Archaeology Magazine - September/October 1985 - 62

In the Field
Fortifications
at
Moundville
AND
ALLAN
O.
VOGEL
JEAN
JOSEPH
by
Southeast held to a common set of beAmerican archaeology has long been fasonly one mound; and the paramount
chief lived in the major civic-ceremonial
cinated by the groups of earthen mounds
liefs, symbols, and ritual practices combuilt in antiquity by the Native Americenter which, as in the case of Moundmonly referred to as the Southeastern
Ceremonial Complex. From ethnocans of the eastern woodlands. Once
ville, had several mounds.
Chiefs at all levels had broad rights
attributed to ancient Israelites or to the
graphic accounts we know that Indians
of request for goods and services, and
in the Southeast periodically extinsurvivors of Atlantis or other mythical
these items were given them as tribute
guished the household fires within the
people, the mounds are now recognized
chiefdom. The heads of households then
as one dramatic aspect of a prehistoric
by the villagers. In exchange, the chiefs
came to the center as new fire was igcultural florescence.
weregenerally responsible for the group's
welfare. They recruited labor for public
nited with great ceremony. At other
Nearly a thousand years ago many of
the fertile river valleys of the southworks, organized religious festivals, metimes, residences were leveled and covdiated disputes among members, and
ered with fresh earth, thus enlarging the
eastern United States housed highly
defended the group from outside atmound structure. Participation in these
organized, powerful and artistically sotackers. The status of the headman or
rituals, combined with a sense of kinphisticated groups of Indians. They are
chief was linked to his ability to obtain
known to archaeologists as the Missisship with the leaders of the chiefdom,
rare materials through trade and to oremphasized the Indians' feelings of unity
sippians, a collective term that obscures
and facilitated the operation of their remuch of the individual distinctiveness
ganize his kin in socially useful activities. Kin groups, on which headmen and
of the various groups. The development
distributive economy.
of the Mississippian lifeway throughout
chiefs relied in this way, also gained staWhile the mounds could be said to
the Southeast and the Mississippi River
tus, authority, and power, and came to
symbolize the religious and social order
dominate the chiefdoms. Individual rank
of the Mississippian chiefdoms, the podrainage was a significant highpoint in
was determined by one's social distance
the prehistory of eastern North America.
litical order of the times was symbolfrom the highest ranked member of one's
The focus of Mississippian life in the
ized by the construction of massive
Black Warrior Valley of west-central
community.
fortifications. Most of the Indians' poAt all levels, membership in the kinAlabama was a large town near Moundlitical activity seems to have focused on
dred carried with it significant rights
ville. This civic/ceremonial center, prealleviating stresses and facilitating
and obligations, which extended even
served as Mound State Monument, was
trade, rather than on gaining political
to the interchange of information and
contained within stout wooden walls
dominance, but warfare or the threat of
of raw materials, like copper, obsidian,
nearly five kilometers in length. Formed
warfare appears to have been a constant
of upright logs and resembling a fronshell, salt, and locally unavailable food- feature of life. Raids were designed eistuffs. So, while goods and services
tier fort, they extended in an arc from
ther to seize lands or stored crops or to
the river's banks, covering the landward
passed up the hierarchy to be consumed
preempt attacks by neighboring groups,
for the subsistence and political need of
approaches to the town. The walls had
and thus prevent the build-up of strength
the nobility, necessities and commands
gates at strategic positions and projectcapable of true conquest.
also flowed back down the ladder for
ing bastions protected these. Within the
Each chiefdom needed to protect its
the benefit of villagers on the fringes of
walls, nearly 300 acres of site contain 20
borders, but impressive defensive works
the chiefdom.
mounds and a large central plaza. It is
were reserved for the main town at its
estimated that nearly 3,000 people lived
Mississippian systems throughout the
center. From place to place one finds
there, and another 7,000 lived in farmevidence of multiple rebuilding and reloing villages and hamlets on the river
cation of the defensive works- ditches,
bottoms below. The town flourished in
earthen embankments and woodenstockthe centuries prior to de Soto's invasion
ades with bastions, constructed of
of the area and was not rediscovered
closely-set vertical posts. Whether these
until the nineteenth century.
massive works, among the largest structures produced by prehistoric peoples in
The Mississippian
eastern North America, were truly delifeway
signed to thwart an enemy or to focalize
By the thirteenth century the Missisthe attentions of tribal members is difsippian Indians had developed an intenficult to decide.
sive agricultural economy and a wide
network of permanent farming villages.
These farmsteads were situated on arable bottom lands fertilized by the annual floods of the Black Warrior River.
In this rich soil the Indians cultivated
corn, beans, squash, and other foodstuffs.
The Mississippian society was an
intricate fabric of mutual obligation reinforced by the dual threads of kin allegiances and economic interdependence.
The kindred was organized into a threetiered pyramid of authority, with hereditary ranks: village headmen lived in
small hamlets; medium-levelchiefs lived
in regional centers which usually had
Mississippian

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Archaeology Magazine - September/October 1985

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