Unit Topic: Mississippian Civilization

Day 1: Locating the Mississippian Civilization
	The focus of today's lesson is where did the Mississippian Civilization occur. First I will start off by asking students what they may already know about the Mississippian Civilization. As a class we will make a list on the board (this will stay throughout the duration of the unit and we will add to and change as needed as we progress). Also, see if students are able to take an educated guess as to where the civilization may be.
	Students will work in small groups and use maps to help them locate the civilization. Students will be given a list of questions that they have to use the map to help them answer to help them locate where the Mississippian Civilization occurred. Groups will end up in different locations, showing that the civilization happened in a large area. They will then identify the Latitude and Longitude of their ending point. 
	In the groups we will use cardinal directions to locate the Mississippian Civilization in reference to what is located around it. They can select anywhere as long as they say it correctly. Then we will share these as a class.

Information to know: 
	The Mississippian civilization is the name given by archaeologists to the precolumbian horticulturalists of the Mississippi and Ohio river valleys, between about AD 1100-1450.
	Mississippian sites can be found in the immense area reaching from the modern American states of Ohio to Iowa, from Minnesota to Louisiana. The southern half of this huge area is often called the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex, or Southern Cult; clearly the two are associated based on the similarity of mound construction, artifact assemblage and cultural features.
	Mississippi Mound Builders were not limited to just the Mississippi River Valley. Ancient civilizations built mounds in a large area from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico and from the Mississippi River to the Appalachian Mountains, but the greatest concentrations of mounds are found in the Mississippi and Ohio River valleys. These included societies in the Archaic, and Woodland period, and Mississippian period. These Pre-Columbian mounds have been dated from roughly 3000 BCE to the 1500s, and most of these cultures lived in the Great Lakes region, the Ohio River region, and the Mississippi River region. However, there were also mound building cultures as far away as Florida. 

Assessment: Locating the Mississippian Civilization using directions to locate and stating the Latitude and Longitude.

Geography Themes: (questions to talk about during discussion)
	Location: Finding absolute and relative location of the Mississippian 
	Civilization?

Day 2: Settlement patterns and Government
	The focus of today's lesson is how settlement patterns affected their lifestyle and also an introduction to the government. To start off, have students answer this question: what are some of the reasons it was important and/or beneficial for the Mississippian Civilization to be located on the Ohio and Mississippi River? Share responses. 
	Discuss how the rivers can be used for transportation, food, water, to help water crops and to play. Students will draw up a map of the Mississippian Civilization. Must include the main waterways. Will add to these maps as the unit continues.
	Introduction to the government: The Mississippian was not a socio-political monolith governed by rulers with absolute power. Instead, it was a culture differentally shared and participated in by hundreds of local societies large and small, each adapted to a multiplicity of diverse resource bases.
	Add to the list of things we know about the Mississippian Civilization.

Information to know:
	The Mississippian adaptation developed in river valleys (large and small), often expanding up small tributaries of major waterways. The people lived in extremely complex and highly diversified environments and developed very flexible adaptations to take advantage of all the resources provided by their riverine valley and adjacent hinterland territories. Agricultural fields were generally restricted to the floodplains because of the ease with which the rich alluvial soils could be cultivated as well as the abundance and concentration of aquatic, game, and vegetable resources.

Assessment:
	Answer to question: What are some of the reasons it was important and/or beneficial for the Mississippian Civilization to be located on the Ohio and Mississippi River?

Geography Themes: (questions to talk about during discussion)
	Place: What characteristics do the students think of when they hear the 
	Mississippian Civilization when talking about the settlement patterns?
	
	Human/Environment Interaction: What types of environment will benefit 
	the people of the Mississippian Civilization with how they interact with the 
	land?
	
	Movement: Why would people want to live here?

Day 3: Government and Mound Building
	The focus of today's lesson is Mound Builders: The Serpent Mound. As a class students will brainstorm ideas and make a list as to the reasons this civilization would build mounds and how they use them. 
	We will then read a selection from the book, Awesome Ancient Ancestors.  This book has information about the Mound Builders and pictures of different mounds that were constructed.
	Students will then take play-dough and create their own mound. After they complete their mound, they will write a paragraph as to what they used their mound for.
	Add to the list of things we know about the Mississippian Civilization.

Information to know:
	The largest Mississippian capital was at Cahokia, on the east side of the Mississippi river in the state of Illinois from what is now St. Louis, Missouri.
Cahokia has by far the largest mound. Called Monk's Mound, is covers an area of 6 ha at the base and stands 30.1 m high, while most mounds are no more than 3 m high. Platform mounds were residences and mortuaries for high ranking individuals, and sites with plat form mounds are political centers with regional settlement systems.
	Mississippian towns typically contained from 1 to 20 or more flat-topped mounds that served as platforms for temples as well as residences for the elite. Society was apparently a ranked one with permanent, perhaps hereditary, offices. Smaller communities were politically (and for some things economically) satellites of larger ones. Scholars usually classify Mississippian societies as chiefdoms, although at several Mississippian centers (such as Cahokia and Moundville) their is evidence that a state organization had emerged. Some of the major features of Mississippian society are:
	•	Presence of an elite group - may have emerged as a way of mitigating risks during lean times for people. Such elites would oversee the stockpiling of food surpluses, ensured that cultivated lands were maintained in different environmental zones
	•	Presence of mechanisms of reciprocity and cooperation based upon complex local and long-distance exchange systems
	•	Most exchange took place at the household level
	•	Mississippian communites were grouped into larger political and social units, headed by local chieftains
	The Serpent Mound, located in southern Ohio in the American midwest, is a large earthen spiral structure in the shape of a partially coiled serpent (or at least that's our interpretation). The Serpent Mound was mapped by Squier and Davis in 1848, and excavated by W.H.H. Holmes and F.W. Putnam.
Recent radiocarbon dates of the effigy mound called Serpent Mound indicate that it was built by the Fort Ancient people of the Mississippian Civilization, between AD 1170 and 1270. It had previously been thought to be Hopewell. Serpent Mound is over 1300 feet long and includes a later village and burial mound site.

Assessment: 
	Map of Mississippian Civilization. Includes: Ohio River, Mississippi River, Serpent Mound, Cahokia, Title, Key and Compass Rose.
	Play-dough mound and paragraph about what it is used for.

Geography Themes: (questions to talk about during discussion)
	Regions: What is this region known for? landforms and the 	
	characteristics that make them up?

Day 4: Agriculture
	The focus of today's lesson is agriculture and food. Students will answer the question: What are different ways people can get food? Share answers.
	Reference they ways we discussed they can get food from the river and also use that as their source of drinking water. But what are some other ways? Within this vast area, people grew maize and beans. Students will then plant their own beans in a dixie cup to grow and eventually take home. Today farmer's have big machines to help with farming. What types of tools did they have back then? How did they make them? Where did they come from? Have students discuss and answer these questions in small groups. Share ideas as a whole class.
	Add to the list of things we know about the Mississippian Civilization.

Information to know:
	The Mississippian tradition was based, in part, on the introduction of new strains of maize (perhaps from Mexico, although some researchers have suggested maize may have diffused eastward from the agricultural Anasazi of New Mexico), perhaps as early as A.D. 800. Mexican beans were also added into the Mississippian diets by at least A.D. 1000, providing an important protein supplement as well as releasing populations from density constraints based on the availability of wild animal proteins. However, meat was still an important, and perhaps in some regions, a necessary part of the diet. Some major characteristics of Mississippian subsistence are:
	•	Wild plant foods of vital importance, especially the rich nut harvests of fall.
	•	Fish, migratory waterfowl, terrestrial game (including deer and turkey), fruits, berriers, and seed-bearing native plants were selectively exploited.
	•	Deliberate destruction of the natural vegetation on preferred soils in order to grow maize, beans, squash, and some native plants. And it was the widespread cultivation of maize and beans that helped foster higher population densities, larger food surpluses, and more complex political and social organization so characteristic of the Mississippian communities.
	•	Horticulture was intensive with some maize fields planted twice in a single season, each crop being harvested while the maize was still soft and green, to be eaten immediately. Other fields were planted only once, the maize allowed to ripen and dry for storage.
	•	The household was the primary production unit with each household cultivating a mosaic of several gardens situated in separate environmental zones.
	•	During lean times, people could rely on kin living in other areas for food and seeds for the next planting; or an entire community may have maintained communal granaries which stockpiled food for use during lean times

Geography Themes: (questions to talk about during discussion)
	Human/Environment Interaction: What types of environment will benefit 
	the people of the Mississippian Civilization with how they interact with the 
	land?

	Movement: Why would people want to live here?

Day 5: Religion and other Cultural Contributions
	Discuss with students how it is difficult to sometimes understand in the absence of verbal or written accounts the religion of a culture. Some aspects of the Mississippian religion can be gleaned from European descriptions and from art and iconography. As a class we will look at pictures of different iconographic elements and art.
	Students will create their own iconographic art. They will choose at least 3 different elements, draw and color a picture, then write a short paragraph as to why they chose those elements.
	Add to the list of things we know about the Mississippian Civilization.

Iconographic Elements
	•	a sunburst
	•	an elaborate cross
	•	a human eye in the palm of an open hand
	•	an arrow with attached lobes
	•	the forked eye
	•	the weeping eye
	•	several abstract designs
	•	striped poles
	•	fringed aprons
	•	raccoon hindquarters
	•	serpents, woodpeckers, falcons

	These iconographic motifs were usually engraved and/or painted on a wide variety of mediums, including whole conches or shell disks, wood, ground stone, chipped stone, textiles, and hammered native copper sheets (they even occur as glyphs on the walls of Tennessee caves).
	•	monolithic axes with head and shaft carved from a single piece of stone
	•	copper pendants adorned with circles or weeping eyes
	•	shell disks or gorgets showing woodpeckers, rattlesnakes, human figures
	•	elaborately decorated clay pots
	•	ceramics modeled on animal and human forms
	•	copper plates
	•	engraved shell cups adorned with male figures in ceremonial dress
	
	It's worth noting that many of the iconographic elements, as well as some of the mediums on which the elements appear, can be traced to the belief systems of postcontact Native Americans of the Southeast, and to their folk tales, myths, and religious observances.

Information to know:
	Although religion is difficult to understand in the absence of verbal or written accounts, some aspects of Mississippian religion can be gleaned from European descriptions and from art and iconography. Ancestor veneration, for example, clearly played an important role in Mississippian religion. Archaeological and historical evidence indicates that statues of kneeling human figures found in Mississippian temples are those of ancestor figures. Throughout the Southeast, a complex of similar iconographic themes (including birds, snakes, spiders, and mythical beings called bird men) may represent a widespread Mississippian belief system. Archaeologists call this the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex (SECC). SECC themes are frequently executed on materials that had high value in the Mississippian world—copper and marine shell, for example. Arkansas has limited numbers of SECC artifacts compared to some other areas in the Mississippian world, suggesting a limited participation in the widespread religious and artistic network. However, a few copper and marine shell items with SECC-style images exist. A carved marine shell gorget from the St. Francis river valley depicts two humans who may be mythical beings or perhaps players in a ritual ball game. A few fragmentary copper plates with bird motifs have been found along Little River, and a copper plate with a spider motif comes from the Parkin Site in Cross County. In addition, rock art along the Arkansas River Valley occasionally depicts what appear to be SECC motifs, such as the cross-in-circle and winged serpent.

Assessment: 
	Students will create their own iconographic art with a brief description of what it stands for. 

Day 6: Research Day
	The focus of today's lesson is researching for Artifact Boxes. Students are going to be creating artifact boxes with artifacts and information about the Mississippian Civilization. In there boxes they must create at least 4 different artifacts. Write a brief description of each artifact that they will share with their classmates during their presentations.

Assessment: See Day 9

Day 7 & 8: Creating Artifact Boxes
	Students will begin creating their artifacts. Some materials will be provided, but they may bring materials in from home as well. If they have not finished research, they may use this time to complete it.

Assessment: See Day 9

Day 9: Presentation Day
	Students will share their Artifact Boxes with the class. When presenting, they will tell what each item is a brief description of it and what they found interesting/why they chose that specific artifact to put in their box.

Assessment: Students will be graded on the completion of their Artifact Box, information and Presentation. See Rubric.

Resources:
http://archaeology.about.com/od/mississippiancivilization/qt/mississippian.htm

http://archaeology.about.com/od/sterms/g/serpentmound.htm

http://www.cabrillo.edu/~crsmith/mississ.html

http://www.aaanativearts.com/ancient-indians/mississippi-mound-builders.htm

Levy, Elizabeth. (2001). Awesome Ancient Ancestors!: Mound Builders, Maya 
	and More. Scholastic Inc.

http://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?entryID=544

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/281529/iconography

http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Mississippian+civilization

http://www.suppressedhistories.net/Gallery/mississippia.html

http://www.watertown.k12.ma.us/cunniff/americanhistorycentral/01firstamericans/The_Moundbuild.html