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<< back to The Archaeology of Missouri
Missouri's Mississippian Legacy
by
Judith Deel
from Preservation
Issues 6(4):1, 4
[July/August 1996]
The Mississippian culture flourished along the Mississippi River and its tributaries from approximately A.D. 800 to A.D. 1700, overlapping the protohistoric period of the beginnings of European explorations and settlement. The culture was distinguished by a chiefdom level of social organization and a ranked society with a complex religion; a range of settlements from large walled towns and centers with civic-ceremonial mounds, to hamlets, farmsteads and small, special-purpose camps; far-flung trade and exchange networks; and a subsistence base that relied largely on agriculture.
The earliest evidence of Mississippian Culture, as it is called by archaeologists, dates from roughly A.D. 800 to A.D. 1000. During this phase, referred to as the Emergent Mississippian period, evidence appears of long-range trade in exotic goods passed from culture to culture in a widespread economic network. Village sites associated with saline springs suggest that salt had become an important exchange commodity, possibly due to changes in subsistence and diet. Indications are that agriculture was becoming an increasingly important aspect of life, with maize becoming common for the first time, and with tools being produced for intensive cultivation. Ceramics exhibited a change in manufacturing techniques, which may have resulted from contact with other cultures.
The Mississippian period, dating from A.D. 1000 to A.D. 1700, is differentiated largely by ceramics and architectural differences. Changes in lifestyle continued as society became more highly complex. The smallest units--isolated farmsteads and small hamlets--were generally located near river bottoms, convenient to the agricultural fields where crops were tended. Several new varieties of maize were raised as well as squash. Plants that had been staples of the earlier horiculturalists continued to be raised and included knotweed, sunflower, goosefoot, and maygrass. Although intensively agricultural, the people continued to harvest wild seeds, fruits, and nuts to supplement their diet. Streams and rivers yielded fish and shellfish; and hunting with the newly introduced bow and arrow added to the food supply.
Other evidence of an expanding economy and well-maintained communications networks includes the ever increasing number of exotic goods at even the small farmsteads. Home crafts may have been a common economic supplement to farming, as is indicated by evidence of specialized, highly skilled craftsmen producing goods specifically for trade at even the small and remote sites. Excavations have uncovered sites where a house might yield quantities of mica, shell, or other exotic materials that were crafted into trade goods or ceremonial or decorative objects by local artists.
A lively economic network demanded a setting for exchange to take place. Market centers developed at key locations near the source of valuable commodities and along major travel routes. The present St. Louis metropolitan area was one such center. The site of Cahokia, across the Mississippi River in Illinois, was at its peak the dominant political, economic, and religious center. Monks Mound at Cahokia is the largest earthen mound in the United States. The city of St. Louis and the St. Charles area were also the location of satellite communities that included groups mounds. Unfortunately, all of these mounds have been destroyed by the expanding modern city except for a remnant of Sugar Loaf Mound in South St. Louis.
These prehistoric urban centers, and especially Cahokia, reached the height of their influence from around A.D. 1050 to A.D. 1150. The trade network had reached its greatest extent; the stratification of society was reflected in the smaller satellite communities. It is during this time period as well that evidence indicates a growing social instability. A stockade wall was constructed around the inner portion of Cahokia; perhaps to distance the elite leadership from the general population? The placement of bastions at regular intervals along the wall may also indicate an increasing fear of raids, possibly by competing urban centers to the south or due to increasing tension between the large centers as they became more independent.
Society was apparently no longer monolithic. The growing numbers of high status religious and civic leaders may have led to internal instability as each attempted to establish a power base. Further destabilization may have been caused by intense competition from the urban centers to the south for dominance of the trade networks.
Environmental degradation due to overpopulation may have further weakened the economy. The intensive agriculture necessary to support the estimated 40,000 people living at Cahokia, as well as the thousands in smaller towns, may have escalated erosion and the depletion of nutrients in the soil. The erosion in turn would have increased sedimentation in the riverine environments, resulting in a decrease of the fish and shellfish which were an important component on the Mississippian diet. Although the causes are at best only speculative, the large Mississippian centers were diminishing in population and influence by A.D. 1300 to A.D. 1400. The trade networks were greatly reduced or abandoned entirely. The urban populations shifted to decentralized small villages and hamlets that continued to rely largely upon agriculture. Others returned to a simpler, more mobile lifestyle of hunting and gathering. By the time Europeans arrived, the great centers were abandoned, leaving a legacy of earthen mounds.
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