Past material on America's pre-Columbian cultures ended with the Hopewell culture circa 500 AD. NS. how the system of trade exchanges, for some unknown reason, fell into decay, the burial mounds ceased to be poured, and works of art related to this culture ceased to be found among the finds. War is the most unreliable reason, because how to whom and with whom was there to fight? In addition, there are no victims of hostilities in the burials. Scientists put forward various hypotheses that caused such a social cataclysm. This is also a cold snap, due to which the animals - the objects of hunting went to the north or west, since a change in the weather could affect their usual plant diet. Others cite the appearance of a bow and arrow as an argument. They say that with their help they killed all the animals and the "Hopewells" simply had nothing to eat. Even this reason is called, as the transition to full-scale agriculture, which changed the existing social relations and "outlook on life." However, this culture has not completely disappeared! After some time in its place (after about 400 years - a kind of "American Dark Ages") arose the so-called "Mississippi culture" or as American archaeologists call it - the culture of pre-Columbian gardeners who lived in the territory of the modern Midwest and Southeast USA somewhere around 1000 - 1550 ad.
Any of the major centers belonging to the "Mississippi culture" could have looked like this or almost so.
Traces of it were found in river valleys, in almost a whole third of the United States. Finds have also been made in Illinois and many other places. If we turn to the chronology data, then it will look like this for this culture:
800 - 1050 there is a development of agriculture, primarily in the field of growing corn. By 1000 A. D. the ancient city of Cahokia emerges.
1050 - 1100 - The era of the "Big Bang" in Cahokia. The population of the city reaches 10,000 - 15,000, and the development of the northern lands begins.
1100 - 1350 - Following the example of Cahokia, Buzzard cities began to appear everywhere.
1350 - 1450 the city of Cahokia is abandoned, in many other "bulk cities" the population is decreasing.
1450 - 1539 - new "bulk cities" increase in size and begin to lead.
1539 year. Hernando de Soto's expedition visits Mississippi cities from Florida to Texas. Europeans will learn about the existence of the "Kurgan civilization".
Representatives of the "Mississippi culture" lived in the copper-stone age. But they did not know how to smelt copper, but made products from native copper. For example, this ax. (The Robbins Museum, Middleborough, Massachusetts).
This is how this culture developed. However, the term "Mississippi" itself is generalized. In fact, it includes many local cultures that are similar in their cultural traditions. Thus, the culture in the states of Arkansas, Texas, Oklahoma and a number of neighboring states is called Caddo; Oneota is the name of a culture located in the states of Iowa, Minnesota, Illinois and Wisconsin; Ancient Fort is another term for cities in the Ohio River valleys in Kentucky, Ohio and Indiana. There is even a culture like the Southeast Ceremonial Complex. It was located on the lands of the states of Alabama, Georgia and Florida. All of them had certain differences in symbolism, they erected mounds in different ways, they also differ in their artifacts.
But the main working tool of the representatives of this culture was still a stone. For example, stone axes of the "Mississippi culture". (Robbins Museum, Middleborough, Massachusetts)
That is, there were "cultural groups" from which, as from "bricks", the "Mississippi culture" was formed. The groups had a similar social structure based on agricultural production. And it, in turn, rested on "three whales": corn, beans and … pumpkins. The fortifications were similar: ditches, palisades, large earth pyramids with flat tops (the so-called "platforms on embankments"). The symbolism related to fertility was similar, as well as to the veneration of ancestral spirits, astronomical observations and … war.
From flint and other minerals, they made such, characteristic in shape, spearheads and arrowheads. They are very different from similar artifacts of "Hopewell culture", aren't they? (The Robbins Museum, Middleborough, Massachusetts).
Tips and grater. (The Robbins Museum, Middleborough, Massachusetts).
And here is a whole arsenal for both spears and arrows! (The Robbins Museum, Middleborough, Massachusetts).
Archaeological excavations in Cahokia, the largest of the ancient Mississippi cities and, possibly, the main center of Mississippi culture, have shown a very high level of development of this ancient civilization. It was located in the resource-rich lower floodplain of the Mississippi River at the junction of several major rivers in the central United States known as the "American Bottom." Fertile lands gave high yields. The water was always there. In this affluent area east of modern-day St. Louis, Missouri, Cahokia has grown into a huge settlement over time. Here rises the largest mound, which is called the "Mound of the Monk", occupying an area of five hectares at the base, with a height of more than 30 meters. Most of the Mississippi mounds that have come down to us in various other places are very low, no more than 3 m. It is clear that the reason is soil erosion. But the fact that erosion did not so much lower the height of the "Monk's Hill" (that is, lowered, of course, but how much?), Tells us that in antiquity it was even higher!
But this ax is on display in the British Museum!
Due to the unusually large size of Cahokia, the American archaeologist Timothy Pauketat even claimed that Cahokia was a real regional state, which gave the strongest impetus to the entire nascent Mississippi civilization. Although most likely this was not the case. The fact is that the peculiarity of the development of the centers of the "Culture of the Mississippi" was the variety of languages used by the Indian peoples who were part of it. So, only in the southeast, for example, seven different language families were used at once: Maskog, Iroquois, Katavan, Kadd, Algonkian, Tunic and Timuakan. But there were also other language families and languages included in them! However, there is nothing impossible in the fact that people of different tribes and languages from different regions of the "Mississippi culture" met right here, on "neutral territory", communicated, exchanged ideas and achievements, traded, possibly entered into marriages.
Axes for cutting trees. (Museum of Old History, Taunton, Massachusetts)
Many settlements were also found, similar in structure to Cahokia, but of a smaller size. So the "Mississippi culture" over time covered a vast territory: from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico itself. By the way, it was from there that sea shells were delivered to the same Cahokia. Moreover, the left-handed ones were especially appreciated. American archaeologists Marquardt and Kozuch suggested that such a spiral symbolized the inevitability of birth, death and subsequent rebirth. By the way, pyramids similar to those in Cahokia and other similar “cities” are also known on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico.
A tip found on the shores of Little Gasparilla Island in Florida. Length 8, 4 cm.
What was the social organization of all these settlements? Did they have some kind of a single center, a "capital", or was each "city" on its own, or was it only trade and the community of religion that linked them into a single whole? The burials of representatives of the elite show that it existed, and if so, it also possessed a certain amount of power. That is, there could be a leader who was the ruler of a particular territory. The second point of view is that there was a decentralization of power and the elite was rich, but did not possess real power. That, as in many late Indian tribes, intra-tribal clans and communities played a huge role, and the leaders played a nominal role.
Smoking pipes. (The Robbins Museum, Middleborough, Massachusetts).
Most likely, strong centralized power existed in such centers as Cahokia or Etova in Georgia, and in the western regions that Europeans began to visit in the 16th century, there were intratribal relations, known to us from the novels of Fenimore Cooper and Willard Schultz …
Pottery "Mississippi Culture" (Robbins Museum, Middleborough, Massachusetts).
