page_title: Mississippian culture
section_title: Middle Mississippian
hierarchical_section_title: Mississippian culture / Regional variations / Middle Mississippian
caption_attribution_description: English: Replica of house built over 1000 years ago and discovered at Aztalan on the Crawfish River. Exhibit in the Wisconsin Historical Museum, Madison, Wisconsin, USA. This item is old enough so that it is in the public domain. Photography was permitted in the museum without restriction.
context_page_description: The Mississippian culture was a mound-building Native American civilization that flourished in what is now the Midwestern, Eastern, and Southeastern United States from approximately 800 CE to 1600 CE, varying regionally. 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.
  The Mississippian way of life began to develop in the Mississippi River Valley. 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, with notable exceptions being Natchez communities that maintained Mississippian cultural practices into the 18th century.
context_section_description: 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 the Cahokia polity located near East St. Louis, Illinois, was 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.
  Cahokia: The largest and most complex Mississippian site and the largest Pre-Columbian settlement north of Mexico, Cahokia is considered to have been the most influential of the Mississippian culture centers. Discoveries found at the massive site include evidence of copper working (Mound 34), astronomy (Cahokia Woodhenge and the symbolic maximum southern moon rise aligned Rattlesnake Causeway), and ritual retainer burials (Mound 72).
  Angel Mounds: A chiefdom in southern Indiana near Evansville. It is thought by some archaeologists that the Late Mississippian Caborn-Welborn culture developed from the Angel Phase people around 1400 CE and lasted to around 1700 CE.
  Kincaid Site: A major Mississippian mound center in southern Illinois across the Ohio River from Paducah, Kentucky.
  Moundville: Ranked with Cahokia as one of the two most important sites at the core of the Mississippian culture, located near Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
  The Parkin Site: The type site for the "Parkin phase", an expression of Late Mississippian culture, believed by many archaeologists to be the province of Casqui visited by Hernando de Soto in 1542.
caption: Replica of a Mississippian house from over 1000 years ago excavated at the Aztalan site of the Oneota region in an exhibit at the Wisconsin Historical Museum
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