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Decline of Mississippian Culture (1430s)
By the 1430s, Mississippian culture in eastern North America was in long-term decline: large mound cities like Cahokia lost population, regional cent…
Timeline
- 1431–1435Cahokia site · Mississippi River BasinCahokia had already declined greatly in the 14th century; by the 1430s the main mound area was almost uninhabited. Though the large plazas and mounds still stood, the functions of regional political and economic center had shifted to dispersed settlements.
- 1435–1440Southeastern North America · SoutheastIn the late Mississippian period, a new political landscape formed in the southeastern North America based on smaller chiefdoms, preserving mound-building and ceremonial traditions but no longer maintaining regional centralization on the scale of Cahokia.
Sources
- Cahokia: Ancient America's Great City on the Mississippi — Timothy R. Pauketat (2009)
- Archaeology of the Mississippian Culture — David H. Dye and Cheryl Anne Cox (1990)