Above and below the Green Line: a social history of divergent Mississippian cultures

ABSTRACT

A cultural boundary between Late Mississippi period groups has long been observed in the Yazoo Basin corresponding with the mouth of the Arkansas River. However, similarities in mound site structure, settlement location, and processes associated with Mississippianization have sometimes led researchers to downplay these differences, effectively treating the Yazoo Basin as a single physiographic and cultural unit. We examine the idea that subtle differences in physiography within the Yazoo Basin can account for observed differences in material culture. We find that while physiography explains site location and may have influenced how Mississippian people interacted, it does not explain residential patterns, mound site use, or interactions with people from the American Bottom during the “Cahokia horizon.” Instead, we argue that Mississippi period mound sites in the northern and southern Yazoo Basin differed fundamentally in their functions, and that these differences are rooted in Late Woodland Coles Creek and Baytown notions of dwelling and ceremonial practice.

KEYWORDS:

• Yazoo Basin
• Mississippian
• Coles Creek
• mound ceremonialism
• settlement patterns
• Lower Mississippi Valley
• historical development

Acknowledgments

Jay Johnson and John Connaway provided helpful feedback on early drafts of this article. Our manuscript was greatly improved by thoughtful comments from Patrick Livingood and Richard Weinstein. John Connaway and Elizabeth Hunt provided images for use in this publication.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

A separate data set is not provided for this paper.

Additional information

Funding

Erin Nelson’s research at Parchman Place Mounds was funded by the National Science Foundation [DDIG #1036363], the Graduate School at the University of North Carolina, the Center for the Study of the American South and the Timothy P. Mooney Fellowship. Jessica Kowalski’s research at Arcola Mounds was funded through the David and Elizabeth DeJarnette Endowed Scholarship in Anthropology at the University of Alabama.