Early Mississippian in the North Carolina Piedmont

The topic of Mississippian origins in the North Carolina Piedmont has received very little attention from archaeologists since the 1950s. This chapter pulls together information from multiple sites, especially the extensively excavated Town Creek site, to present an overview of Early Mississippian in the North Carolina Piedmont. The presence of Mississippian lifeways in the region is indicated by the appearance of complicated-stamped ceramics by around A.D. 1150-1200. Associated social changes include the appearance of archaeologically visible households and the development of a civic-ceremonial center at the Town Creek site. Public and domestic architecture as well as evidence for ritual activities suggests that social groups interacted and were integrated at multiple scales within the Early Mississippian community at Town Creek.

Maize and Mississippian Beginnings

The adoption and intensification of maize (Zea mays) farming has long been a topic of interest in Mississippian archaeology. At various times throughout the development and definition of “Mississippian” as a cultural tradition, maize has been cast as a central feature of Mississippian adaptation, alongside a suite of other traits that include long-distance exchange, platform mound building, and the development of ranked social systems. In (re-)considering the topic of Mississippian beginnings, we continue to interrogate the nature of the relationship between maize farming and Mississippian origins. Our archaeological review of regional patterns of plant production (archaeobotanical results) and plant consumption (isotopic results) reveals that Mississippians throughout southeastern and midwestern North America produced and consumed maize, but varied significantly in their levels of production and consumption.

Mississippian Beginnings

The emergence of the complex societies of the late prehistoric era in Eastern North America has been the subject of extensive research in recent years, resulting in a new appreciation for how these changes played out at specific sites and across the region. Concern with variation within local historical trajectories, the movements and practices of peoples, and detailed site reconstructions have replaced the broad general neoevolutionary approaches that characterized research on Mississippian origins a generation ago. Aided by a wealth of new fieldwork and analytical tools, our understanding of the Mississippian emergence and what is meant by Mississippian itself has become much clearer in recent years, as has our knowledge of events at specific sites.

The Relationship between Becoming Caddo and Becoming Mississippian in the Middle Red River Drainage

Pre-Columbian Caddo culture is frequently viewed as a western extension of the Mississippian world, This chapter examines the timing and nature of the Early Caddo emergence in the Middle Red River drainage. While the Caddo drew upon the same religious traditions of the Mississippian world, they had their own separate shared ritual practices that set them apart.

The Mississippianization of the Illinois and Apple River Valleys

This chapter investigates Mississippian beginnings in three regions; the Lower Illinois River Valley, the Central Illinois River Valley, and the Apple River Valley. During the eleventh and twelfth centuries each region witnessed a cultural transformation represented archaeologically in the appearance of Cahokian-style material culture. The nature of this transformation was highly variable as the inhabitants of some regions came to embrace a more complete assortment of Cahokian traditions than others.

The Hollywood Site (9RI1) and the Foundations of Mississippian in the Middle Savannah River Valley

In this chapter we explore the role of the Hollywood site in the development of a unique version of Mississippian political culture that emerged along the middle Savannah River Valley. We argue this variant of Mississippian was inspired by the coming together of material culture, belief traditions, and people from the Central Mississippi valley and the middle Savannah valley. Those divergent traditions and practices were entangled through a set of mortuary rituals emplaced within Hollywood’s Mound B. What resulted was a new settlement system, emphasis on monumentality, and ceremonialism that was a unique historical creation.

Fort Walton Mississippian Beginnings in the Apalachicola–Lower Chattahoochee River Valley of Northwest Florida, Southwest Georgia, and Southeast Alabama

In the Apalachicola-lower Chattahoochee River valley, new data reaffirm a relatively seamless Fort Walton emergence from resident late Weeden Island groups circa A.D.900-1000 that was characterized by blending external Mississippian influences with local traditions. Check-stamped and other Woodland ceramics continued as Mississippian forms were adopted, but in non-shell-tempered wares. Maize was grown inland but agriculture may not have developed along the coast. Platform mounds were built and Woodland mound centers were reoccupied. Taken together, these data suggest that Fort Walton beginnings here involved negotiations between maintaining local identity and incorporating outside Mississippian practices.

Mississippian Processes and Histories

The spread of Mississippian culture throughout much of the Eastern US has long been of interest to archaeologists. Interpretations of this spread have oscillated widely over the development of the discipline between what are generally referred to as historical and processual approaches. This chapter briefly summarizes these approaches and then directly examines some key aspects of each. Integration of mortuary data with biodistance and chemical analyses from human burials with environmental data provides a key to unlock both the processes and histories at play in the development of one area on which Mississippian culture developed. The central argument is that the basic structure of the Fort Ancient village developed in close connection with early interactions with Mississippian migrants. Village origins are linked to a series of general processes and specific historical developments involving exploitation of a particular type of environmental niche, reuse of ancient monuments, and referencing mythic Mississippian events. The basic conclusion is that it is much better to seek a model that incorporates elements of both culture process and culture history if we are to arrive at a more comprehensive understanding of the past.

Cahokia’s Beginnings

The combined movements of local and foreign people from pre-Mississippian villages and hamlets into mound centers and out to isolated farmsteads resulted in the creation of Cahokia at AD 1050 as an urban space and the center of a regionally integrated polity. Through these movements, landscapes were redefined and identities and power relations among local and foreign groups were negotiated. It is asserted that such movements interfered with local sources of power while a sense of shared identity was fostered through participation in communal events. Through analyses of site layout, occupational history, and material culture, the historical effects of these movements are traced.

Mississippian Origins

Nearly a quarter century has passed since Smith’s (1990) seminal volume The Mississippian Emergence was published. That volume, through a set of collected works, was the first to attempt a region-wide synthesis of what was known and thought about Mississippian origins. This introductory chapter contextualizes the work of the contributing authors in several ways. We begin by defining some key terms used throughout the chapters and volume, and then we examine the history of grand theory and paradigmatic shifts in the study of Mississippian origins to illuminate the routes that led to today’s thinking. This section includes an assessment of the current status of social theory in Mississippian studies. Special emphasis is placed on a discussion of cultural entanglements, a topic common to most of the contributions and that addresses the ways in which the various regional traditions that archaeologists recognize as Mississippian were negotiated. The final section considers the broad sweep of Mississippianization and its impacts on later developments across the Eastern Woodlands.