Mississippian culture Mounds 3.0

When we say that Mississippian culture spread from Iowa to Georgia, and from New Orleans to Pennsylvania, we are saying...

• Mississippian culture didn't occupy a lot of territory

• People of the Mississippian culture traveled around a lot and didn't settle

• The Mississippian culture spread across the all of central North America

• The Mississippians imposed their culture on neighboring tribes by force

Among the artifacts found in Mississippian mounds, there are ...

• iron weapons and armor

• bones of mastodons

• gold jewelry, and calendar tablets

• Pottery, copper jewelry, and fishhooks

Many of the Mound-Builder archeological sites keep their location information confidential because...

• other scientists might beat them to new discoveries

• they are very shy, and hate to have people look at them while they're working

• local authorities might try to confiscate artifact they find

• they want to hide the location from grave-robbers and artifact-hunters

Later Mississippian towns were planned: they had ...

• a stone castle high on a mountain ridge, with terraced fields at the edge of cliffs

• A large plaza surrounded by several ceremonial mounds, with neighborhoods of houses all around

• a single straight main street with businesses in ground floor stores

• toll gates at all the entrances to raise revenue for the king

In addition to building mounds, the Mississippian culture built many symbolic earth works. But they did not build...

• a giant 1/4 mile long snake

• mounds shaped like bears and birds

• multi-story observatories

• long walled avenues

Houses in Mississippian towns were...

• tall, pointed structures like a Plains Indian tipi

• bent poles covered with bark, much like a Lenape longhouse

• multi-story adobe apartment bildings

• sod-covered huts dug into the ground