The Hopewell tradition describes the common aspects of the Native American culture that flourished along rivers in the northeastern and midwestern United States from 100 BCE to 500 CE, in the Middle Woodland period. The Hopewell tradition was not a single culture or society, but a widely dispersed set of related populations. They were connected by a common network of trade routes, known as the Hopewell exchange system.
Fort Ancient is a name for a Native American culture that flourished from Ca. 1000-1750 CE and predominantly inhabited land near the Ohio River valley in the areas of modern-day southern Ohio, northern Kentucky, southeastern Indiana and western West Virginia. Although a contemporary of the Mississippian Culture, they are often considered a "sister culture" and distinguished from the Mississippian Culture. Although far from agreed upon, there is evidence to suggest that the Fort Ancient Culture were not the direct descendants of the Hopewellian Culture]. It is suspected that the Fort Ancient Culture introduced maize agriculture to Ohio. The Fort Ancient Culture were most likely the builders of the Great Serpent Mound.
Ocmulgee National Monument preserves traces of over ten millennia of Southeastern Native American culture, including major earthworks built before 1000 CE by the South Appalachian Mississippian culture These include the Great Temple and other ceremonial mounds, a burial mound, and defensive trenches. They represented highly skilled engineering techniques and soil knowledge, and the organization of many laborers. The site has evidence of "17,000 years of continuous human habitation." The 702-acre (2.84 km2) park is located on the east bank of the Ocmulgee River. Present-day Macon, Georgia developed around the site after the United States built Fort Benjamin Hawkins nearby in 1806.
The various cultures collectively termed "Mound Builders" were inhabitants of North America who, during a circa 5,000-year period, constructed various styles of earthen mounds for religious, ceremonial, burial, and elite residential purposes. These included the pre-Columbian cultures of the Archaic period, Woodland period, and Mississippian period; dating from roughly 3500 BCE to the 16th century CE, and living in regions of the Great Lakes, the Ohio River Valley, and the Mississippi River valley and its tributary waters.
Shiloh Indian Mounds Site (40HR7) is an archaeological site of the South Appalachian Mississippian culture. It is located beside the Tennessee River on the grounds of the Shiloh National Military Park, in Hardin County of southwestern Tennessee. A National Historic Landmark, it is one of the largest Woodland era sites in the southeastern United States.
Dickson Mounds is a Native American settlement site and burial mound complex near Lewistown, Illinois. It is located in Fulton County on a low bluff overlooking the Illinois River. It is a large burial complex containing at least two cemeteries, ten superimposed burial mounds, and a platform mound. The Dickson Mounds site was founded by 800 CE and was in use until after 1250 CE. The site is named in honor of chiropractor Don Dickson, who began excavating it in 1927 and opened a private museum that formerly operated on the site. Its exhibition of the 237 uncovered skeletons uncovered and displayed by Dickson was closed in 1992 by then-Gov. Jim Edgar.
The Fort Walton culture is the term used by archaeologists for a late prehistoric Native American archaeological culture that flourished in southeastern North America from approximately 1200~1500 CE and is associated with the historic Apalachee people.
This is a timeline of in North American prehistory, from 1000 BC until European contact.
The Nacoochee Mound is an archaeological site on the banks of the Chattahoochee River in White County, in the northeast part of the U.S. state of Georgia, at the junction of Georgia Georgia State Route 17 and Georgia State Route 75. First occupied as early as 100-500 CE, the site was later developed and occupied more intensively by peoples of the South Appalachian Mississippian culture from 1350 to 1600 CE. One of their characteristic platform mounds is located at the site. A professional archeological excavation revealed a total of 75 human burials, with artifacts that support dating of the site.
The Kincaid Mounds Historic Site c. 1050–1400 CE, is the site of a city from the prehistoric Mississippian culture. One of the largest settlements of the Mississippian culture, it was located at the southern tip of present-day U.S. state of Illinois. Kincaid Mounds has been notable for both its significant role in native North American prehistory and for the central role the site has played in the development of modern archaeological techniques. The site had at least 11 substructure platform mounds. Artifacts from the settlement link its major habitation and the construction of the mounds to the Mississippian period, but it was also occupied earlier during the Woodland period.
The archaeology of Iowa is the study of the buried remains of human culture within the U.S. state of Iowa from the earliest prehistoric through the late historic periods. When the American Indians first arrived in what is now Iowa more than 13,000 years ago, they were hunters and gatherers living in a Pleistocene glacial landscape. By the time European explorers visited Iowa, American Indians were largely settled farmers with complex economic, social, and political systems. This transformation happened gradually. During the Archaic period American Indians adapted to local environments and ecosystems, slowly becoming more sedentary as populations increased. More than 3,000 years ago, during the Late Archaic period, American Indians in Iowa began utilizing domesticated plants. The subsequent Woodland period saw an increase on the reliance on agriculture and social complexity, with increased use of mounds, ceramics, and specialized subsistence. During the Late Prehistoric period increased use of maize and social changes led to social flourishing and nucleated settlements. The arrival of European trade goods and diseases in the Protohistoric period led to dramatic population shifts and economic and social upheaval, with the arrival of new tribes and early European explorers and traders. During the Historical period European traders and American Indians in Iowa gave way to American settlers and Iowa was transformed into an agricultural state.
The Caddoan Mississippian culture was a prehistoric Native American culture considered by archaeologists as a variant of the Mississippian culture. The Caddoan Mississippians covered a large territory, including what is now Eastern Oklahoma, Western Arkansas, Northeast Texas, and Northwest Louisiana. Archaeological evidence that the cultural continuity is unbroken from prehistory to the present; that the direct ancestors of the modern Caddo Nation of Oklahoma included the speakers of the Caddo and related Caddo language in prehistoric times and at first European contact, is unquestioned today.
The Rowlandton Mound Site (15MCN3) is a Mississippian culture archaeological site located in Paducah in McCracken County, Kentucky, on the edge of an old oxbow lake a little south of the Ohio River.
The Summerour Mound Site, (9FO16), is an archaeological site located in Forsyth County, Georgia, formerly on a floodplain of the Chattahoochee River in northern Georgia but it is now under the Buford Reservoir, also known as Lake Lanier. This mound site was excavated in 1951–54 by Joseph Caldwell. The platform mound at the site was "considerably spread out in cultivation and ... now an oval, with a nearly level summit plateau about 225 feet (69 m) long, 150 feet (46 m) wide, and 9 feet (2.7 m) high." Caldwell found a temple or other public structure on the mound summit. It was rectangular, 18.5 feet (5.6 m) long by 16 feet (4.9 m) wide, the outer walls constructed of small posts set in wall trenches. The mounds chronology is in debate, with its original excavator placing it in the Early Mississippian Woodstock phase and later archaeologists arguing for an earlier Late Woodland period construction. Several styles of Native American pottery sherds were found at the site, including B-complex Swift Creek, Napier Complicated Stamped, and plain pottery.
The Mandeville Site (9CY1) is an archaeological site in Clay County in southwest Georgia in the United States. The site now lies under the Walter F. George Reservoir, which is a part of the Chattahoochee River basin.
The Chauga Mound (38OC1) is an archaeological site once located on the northern bank of the Tugaloo River 1,200 feet (370 m) north of the mouth of the Chauga River in Oconee County, South Carolina in the Lake Hartwell Basin. The mound is now inundated by Lake Hartwell. The mound and village portion of the site was built by peoples of the South Appalachian Mississippian culture
Mississippian copper plates, or plaques, are plain and repousséd plates of beaten copper crafted by peoples of the various regional expressions of the Mississippian culture between 800 and 1600 CE. They have been found as artifacts in archaeological sites in the American Midwest and Southeast. The plates, found as far afield as Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Wisconsin, were instrumental in the development of the archaeological concept known as the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex. Some of the more notable examples are representations of raptorial birds and avian-themed dancing warriors.
