page_title: History of Louisiana
section_title: Mississippian period
hierarchical_section_title: History of Louisiana / Prehistory / Mississippian period
caption_attribution_description: English: A map showing the geographical extent of the en:Caddoan Mississippian culture of prehistoric southeastern North America and some important sites.
context_page_description: The history of the area that is now the US state of Louisiana began roughly 10,000 years ago. The first traces of permanent settlement, ushering in the Archaic period, appear about 5,500 years ago.
  The area formed part of the Eastern Agricultural Complex. The Marksville culture emerged about 2,000 years ago out of the earlier Tchefuncte culture. It is considered ancestral to the Natchez and Taensa peoples. About 1,000 years ago, the Mississippian culture emerged from the Woodland period. The emergence of the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex coincides with the adoption of maize agriculture and chiefdom-level complex social organization beginning in c. 1200 AD. The Mississippian culture mostly disappeared around the 16th century, with the exception of some Natchez communities that maintained Mississippian cultural practices into the 18th century.
  European influence began in the 16th century, and La Louisiane became a colony of the Kingdom of France in 1682, before passing to Spain in 1763. It became part of the United States following the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. Antebellum Louisiana was a leading slave state; in 1860, 47% of the population was enslaved.
context_section_description: The Mississippian period in Louisiana saw the emergence of the Plaquemine and Caddoan Mississippian cultures. This was the period when extensive maize agriculture was adopted. The Plaquemine culture in the lower Mississippi River Valley in western Mississippi and eastern Louisiana began in 1200 AD and continued until about 1600 AD. Good examples of this culture are the Medora Site (the type site for the culture and period), Fitzhugh Mounds, Transylvania Mounds, and Scott Place Mounds in Louisiana and the Anna, Emerald, Winterville and Holly Bluff sites located in Mississippi. Plaquemine culture was contemporaneous with the Middle Mississippian culture at the Cahokia site near St. Louis, Missouri. By 1000 AD in the northwestern part of the state the Fourche Maline culture had evolved into the Caddoan Mississippian culture. By 1400 AD Plaquemine had started to hybridize through contact with Middle Mississippian cultures to the north and became what archaeologist term Plaquemine Mississippian. These peoples are considered ancestral to historic groups encountered by the first Europeans in the area, the Natchez and Taensa peoples. The Caddoan Mississippians covered a large territory, including what is now eastern Oklahoma, western Arkansas, northeast Texas, and northwest Louisiana. Archaeological evidence that the cultural continuity is unbroken from prehistory to the present, and that the direct ancestors of the Caddo and related Caddo language speakers in prehistoric times and at first European contact and the modern Caddo Nation of Oklahoma is unquestioned today.  Significant Caddoan Mississippian archaeological sites in Louisiana include Belcher Mound Site in Caddo Parish and Gahagan Mounds Site in Red River Parish.
caption: Map of the Caddoan Mississippian culture and some important sites
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