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57-904: The Plaquemine culture was a Mississippian culture variant centered on the Mississippi River valley, stretching from the Gulf of Mexico to just south of its junction with the Arkansas River , encompassing the Yazoo River basin and Natchez Bluffs in western Mississippi, and the lower Ouachita and Red River valleys in southeastern Arkansas , and eastern Louisiana. They were primarily agriculturists who grew maize , pumpkins , squash , beans and tobacco but they also hunted, fished, and gathered wild plants. The Medora site in West Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana

114-415: A base there in 1567 called Fort San Juan . Expedition documentation and archaeological evidence of the fort and Native American culture both exist. The soldiers were at the fort about 18 months (1567–1568) before the natives killed them and destroyed the fort. (They killed soldiers stationed at five other forts as well; only one man of 120 survived.) Sixteenth-century Spanish artifacts have been recovered from

171-508: A few bits of shell-tempered pottery being found. These cultural hallmarks along with the implementation of intensive maize agriculture have become Plaquemine culture designators. Plaquemine was an outgrowth of the earlier Coles Creek culture (700 to 1200 CE). They experienced significant contact with Mississippian culture peoples to their north and east and the Terminal Coles Creek/early Plaquemine period

228-657: A mound was usually one with special significance, either a pre-existing mortuary site, temple, or civic structure. The flat-topped, pyramidal mounds usually underwent multiple episodes of mound construction and were built in several stages. Sometimes they were topped by one or more smaller mounds secondary mounds. After each expansion episode new structures were usually constructed on their summits. In earlier times, buildings were usually circular, but later they were likely to be rectangular. They were constructed of wattle and daub , and sometimes with wall posts sunk into wall trenches. At times, shallow, oval or rectangular graves were dug in

285-492: A powerful chiefdom located on the eastern bank of the Mississippi River. Native sources called it " Quigualtam ", the name of the polity , its capital, and its paramount chief . By this point the expedition had been traversing the southeast for several years and accounts of their deplorable treatment of the indigenous populations would have been known by groups they had yet to contact in person. Their encounter with

342-482: A regional ceramic style in the southeast involving surface decorations applied with a carved wooden paddle. By the late 1960s, archaeological investigations had shown the similarity of the culture that produced the pottery and the midwestern Mississippian pattern defined in 1937 by the Midwestern Taxonomic System. In 1967, James B. Griffin coined South Appalachian Mississippian to describe

399-585: A tool or ally in long-standing native feuds. In one example, de Soto negotiated a truce between the Pacaha and the Casqui . De Soto's later encounters left about half of the Spaniards and perhaps many hundreds of Native Americans dead. The chronicles of de Soto are among the first documents written about Mississippian peoples and are an invaluable source of information on their cultural practices. The chronicles of

456-457: A variety of functions. Villages with single platform mounds were more typical of the river valley settlements throughout the mountainous area of southwest North and South Carolina and southeastern Tennessee that were known as the historic Cherokee homelands. In Western North Carolina for example, some 50 such mound sites in the eleven westernmost counties have been identified since the late 20th century, following increased research in this area of

513-487: Is believed that the peoples of this area adopted Mississippian traits from their northwestern neighbors. Typical settlements were located on riverine floodplains and included villages with defensive palisades enclosing platform mounds and residential areas. Etowah and Ocmulgee in Georgia are both prominent examples of major South Appalachian Mississippian settlements. Both include multiple large earthwork mounds serving

570-486: Is now the Midwestern , Eastern , and Southeastern United States from approximately 800 to 1600, varying regionally. It was known for building large, earthen platform mounds , and often other shaped mounds as well. It was composed of a series of urban settlements and satellite villages linked together by loose trading networks. The largest city was Cahokia , believed to be a major religious center, located in what

627-555: Is present-day southern Illinois . The Mississippian way of life began to develop in the Mississippi River Valley (for which it is named). Cultures in the tributary Tennessee River Valley may have also begun to develop Mississippian characteristics at this point. Almost all dated Mississippian sites predate 1539–1540 (when Hernando de Soto explored the area), with notable exceptions being Natchez communities. These maintained Mississippian cultural practices into

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684-710: Is the chronological stage, while Mississippian culture refers to the cultural similarities that characterize this society. The term Middle Mississippian is also used to describe the core of the classic Mississippian culture area. This area covers the central Mississippi River Valley, the lower Ohio River Valley, and most of the Mid-South area, including western and central Kentucky, western Tennessee, and northern Alabama and Mississippi. Sites in this area often contain large ceremonial platform mounds, residential complexes and are often encircled by earthen ditches and ramparts or palisades . Middle Mississippian cultures, especially

741-435: Is the type site for the period, defined by Dr. James A. Ford and George I. Quimby after excavations at the site in the late 1930s and early 1940s. The name for the culture is taken from the proximity of Medora to the nearby town of Plaquemine . It was inhabited from approximately 1300 to 1600 CE and it consisted of two platform mounds separated by a plaza . Pottery from the site was overwhelmingly grog-tempered with only

798-400: Is usually divided into three or more chronological periods. Each period is an arbitrary historical distinction varying regionally. At a particular site, each period may be considered to begin earlier or later, depending on the speed of adoption or development of given Mississippian traits. The "Mississippian period" should not be confused with the "Mississippian culture". The Mississippian period

855-715: The Hasinai , Kadohadacho , and Natchitoches , which were all linked by their similar languages. The Plaquemine culture was an archaeological culture in the lower Mississippi River Valley in western Mississippi and eastern Louisiana . Good examples of this culture are the Medora site (the type site for the culture and period) in West Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana , and the Anna , Emerald Mound , Winterville and Holly Bluff sites located in Mississippi. Plaquemine culture

912-753: The Narváez expedition were written before the de Soto expedition; the Narváez expedition informed the Court of de Soto about the New World. After the destruction and flight of the de Soto expedition, the Mississippian peoples continued their way of life with little direct European influence. Indirectly, however, European introductions dramatically changed these native societies. Because the natives lacked immunity to infectious diseases unknowingly carried by

969-664: The 18th century. A number of cultural traits are recognized as being characteristic of the Mississippians. Although not all Mississippian peoples practiced all of the following activities, they were distinct from their ancestors in the adoption of some or all of these traits. The Mississippians had no writing system or stone architecture. They worked naturally occurring metal deposits, such as hammering and annealing copper for ritual objects such as Mississippian copper plates and other decorations, but did not smelt iron or practice bronze metallurgy . The Mississippian stage

1026-561: The Cahokia polity located near East St. Louis, Illinois , were very influential on neighboring societies. High-status artifacts, including stone statuary and elite pottery associated with Cahokia, have been found far outside of the Middle Mississippian area. These items, especially the pottery, were also copied by local artists. The term South Appalachian Province was originally used by W. H. Holmes in 1903 to describe

1083-598: The Cherokee homeland. The Caddoan Mississippian area, a regional variant of the Mississippian culture, covered a large territory, including what is now eastern Oklahoma , western Arkansas , northeastern Texas , and northwestern Louisiana . Archaeological evidence has led to a scholarly consensus that the cultural continuity is unbroken from prehistory to the present, and that the Caddo and related Caddo language speakers in prehistoric times and at first European contact are

1140-540: The Europeans, such as measles and smallpox , epidemics caused so many fatalities that they undermined the social order of many chiefdoms. Some groups adopted European horses and changed to nomadism . Political structures collapsed in many places. At Joara , near Morganton, North Carolina , Native Americans of the Mississippian culture interacted with Spanish colonizers of the Juan Pardo expedition, who built

1197-461: The Gulf coast. On top of this the intrusion of Europeans had upset the delicate political balance between native groups who had existed in a state of endemic warfare between polities for generations. Many societies in the region began to collapse. Remnant populations of Mississippian peoples began migrating across and down the Mississippi. The post de Soto entrada Transylvania Phase (1550-1700 CE) of

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1254-512: The Mississippi River area to the east that were escaping the collapse of their societies brought about by the aftereffects of first European contact. Others, such as the multiple Mississippian Tunica speaking polities encountered by de Soto in Arkansas and northwestern Mississippi had all but vanished; with a few small groups like the Tunica and Koroa relocating to former Plaquemine territory at

1311-582: The Southeast. It was a ceremonial center for the Pensacola people and served as a gateway to their society despite its seemingly remote location. It was first professionally investigated in 1932 when David L. DeJarnette , of the Alabama Museum of Natural History , began his work there to determine if the site had a cultural relationship with Moundville , connected to the north by a river system. It

1368-527: The Tensas Basin saw the increasing spread of Mississippian influences diffusing southward from Arkansas and northwestern Mississippi into traditional Plaquemine territory. The Jordan Mounds site on a relict channel of the Arkansas River in northeastern Louisianas Morehouse Parish was constructed during the protohistoric period between 1540 and 1685. The builders were an intrusive group in the area; Mississippianized peoples who were possibly refugees from

1425-538: The area of their distinct culture began to shrink after 1350 CE. Eventually the last enclave of purely Plaquemine culture was the southern Natchez Bluffs area, while the Yazoo Basin and Louisiana areas became a hybrid Plaquemine Mississippian culture. The earliest European account of the culture may be recorded in the journals of the Spanish expedition of Hernando de Soto . In 1542 de Soto's expedition encountered

1482-405: The centers of paramount chiefdoms who exerted control over other smaller civic sites. These second tier rulers, part of a hereditary nobility, would have been related matrilineally to the ruling paramount chief. An inherently volatile system, sometimes factions in smaller centers attained supremacy and power would shift from one civic center to another, resulting in the partial or total abandonment of

1539-468: The central plaza . It was the largest Mississippian chiefdom on the north-central Gulf Coast . It is difficult to reach by foot; however, it would have been easily accessed by dugout canoes, the primary mode of transportation of the peoples in the region. It lies near the confluence of the Tombigbee and Alabama rivers. The streams become a maze of branches and bayous at the head of Mobile Bay. The site

1596-494: The direct ancestors of the modern Caddo Nation of Oklahoma . The climate in this area was drier than areas in the eastern woodlands, hindering maize production, and the lower population on the plains to the west may have meant fewer neighboring competing chiefdoms to contend with. Major sites such as Spiro and the Battle Mound Site are in the Arkansas River and Red River Valleys, the largest and most fertile of

1653-417: The elites and their families, priests, and their attendants and servants. Everyone else lived in small hamlets and farmsteads dispersed across the landscape. Coupled with the adoption of maize agriculture during this period was a population explosion and an increase in the number and size of the sites. The ethnographic record from the historic period suggests some large sites such as Winterville or Emerald were

1710-420: The evolving understanding of the peoples of the Southeast. South Appalachian Mississippian area sites are distributed across a contiguous area including Alabama, Georgia, northern Florida, South Carolina, central and western North Carolina, and Tennessee. Chronologically this area became influenced by Mississippian culture later than the Middle Mississippian area (about 1000 as compared to 800) to its northwest. It

1767-818: The former capital. Beginning during the Terminal Coles Creek period (1150 to 1250 CE), Mississippian cultures far upstream from the Plaquemine area began expanding their reach southward. Excavations in the Yazoo Basin area of Mississippi have shown a Cahokia Horizon as extra-regional exotic goods, such as Cahokian pottery and other artifacts, began to be deposited in Coles Creek-Plaquemine culture sites. Through repeated contacts, groups in Mississippi and then Louisiana began adopting Mississippian techniques for making pottery, as well as ceremonial objects and possibly social structuring. By

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1824-692: The historic era in the Natchez Bluffs area. Cultural trappings including societal organization, language and pottery styles in Louisiana and Mississippi during the early historic period bear this out. Possibly because their encounter with de Soto had been so brief compared to the more northerly populations, the Plaquemine Natchez people and Taensa peoples alone maintained the characteristics of complex chiefdoms such as hereditary elites, mound ceremonialism, and retainer sacrifice long into

1881-579: The indigenous people in this area occurred for almost 140 years when the first French explorers arrived in the area. By the historic period, power had shifted within the Natchez polity from Emerald Mound to the Grand Village of the Natchez . In the meantime native peoples of the region suffered from epidemics of infectious disease ; carried both by the de Soto expedition and indirectly from other Native Americans who had contact with European traders on

1938-750: The majority of the American Indian nations living in this region when European trade began. The historic and modern day American Indian nations believed to have descended from the overarching Mississippian culture include: the Alabama , Apalachee , Arikara , Caddo , Chickasaw , Catawba , Choctaw , Muscogee Creek , Guale , Hitchiti , Ho-Chunk , Houma , Iowa , Kansa , Koroas , Missouria , Mobilian , Natchez , Omaha , Osage (possibly), Otoe , Pawnee , Ponca , Quapaw (possibly), Seminole (broad origins), Taensas , Tunicas , Yamasee , Yazoos , and Yuchi . Scholars have studied

1995-512: The many Caddoan languages . These languages once had a broad geographic distribution, but many are now extinct. The modern languages in the Caddoan family include Caddo and Pawnee . Hernando de Soto led an expedition into the area in the early 1540s, he encountered several native groups now thought to have been Caddoan. Composed of many tribes, the Caddo were organized into three confederacies,

2052-754: The mid 15th century influences from Pensacola culture peoples (from the Bottle Creek site on the Gulf Coast near Mobile ) had begun spreading westward across Barataria Bay and the Atchafalaya Basin and by 1700 had Mississipianized the local populations as far north as modern day Baton Rouge, Louisiana . Use of grog tempering for pottery at locations such as the Sims site in southeastern Louisiana had been replaced by shell tempering. The Plaquemine peoples absorbed more Mississippian influence and

2109-697: The mounds dotting the landscape. This contributed to the myth of the Mound Builders as a people distinct from Native Americans, which was rigorously debunked by Cyrus Thomas in 1894. Bottle Creek Indian Mounds Bottle Creek Indian Mounds ( 1BA2 ) is an archaeological site owned and monitored by the Alabama Historical Commission located on a low swampy island within the Mobile-Tensaw River Delta north of Mobile , Alabama , United States . It

2166-439: The mounds. These might have been for primary burials, but more often they were for the reburial of remains originally interred in mortuary houses. This pattern of plazas flanked by mounds with temples, elite residences and mortuary structures at their summits was inherited from their Troyville and Coles Creek culture ancestors, and was a village arrangement widely employed throughout the southeast. Like other Native Americans in

2223-656: The mouth of the Yazoo River in west central Mississippi. The Central Mississippi Valley which de Soto had described as the most heavily populated area he had seen since the Valley of Mexico was now almost vacant; only sparsely occupied by the Quapaw who were an intrusive Dhegiha Siouan people that moved into the area from the Ohio River region sometime in the late 16th to early 17th century. Now surrounded on all sides by Mississippians, several Plaquemine groups persisted into

2280-628: The period after the European colonization of America began. They were the last Plaquemine culture peoples. Groups who were intrusive to the area or local groups who had been Mississippianized are identified at the time of sustained European contact as those tribes speaking the Tunican , Chitimachan , and Muskogean languages . They had complex political and religious institutions and lived in villages centered on large ceremonial centers with two or more platform mounds facing an open plaza . The site of

2337-472: The polity was brief and violent; the natives attacked and chased the Spaniards with their canoes. When the remnants of de Sotos expedition finally made it down the river past Quigualtam they encountered below it another unnamed but powerful chiefdom; who also gave chase until the foreigners had left their territory. Various scholars have debated the identities of these two groups and their exact locations. Historian Charles M. Hudson has suggested that Quigualtam

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2394-509: The records of Hernando de Soto 's expedition of 1539–1543 to learn of his contacts with Mississippians, as he traveled through their villages of the Southeast. He visited many villages, in some cases staying for a month or longer. The list of sites and peoples visited by the Hernando de Soto Expedition chronicles those villages. Some encounters were violent, while others were relatively peaceful. In some cases, de Soto seems to have been used as

2451-605: The second group is the Emerald Phase (1500 – 1680) of the Natchez chiefdom, headquartered at the massive Emerald Mound ; which was in its ascendancy at the time. These two sites were the only major ceremonial center on this stretch of the Mississippi River occupied during the protohistoric period from 1500 to 1650 CE. Since the Spaniards never made it ashore to leave archaeological evidence of contact with these two groups their exact identity will probably never be determined with certainty. No further recorded European contact with

2508-540: The site, marking the first European colonization in the interior of what became the United States. By the time more documentary accounts were being written, the Mississippian way of life had changed irrevocably. Some groups maintained an oral tradition link to their mound-building past, such as the late 19th-century Cherokee . Other Native American groups, having migrated many hundreds of miles and lost their elders to diseases, did not know their ancestors had built

2565-482: The southeast this open plaza area would have been used for public rituals and functions such as the Green Corn Ceremony and games such as chunkey and the ballgame . Plaquemine pottery was decorated with their own unique characteristics. They sometimes added small solid handles called lugs and textured the surface by brushing clumps of grass over the vessel before it was fired. Potters cut designs into

2622-415: The surface of the wet clay and, like their Caddoan contemporaries, the Plaquemine peoples engraved designs on pots after they were fired. Plaquemine peoples also had undecorated pots that they used for ordinary daily tasks. Pottery was included in burials as grave goods , often being ritually "killed". This type has a hole in the base of the vessel that was cut while the pot was being made, usually before it

2679-525: The waterways in the Caddoan region, where maize agriculture would have been the most productive. The sites generally lacked wooden palisade fortifications often found in the major Middle Mississippian towns. Living on the western edge of the Mississippian world, the Caddoans may have faced fewer military threats from their neighbors. Their societies may also have had a somewhat lower level of social stratification . The Caddoan people were speakers of one of

2736-493: Was a ceremonial center for the Pensacola people, as well as a social, political, religious, and trade center for the Mobile Delta region and the central Gulf Coast. Bottle Creek site was first mapped in the 1880s, but its location in the middle of the delta, completely surrounded by swamp and hidden by immense cypress trees, made it inaccessible. This protected it from most of the plundering that occurred at similar sites in

2793-592: Was a result of contact with their Mississippian neighbors. Many of these Coles Creek sites continued use by their Plaquemine descendants, and Plaquemine sites were still being used in the early 1700s during the early historic period. The Plaquemine period saw the re-purposing and expansion of sites occupied during the Coles Creek period. Unlike Mississippian settlements which were often large nucleated villages, Plaquemine settlements were usually barely populated ceremonial civic centers whose only permanent residents were

2850-606: Was centered on the area surrounding the Holly Bluff or Winterville sites in the lower Yazoo Basin . The sites themselves are thought by archaeologists to have been abandoned by this point but the power center of the polity had probably shifted to another site within its territory. Others have put forward the Glass site ; which is on the flood plain in between the Mississippi River and the Natchez Bluffs approximately 9.5 kilometres (5.9 mi) south of Vicksburg . A possibility for

2907-557: Was contemporaneous with the Middle Mississippian culture at the Cahokia site near St. Louis , Missouri. It is considered ancestral to the Natchez and Taensa Peoples. Although the Mississippian culture was heavily disrupted before a complete understanding of the political landscape was written down, many Mississippian political bodies were documented and others have been discovered by research. Mississippian peoples were ancestral to

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2964-491: Was contemporaneous with the height of the Middle Mississippian culture at Cahokia in the American Bottom near St. Louis, Missouri . After Cahokia's collapse in the mid 14th century they coexisted with Late Mississippian groups centered on eastern Arkansas near Memphis . Archaeologists debate whether Plaquemine is a completely local development or if the changes in their society that led from Coles Creek to Plaquemine

3021-524: Was fired. Pottery during this phase still used grog tempering as their Coles Creek ancestors had; with the use of ground mussel shell tempering being a distinctive marker for Mississippian cultural contact. Pottery from protohistoric Natchez sites in western Mississippi still used the traditional Plaquemine grog tempering and traditional vessel forms. The pottery of the Taensa in eastern Louisiana used Mississippian style shell tempering and pottery shapes but

3078-536: Was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974. Due to their remote location, the site is only accessible to visitors via watercraft tours that depart from Stockton, Alabama . Tours depart daily and take about 4 hours by boat and 6–8 hours by canoe or kayak. Trips consist of a trip to and from Mound Island and interpretive discussions about the Mississippian culture peoples that lived at Bottle Creek, including their sport, food, culture and

3135-580: Was occupied between 1250 and 1550, and served as the focal point for interaction with other Mississippian culture areas along the coast and the interior of the Southeastern United States . It is located on Mound Island in the Mobile-Tensaw River Delta, north of present-day Mobile , and includes 18 platform mounds , the tallest being roughly 45 feet (14 m) high. Five of those eighteen mounds are arranged around

3192-639: Was occupied by the peoples of the Pensacola culture , a regional Mississippian culture variant, and is the largest site of the Mississippian culture on the central Gulf Coast. It is important to understanding the history and culture of the Mobile-Tensaw delta in late prehistoric times and was designated as a National Historic Landmark on March 10, 1995, making it one of only two such sites in Alabama (alongside Moundville Archeological Park ). The site

3249-655: Was still being engraved with decorative designs typical of the Plaquemine area. This difference between the two closely related groups showed that Mississippian diffusion into the area beginning during the Transylvania Phase (1550-1700 CE) of the Tensas Basin region from what is now southeastern Arkansas had by the late 17th century reached the lower Tensas River basin in Louisiana. Mississippian culture The Mississippian culture were collections of Native American societies that flourished in what

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