A New History of Mississippi

Chapter One: Rise and Fall of Indian Culture

7 Chapter One Rise and Fall of Indian Culture As the warm,wet land emerged,the Paleoindians adapted.They continued to hunt deer and bear with an improved spear thrown with an atlatl,a throwing device that increased the distance and force of their weapons, but gradually they came to depend more on the fish, alligators, turtles, snakes, birds, and other small creatures in the swamps and rivers.They ate acorns,hickory nuts, walnuts,pecans,persimmons,wild grapes,hackberries,goosefoot,knotweed, and seeds from honey locust.Although they did not practice agriculture, the plant and animal life in the southeastern portion of the United States grew so densely that humans could concentrate in numbers enough to build impressive mounds.On the west side of the Mississippi River at Poverty Point,these hunters and gatherers built one of the most impressive mound complexes in North America at about the same time Stonehenge went up in England. Some archaeologists believe Jaketown on the Yazoo River to be associated with this culture, along with several other sites. Not only did some hunters and gatherers build impressive mounds, but they also carried on long-distance trade.Because the area lacked stones,they imported them from as far away as Arkansas and the Appalachian Mountains to craft stone vessels, plummets, atlatl weights, axes, and ornaments. The inhabitants constructed the largest mound at Poverty Point in the shape of a bird, indicating that they found them important and perhaps sacred. They carved stone pipes to smoke tobacco, which again may have involved religious rituals. Their accomplishments indicate a more complicated life than usually ascribed to hunters and gatherers. Even if they only occupied the mounds for portions of the year and had to forage at distances some months, the first complex civilization in Mississippi had long cultural roots that connected them to the historic Indian tribes who inhabited Mississippi. Mississippi Prehistoric Periods Paleo-Indian 10,000 B.C.E.–8000 B.C.E. Hunting with spears for large mammals Small nomadic groups 8 | Rise and Fall of Indian Culture Archaic 8000 B.C.E.–500 B.C.E. Semisedentary with seasonal gathering of groups Gathering wild foods and fishing supplement hunting Atlatl used to throw spears Regional trade begins Ceramic pottery and mounds appear toward end of period Woodland 500 B.C.E.–1000 C.E. Settled life in permanent villages and tribes develop Agriculture begins while hunting continues Pottery in many shapes for many uses decorated in a variety of patterns Burial mounds become common Bows and arrows and corn adopted toward end of period Mississippian 1000 C.E.–1500 C.E. Agriculture based on corn, beans, and squash becomes basis for large communities Large temple mounds serve as center of ceremonial sites Chiefs head hierarchical societies Warfare increases Pottery includes crushed shells as tempering substance Widespread trade in rare goods controlled by chiefs Poverty Point appeared toward the end of the long Archaic period, identified by specialists as lasting from 8000 to 1000 B.C.E. and blended into the Woodland stage, which lasted until 1000 C.E. Life changed because Indians began to gather more seed-bearing plants and to garden them, encouraging the growth of goosefoot, may grass, knotweed, and sunflowers. They settled down into widely dispersed communities, built wood houses, and began to conduct elaborate burial rituals for their dead with prized possessions made of copper, stone, and shells to comfort the dead. Bows provided them a better weapon and improved their hunts. The population probably increased because of a better food supply, and they began to settle into villages before acquiring agriculture. Around 700 C.E. the Cole’s Creek Culture emerged between the Gulf Coast and the Yazoo Basin with distinctive flat-topped, pyramidal mounds usually arranged around an open plaza. Few lived on site, but obviously it provided a civic and ceremonial center.They built the mounds in stages and constructed buildings atop the mounds,which may have been temples,charnel houses, or homes for elite families. Cole’s Creek peoples experimented 44.93.73] Project MUSE (2024-04-20 05:37 GMT) 9 Rise and Fall of Indian Culture | with maize or corn, but the plant served only a supplementary role in their food supply. In the Mississippian period, from 1000 to 1500 C.E., maize became the main source of food along with squash and beans. In the Mississippian era, corn provided more nutrients than its distant cousin grown today, and Indians made two crops each...