THE SOUTHEASTERN WOODLANDS: MISSISSIPPIAN—
LATE PREHISTORIC CULTURAL DEVELOPMENTS
(MODULE 13C)
Read: Fagan (2000:450-468)
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A. The archaeologist Jon Muller (1978) prefers to use the term "Late Prehistoric" to cover this period of cultural development
because it is less of a geography-laden term and reflects a variety of locations of sites.
B. Still, we are basically going to be discussing those cultures that appeared to have been autochthonous developments
out of earlier local Late Sedentary societies—in other words, Mississippian Cultures.
C. Major changes characterizing the Late Prehistoric cultures of the Southeast include:
1. An increasing dependence upon agriculture for livelihood
2. The development of highly organized and ranked societies (something that apparently was largely
contemporaneous throughout the Southeast)
3. Increasing emphasis upon warfare with Late Prehistoric sites often well fortified
4. Increasing population growth
5. Increase in the widespread exchange of goods
6. Characteristic artifacts and iconography
7. Widespread occurrence of the "Southern Cult" or the "Southeastern Ceremonial Complex" (sometimes also
called the "Southern Death Cult" reflecting a preoccupation with death imagery)
8. Truncated earthen temple-mound construction surmounted by temple/elite residential structures
D. Late Prehistoric Regional Subdivisions:
1. Muller prefers "Late Prehistoric" to Mississippian because of what he (and many others) considers sufficient degrees
of geographically distant regional distinctiveness.
2. Thus, he sees "Mississippian" as too geographically determinant.
3. It appears that we can better speak of a variety of regional expressions of cultural complexity (that once would have
been called "Mississippian" even though many were considerably distant from that river).
4. These have come to be considered the Mississippian (or Late Prehistoric) cultural complexes (i.e., 10 "cultures"):
a. Oneota Complex:
(1) Upper Mississippi drainage
(2) Major sites:
(a) Bryan Site (by Red Wing, Minnesota)
b. Fort Ancient Complex:
(1) Southwest Ohio
(2) Southeast Indiana
(3) Northern Kentucky
(4) i.e., the old "Hopewell homeland"
c. Caddoan Complex:
(1) Arkansas River Drainage
(2) Westernmost "Mississippian" culture
(3) Major sites:
(a) Most famous site was Spiro in Oklahoma
d. Central Mississippi Complex:
(1) Mississippi River and Illinois River drainages
(2) The Mississippi Bottoms
(3) Major sites:
(a) Most significant site Cahokia
(b) Possibly the location of the Ramey State centered at Cahokia
(c) Other sites:
i) Pulcher Site
ii) Mitchell Site
e. Kinkaid Complex:
(1) Ohio River mouth west to where the Ohio enters the Mississippi
(2) Southern Indiana and Illinois
(3) Major sites:
(a) Kinkaid
(b) Angel
f. Dalles Complex:
(1) Tennessee and Cumberland River drainages:
(2) Major sites:
(a) Etowah
(b) Hiwassee
g. Moundville Complex:
(1) Alabama and Mississippi area
(2) Major site:
(a) Moundville
h. Plaquemine Complex:
(1) Lower Mississippi River
(2) Major sites:
(a) Coles Creek
(b) Lake George
(3) Ethnohistoric Natchez
i. South Appalachian Complex:
(1) South Georgia and Northeast Florida
(2) Seat of the Sedentary Period Santa Rosa/Swift Creek and subsequent Weeden Island cultures
j. Fort Walton Complex:
(1) Northwest Florida
(2) Major site:
(a) Fort Walton culture
E. Late Prehistoric Subsistence:
1. Subsistence was based on agricultural crops:
a. Maize
b. Beans (Phaseolus vulgaris)
c. Squash
d. Sunflower
e. Marsh elder
f. Gourds
2. Secondary wild food sources:
a. Chenopods
b. Nuts
(1) Hickory
(2) Walnut
(3) Acorn
c. Fruits
d. Fish
e. Waterfowl
f. Mammals
(1) Deer
(2) Racoon
(3) Turkey
F. Late Prehistoric Settlement:
1. Found mostly riverine
a. Settlement location most probably reflected considerations for:
(1) Local subsistence resources
(2) Alluvial soils
(3) Transportation and communication
2. Upland settlement exists, but most probably reflects seasonal hunting activities.
3. Varieties of settlement types suggested to reflect
a. Specialized activities
b. Responses for functioning for the broader society.
(1) Residential
(2) Procurement
(3) Administrative
c. Sites arranged hierarchically
(1) Types of sites:
(a) Large centralized sites
i) High-ranked administrators
ii) Bureaucrats and priest
iii) Collection and redistribution of food and materials
iv) Supervision of ceremonial and ritual celebrations of the social system
(b) Small centers
i) Low-rank administrators
(c) Farmsteads
i) Basic unit most likely a small family group of some type
d. Settlement organization:
(1) Sites of more than one mound appear organized as follows:
(a) Central plaza
(b) Large central mound (presumably elevated toward the sun [i.e., the solar deity])
(c) Council house on the opposite side
(d) Smaller mounds graded away from these
(2) Village area surrounded central precinct
(3) Cornfields surrounded village
G. Late Prehistoric house form:
1. Wall construction:
a. Vertical poles set in trenches covered over with
b. Mud plaster (i.e., wattle-and-daub construction)
c. Plaster-covered mats
2. Roof was thatched
3. Floor plan generally square
4. Hearth in the center of the floor
5. General structural template applied for:
a. Farmers' houses
b. Mortuary temples for the bodies of the local aristocracy
c. Palaces of the living chieftains
H. Late Prehistoric Sociopolitical Systems:
1. Hierarchical system implied, ranging from:
a. Local
b. Chiefdoms
c. Possibly the complex state (in some instances, at least in emergent form):
(1) Ramie State, with the capital having been Cahokia
(2) Possibly others at Moundville, etc.
2. Social stratification was documented clearly by the early French explorers for the ethnohistoric Natchez
a. Rulership vested in the "Sun"
b. "Stinkards" represented the bottom social stratum
I. Late Prehistoric Burial Systems:
1. Pottery and other artifacts buried with the deceased
2. Some vessels ceremonially "killed"
3. Decorative motifs associated with mortuary furniture:
a. Hand
b. Eye
c. Bones
d. Skulls
4. Bodies appear to have been placed upon, or wrapped in, mats and/or skins
5. Burial practices varied:
a. Mortuary charnel houses
b. Stretched and flexed burials have been found
c. Disarticulated (i.e., secondary) burials
d. Cremated remains often placed in urns
6. Still, in virtually all cases, mortuary offerings carrying symbolism associated with the "Southeastern Ceremonial
Complex" or the "Southern Cult" were placed with the dead.
J. Southeastern Ceremonial Complex—defined:
1. The aesthetics, iconography, and variety of media employed make the prehistoric Mississippian Southeast
one of the richest archaeological areas in North America.
2. The three main sites producing such art were:
a. Etowah (Georgia)
b. Moundville (Alabama)
c. Spiro (Oklahoma)
3. Much of Mississippian art reflects themes of the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex in terms of:
a. Motifs
b. God-animal representations
c. Ceremonial objects
d. Costume details
4. Southeastern Ceremonial Complex Motifs:
a. Cross
(1) "Greek" cross
(2) Swastika
b. Sun circles
(1) Rayed
(2) Scalloped
c. Bi-lobed arrow
d. Forked eye
e. Open eye
f. Barred oval
g. Hand-and-eye
h. Death motifs:
(1) Skull
(2) Femur
(3) Fleshed radius and ulna
(4) Skeletal hand
5. Southeastern Ceremonial Complex God-Animal Representations:
a. Birds:
(1) Eagles (both naturalistic and anthropomorphized)
(2) Woodpeckers
(a) Pileated
(b) Ivory-billed
(3) Hawk
(4) Falcon
(5) Turkey (always naturalistic)
b. Rattlesnake:
(1) Horned
(2) Plumed
(3) Winged
(4) Anthropomorphized
c. Cat (always naturalistic)
d. Panther
e. Deer
f. Spider
6. Southeastern Ceremonial Complex Ceremonial Objects:
a. Often associated with above motifs and God-Animal Beings.
b. Gorgets:
(1) Shell
(2) Copper
(3) Circular
(4) Oblong
(5) In the form of masks
c. Conch pendants (Columella)
d. Embossed copper plates
e. Sheet copper hair emblems
(1) Bi-lobed arrow
(2) Plume
(3) Baton
f. Ear spools:
(1) Wood
(2) Stone
(3) Copper-covered wood
(4) Copper-covered stone
g. Celts
(1) Hafted ceremonial (non-utilitarian)
(2) Pierced
h. Monolithic axes
i. Batons or maces
j. Effigy pipes
(1) Squatting humans
(2) Human figure with bowl
(3) Cat
k. Notched stone disks
l. Discoidal stones (Chunkee)
m. Conch shell bowls
n. Ceremonial flints
o. Bottles:
(1) (Possibly for black drink?)
(2) Decorated
(a) Painted
i) Red or black
ii) Negative
(b) Appliqué
(c) Engraved
(3) Bipartite
(4) Tripartite
7. Southeastern Ceremonial Complex Costume Details:
a. Hair treatment (Occipital hair knot)
b. Antlered headdresses
c. Ornaments:
(1) Hair:
(a) Bi-lobed arrow hair ornament
(b) Copper-plume hair ornament
(c) Hair tablets
(2) Ear (usually tasseled ear spools)
(3) Body:
(a) Beaded arm and leg bands
(b) Necklaces
(c) Beaded choker
(d) Beaded belt
d. Clothing:
(1) Knotted sashes
(2) Fringed apron
e. Carried or suspended paraphernalia:
(1) Baton
(2) Flint knives
(3) Human heads (trophies?)
(4) Hafted celts
(5) Chunkee stones
K. Terms related to discussion of THE SOUTHEASTERN WOODLANDS: MISSISSIPPIAN—LATE PREHISTORIC
CULTURAL DEVELOPMENTS:
1. Major shift(s) implied by Sedentary—Mississippian (e.g., "Late Prehistoric") transition?
2. "Late Prehistoric" versus "Mississippian": Why the controversy about such terms?
3. Mississippian and agriculture: issues? cultigens? anything else?
4. Agriculture—central redistributive authority—agriculture . . . : feedbacks?
5. Mississippian settlement patterns: general observations
6. Mississippian residential structures (houses): general observations
7. Mississippian settlement orientation: characteristics? riverine orientation? reasons for it?
8. Mississippian/Late Prehistoric complexes and their general locations:
9. Oneota Complex,
10. Fort Ancient Complex,
11. Central Mississippi Complex,
12. Kincaid Complex,
13. Caddoan Complex,
14. Dallas Complex,
15. Moundville Complex,
16. Plaquemine Complex,
17. Southern Appalachian Complex,
18. Fort Walton Complex
19. Mississippian sites: general distinguishing characteristics
20. Important Mississippian sites (general observations, especially bolded):
21. Aztalan Site (Wisconsin)
22. Kincaid Site (Illinois)
23. Angel Site (Indiana)
24. Fort Ancient Site (Ohio)
25. Spiro Site (Oklahoma)
26. Hiwassee Island Site (Tennessee)
27. Etowah Site (Georgia)
28. Moundville Site (Alabama)
29. Characteristic Mississippian artifacts:
30. Mississippian ceramics: general characteristics
31. Mississippian monolithic axes: description
32. Mississippian maces (chipped- and ground-stone ones): description
33. Mississippian iconography: media used? characteristic motifs?
34. "Bilobed arrow": define, describe, significance?
35. "Forked eye": define, describe, significance?
36. "Eyes in hands": define, describe, significance?
37. Death motifs: define, describe, significance?
38. Spiro shell engravings: characterize
39. "Southern Cult" (or "Southeastern Ceremonial Complex"): meaning? artifactual indicators? geographic distribution?
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