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The Mississippian
culture was considered the highest prehistoric civilization in
Georgia. This culture was started about 700 A.D. and lasted until the
arrival of the European explorers. It was named the Mississippian
culture because its villages were first excavated near the
Mississippian River. The Mississippian Age or the Temple Mound Age
was a time when the people lived in villages, farmed, and were very
religious.
The Mississippian
Indians were known as horticulturists, or the growing of plants and
crops. These people grew most of their food such as maize (corn),
beans, pumpkins, tobacco, and squash. They used the tobacco in
religious ceremonies. They used fields in the hills to grow the crops
and used different fields each year so the soil would stay fertile.
Around this time
people began to dress differently. They wore less simple outfits and
wore beads and ear ornaments, and also tattooed their bodies and wore
feathered head dresses.
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Retrieved
February 9, 2007, Web site:
http://www.pixelparadox.com/native_americans.htm |
Villages
consisted of several thousand families. They built centers for
religious ceremonies as a home for the priest-chief. Moats and wooden
fences often protected the village.
About 1600 A.D.,
something mysterious happened. All the people left and no reason has
been found as to why. Was it disease, war, did they move? We may
never know what happened to the Mississippian Indians and their
culture. |
