as well as technologically sophisticated and durable. The shell tempering and thin vessel walls became hallmarks of Mississippian ceramics.
Why is it called the Mississippian Period?
The Mississippian is so named because rocks with this age are exposed in the Mississippi Valley.
What is the culture in Mississippi?
Mississippi is a genuine state of contrasts. It has a huge African American population, but remains one of the country’s most racially divided places. It was once the home of King Cotton in the 1850s, but today is one of America’s poorest and most uneducated states.
Did the Mississippians have gods?
Most Mississippian societies worshiped a sun god and maintained a fertility cult. Many of the paramount chiefs, such as those of the Natchez, often claimed to be descendants of the sun. The people of the chiefdom therefore treated the chief and his family as divine beings.
What major events happened in the Mississippian Period?
Although the Devonian ended with a series of glaciations and extinction events, the early Mississippian saw the Earth in a greenhouse climate state with warm temperatures over much of the globe. Gondwana continued its northward drift and collision with Euramerica, building the Appalachian Mountains.
What animals lived in the Mississippian Period?
Common Mississippian fossils found in Kentucky include corals (Cnidaria), bryozoans, brachiopods, trilobites, snails (gastropods), clams (pelecypods), squid-like animals (cephalopods), crinoids and blastoids (echinoderms), fish teeth (Pisces), and microscopic animals like ostracodes and conodonts.
What era is Mississippian?
Introduction. Geologists in North America use the terms “Mississippian” and “Pennsylvanian” to describe the time period between 358.9 and 298.9 million years ago.
What was the name of the largest city in the Mississippian empire?
Cahokia was the largest and most influential urban settlement of the Mississippian culture, which developed advanced societies across much of what is now the Central and the Southeastern United States, beginning more than 1,000 years before European contact.