Using fresh evidence and nontraditional ideas, the contributing authors of Mississippian Beginnings reconsider the origins of the Mississippian culture of the North American Midwest and Southeast (A.D. 1000-1600). Challenging the decades-old opinion that this culture evolved similarly across isolated Woodland populations, they discuss signs of migrations, pilgrimages, violent conflicts, and other far-flung entanglements that now appear to have shaped the early Mississippian past.
Presenting recent fieldwork, archival studies, and new investigations of legacy collections, the essays in this volume interpret results through contemporary perspectives that emphasize agency and historical contingency. They track the various ways disparate cultures across a sizeable swath of the continent came to share similar architecture, pottery, subsistence strategies, sociopolitical organization, iconography, and religion. Together, they provide the most comprehensive examination of early Mississippian culture in nearly thirty years.
- ISBN13 9781683400103
- Publish Date 30 June 2017
- Publish Status Active
- Out of Print 13 January 2024
- Publish Country US
- Imprint University Press of Florida
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 336
- Language English