Mississippian culture
▶ Explore on the mapThe Mississippian culture flourished in the river valleys of eastern North America between about 800 and 1350 CE, built on maize agriculture and the trade routes of the Mississippi and its tributaries. Its largest centre was Cahokia, opposite modern St Louis, which by 1100 held perhaps 10,000 to 20,000 people, more than London at the same date, and spread over a planned landscape of plazas, woodhenges and neighbourhoods. Monks Mound, a stepped earthwork about thirty metres high, supported a chief's house, and from its summit the ruler could see the hundred or so smaller mounds arranged around the plaza. The people grew maize, beans and squash, hunted deer and fish, and manufactured shell beads, copper plates and engraved marine shells traded across half the continent. An elite religion, the southeastern ceremonial complex, spread its imagery of falcons, suns and hands from the Great Lakes to Florida. The site was abandoned around 1350, perhaps because of flooding, poor harvests or political collapse; other centres such as Moundville and Etowah declined later. When Europeans arrived, the descendants of these peoples had moved into towns and chiefdoms further east and south. The culture is defined archaeologically by its platform mounds and its shell-tempered pottery.