The Southeast before 1600 A.D.

Native American societies varied greatly across the continent. One of the most distinctive cultures developed in the precontact Southeast and is called Mississippian by anthropologists and historians. Mississippian societies arose around 1000 A.D. and lasted until about 1600. Several European expeditions, most notably the one led by Hernando de Soto in the 1540s, encountered Mississippian peoples. Although groups speaking several different languages produced Mississippian societies, they shared many cultural traits. The most spectacular features of these societies were the temple- and burial- mound centers they constructed. The largest such site is at Cahokia in what is now Collinsville, Illinois, just east of St. Louis, Missouri; the village area extended for six miles along the Illinois River, contained eighty-five temple and burial mounds, and sustained a population perhaps as high as seventy-five thousand persons. Being master farmers allowed the Mississippians to...