The rise of Mississippian societies in the south
had a profound impact on the people of the Upper Midwest and their
historical
trajectory for hundreds of years. During the time period around
A.D. 1000-1100, the Effigy
Mound Tradition largely disintegrated
and new cultures were created which archaeologists refer to as
Terminal Late Woodland. These people
still practiced a seasonal round of resource exploitation and buried
their dead in conical
burial mounds, but their villages were larger, more permanent and
corn was grown much more intensively. The presence of palisades
around some of these villages likely indicates an increase in warfare
during this period. This situation of increasing population, difficulty
in conducting seasonal rounds due to occupied land, and “enforced” sedantism
and reliance on agriculture greatly stressed traditional lifeways.
These stresses made groups susceptible to new ideas and ways of
viewing the world that were emanating from Misssissippian centers
to the south. <<<pic: Sketch of Village Site>>>
While Terminal Late Woodland people were adapting to new conditions,
Mississippian societies
to the south were dealing with their own stresses. As rival elite
lineages vied for control of the large Mississippian towns in the south, many
of them attempted to create ties with distant groups as a means of enhancing
their own prestige and attracting followers. These ties were likely pursued
through trading of exotic goods combined with marriage and political alliances.
Integrative adoptive ceremonies were likely practiced to facilitate these alliances
through the aforementioned trade, establishment of marriage ties or “fictive” kin
relations through adoption. It is highly probable that some Terminal Late Woodland
leaders pursued connections with southern Mississippians from their end as
a way to strengthen their power within the volatile social climate of the north.
These contacts allowed for Mississippian ideas to be selectively adopted, altered
or rejected by northern peoples. <<<pic: evidence of exchange between these
groups>>>
These ideas were very different from traditional
Woodland world views and disagreements over their acceptance or dismissal
may have further destabilized societies in the north.
One of the most fascinating sites from this time period is the Gottschall
rock shelter in southern Wisconsin which has been painstakingly excavated
for twenty
years by Dr. Robert Salzer. <<<pic: Gottschall Rock Shelter--perhaps with
excavation>>>
This small cave contains a remarkable series
of paintings on the wall that depict characters from an important Siouan
legend
that is still told among the Ho-Chunk of Wisconsin. Excavations indicate
that the ceremonies associated with the paintings ended around the time
that Woodland
traditions were giving way to new lifestyles and ideas, including those
brought to the north by Mississippian emissaries. It is believed
that the main figure
on the painted composition is Red Horn or He who wears human heads as earrings,
an important character in Siouan stories. Small long nosed god masketts
of shell have been found at certain Mississippian burials and there
is one exampple
of a Mississippian fire-clay figurine depicting a warrior/falcon impersonator
(Red Horn?) wearing these masketts. This character may have played an important
role in the initial contact and amalgamation of Mississippian and Woodland
peoples in the north. <<<pic: Rock Art of Red Horn>>>
Salzer has postulated that the site represents
an ancient Woodland (and possibly earlier) ancestor shrine where
later
date ceremonies
were conducted to honor the ancestors as well as integrate both Mississippian
and Woodland peoples. Evidence of burning, simplification and eventually
cessation of ceremonies after this may indicate that these mechanisms ultimately
failed
and hostilities broke out between these groups. Such an interpretation
would go along with other evidence such as palisaded villages to
indicate that
this time was extremely dynamic and volatile for people in the region.
Although Mississippian contacts may initially have constituted long distance
trade, marriage or fictive kin alliances, within several generations this
changed to the actual migration of Mississippian peoples to the north.
There is evidence
for possible movements of Mississippian people into areas occupied by local
Terminal Woodland people along the Apple River in northwestern Illinois,
Trempealeau and Aztalan in Wisconsin, and Red Wing, Minnesota. The Trempealeu
location
seems to have been occupied briefly by Mississippian people relatively
early, but was abandoned in favor of the Red Wing locality. Aztalan represents
a
large, fortified Terminal Late Woodland village that saw the immigration
of a group
of Mississippians and restructuring of the town to include plazas and large
platform mounds. There are no other Mississippian sites around Aztalan
and the site seems to represent a location where local Woodland people
invited
Mississippian settlers, possibly to assist in hostilities with neighboring
people. It appears that Aztalan came to a sudden end, possibly as a result
of this long term conflict. <<<pic: Aztalan w/link>>>
The best example of Mississippian migration to the north is the Apple River
locality in northwestern Illinois. Here there is evidense for a substantial
local population of Terminal Late Woodland people and an influx of Mississippians
with subsequent construction of several large towns with platform mounds.
Dispersed between these towns were smaller hamlets and farmsteads. The
Apple River people
sat at the “gateway” to the Upper Mississippi Driftless area
and for several centuries could monitor movements of people, ideas and
exotic trade
goods between the Woodland north and Mississippian south. It is likely
that the Apple River settlements played a crucial role as “cultural
mediator” between
these two interacting realms. <<<pic: Apple River site and artifacts>>>
The Apple River sites are not well understood,
but recent excavations by the University of Illinois indicate that this
area is critical to understanding the Mississippian impact on cultural
developments
in the north. Moving upriver from here there are several fortified, Woodland
sites with abundant evidence for contacts with southern Mississippians
and Plains farming groups to the west. This dynamic and possibly
violent time period
set in motion processes that determined the course of Native peoples
and their histories for centuries to come.
What happened to these Mississippian migrants and their Woodland allies?
At the present we do not know, except that by A.D. 1350 (possibly earlier)
many
of the great southern Mississippian centers such as Cahokia were largely
abandoned. At the same time the northern Mississippian centers of Apple
River, Aztalan
and Red Wing also ceased to exist, with the people leaving to unknown
locations. Archaeologists debate what happened to these centers, but
one point they
agree on is that the Mississippian adaptive strategy, social system and
way of life
did not succeed in the north. Initially the Mississippian life way and
belief systems may have offered an alternative to Terminal Woodland groups
faced
with the failure of traditional systems due to population pressures and
warfare. Despite the allure of new ideas and actual migration of Mississippian
peoples,
it did not take long for these amalgamated groups to develop new cultures
that
bore less and less resemblance to the stratified, town centered chiefdoms
to the south.
At the same time that Mississippians were migrating north to live with
allied Woodland groups, an indigenous culture known as Oneota was developing
in
parts of Wisconsin and Minnesota. Oneota people lived in large villages,
used shell
tempered pottery and grew substantial amounts of corn and other crops.
Despite these similarities with Mississippian people, the Oneota had
a much more
decentralized political structure that allowed large groups the mobility
to break up easily
for hunts and the pursuit of other seasonal resources. <<<pic: Oneota
artifacts--to contrast with others>>>
It is likely that
the Oneota were descendents of some Effigy Mound and Terminal Woodland
people of
the area while other such groups allied themselves with Mississippian
people and ideas. It appears that in some areas there was a frontier
of violent
conflict between both of emerginf Oneota and Terminal Woodland/Mississippian
peoples.
Although local groups allied with Mississippians may have temporarily
had an upper hand, ultimately it was the Oneota lifestyle that prevailed
throughout
the upper Midwest. It is likely that the northern Mississippian peoples
eventually joined with powerfull Oneota groups nearby as southern Mississippian
centers
began to decline. If this did indeed happen, Mississippian ideas would
undoubtedly have been brought with them. As groups like the Ho-Chunk
and Ioway are likely
descended from Oneota peoples, their traditions likely have a deep
ancestory and heritage in regional Effigy Mound, Terminal Woodland,
and migrant
Mississippian traditions.
Today, some archeologists have even turned to
elders from these groups for assistance in interpreting some of
their findings. This link will take you to an excellent example
of one such onging project. <<<link to Salzer
talk--perhaps with a small version of the title pic>>>
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