Notes on Mississippian Indians in Georgia

For thousands of years, American Indians inhabited the land that is now Georgia.
The Paleo, Woodland, and Archaic American Indian cultures lived throughout southeastern North America prior to European exploration.
In the mid-1550s, the Mississippian American Indian group was living in Georgia when Europeans arrived in the area.

The Mississippians prospered from $800 \text{ to } 1600 \text{ CE}$ .
They organized themselves into a hierarchical society where each tribe was ruled by a chief.
The tribe was divided between a small group of elites who held the power and everyone else who was the workforce.

Unlike American Plains Indians, Mississippian Indians were not nomadic.
They had permanent settlements with sophisticated villages and farming practices.
The Mississippians created their settlements near rivers.
Every substantial town was built around a centralized public plaza, or Square Ground, where residents and visitors met to discuss and settle social, political, commercial, or legal issues facing the community.
At the center of the Square Ground burned a Sacred Fire, the catalyst for all community religious activity.
Along the sides of the square were seats from which tribal officers and other citizens performed their civic and religious duties.
This layout is a symbolic representation of a Square Ground and Sacred Fire.

They built complex defense structures like palisades, guard towers, and moats around the towns.
Inside the fences, there was a central plaza area and many residential zones.
The plaza featured mounds of earth that were dedicated to religious and social activities.
Towns were protected by a huge wall of logs called a palisade.
The Mississippians built their towns around a central plaza that held a council house where government meetings took place.

Thousands of families lived within the residential areas of the town.
The Mississippians created wattle and daub structures with walls built with a network of interwoven sticks and covered with clay mud.
These one-room dwellings only served as sleeping facilities as they spent most of their days out in the open.

Like many indigenous groups, the Mississippian Indians were polytheistic, meaning they worshipped many gods.
They held many religious ceremonies and created effigies to honor dead ancestors.
They created ornate pottery pieces that were used during the religious ceremonies to represent supernatural beings and events.

Some of the earthen mounds were used as burial grounds.
The mounds featured multiple terraces and a summit structure.
They had a ramp with log stairs.
The mounds consisted of multiple layers of fill.
Platform mounds formed part of ceremonial and political landscapes, often hosting summit structures and secondary mounds.

Mississippian Indians were the first of Georgia's early inhabitants to begin farming on a large scale.
Maize (corn) was the dominant crop.
They also grew beans, squash, pumpkins, sunflowers, and tobacco.
They gathered seasonal fruits like grapes, blackberries, raspberries, plums, and a variety of nuts.

They used bows, arrows, and stone knives to hunt a variety of wild game.
Bone evidence proves that they hunted (and ate) deer, raccoon, turkey, beaver, rabbit, muskrat, turtles, and fish.

The Mississippians used natural materials like bone, shells, and stone to make their weapons and tools.
They improved on the tools of previous American Indian cultures to use in hunting and farming.

A widespread trading network connected the Mississippian villages.
They traded raw materials with each other, as well as finished goods like stone tools, pottery, and beads.
They were accomplished craftsmen, creating pottery, weapons, tools, and jewelry.

In the mid-1500s, Hernando De Soto led a group of Spanish explorers into the region.
After interacting, thousands of Mississippians contracted European diseases and died.
The remaining Mississippians reorganized into the tribes of the Creek and Cherokee.

The Creek Indians lived in southern Georgia, while the Cherokee lived in the northern part of the state.
The two tribes had similar cultures and ways of life.

Unknown Tribal Affiliation entries indicate areas with uncertain identifications on the NAGPRA map (National Park Service).
The map shows various affiliations including Creeks, Cherokees, Seminoles, and unknowns.

A list of Mississippian centers and related terms appears (likely site names or cultural groups):
- ONEOTA, ANGEL, FORT ANCIENT, SPIRO, CAHOKIA, KINCAID, MIDDLE MISSISSIPPIAN, APPALACHIAN SOUTH, COLTE, CADDOAN, MISSISSIPPIAN, MISSISSIPPIAN, WINTERVILLE, ETOWAH, MOUNDVILLE, OCUMULGEE, PLAQUEMINE, MISSISSIPPIAN, EMERALD LAKE JACKSON, +
These names reflect major Mississippian sites and regional variants.

The Mississippian tradition demonstrates complex social organization, monumental architecture, settled agriculture, extensive trade networks, and a lasting impact on the cultural landscape of the Southeastern United States.
European contact dramatically reshaped these societies, leading to disease-driven population declines and reorganization into later tribes (Creek and Cherokee).