MOUNDVILLE

Located on the Black Warrior River near Tuscaloosa, in west-central Alabama, Moundville flourished between A.D. 1000 and 1500. Although smaller than Cahokia, it was nonetheless an impressive center, covering more than 300 acres and containing about 24 earthen mounds (the largest some 60 feet tall), some topped by temples, others by council houses, and still others supporting the homes of Moundville's elites. And like Cahokia, the city was protected by a stout log palisade. Also like Cahokia, Moundville served as the regional redistribution center of key resource items for some 20+ towns located within its sphere of influence.

The city's central area consists of a series of platform mounds around a 100 acre plaza, fortified with a stockade on three sides and the river on the fourth. Along the plaza's edges is a vast cemetery from which more than 3000 burials recovered, which allowed archaeologists to reconstruct Moundville society. The most important relationships were those based on corporate membership (lineages &amp/or clans) and genealogical relationships. Also, the social system provided for fewer positions of value than there were individuals capable of filling them. Thus, society was one of unequal or ranked statuses &one's position in the social hierarchy was assigned [rather than achieved] at birth. This is seen most clearly in the places where people were buried and the kinds, amounts, &qualities of offerings found in the graves.

The highest status individuals were

• buried in large truncated mounds
• often accompanied into the next world by infants as well as adults (perhaps retainers and kin sacrificied for the occasion)
• buried with elaborate artifacts including
  • large copper celts, copper breastplates
  • stone discs
  • various paint
  • assorted exotic minerals (e.g., mica and galena)
  • finely-made black-filmed incised and engraved pottery

Lesser status people

• were buried in cemeteries near the mounds and/or in charnal houses
• had fewer &much less glamourous grave goods
  • pots, flint &bone tools
  • stone pipes

Society mirrored the physical structure of the mounds. At the top of the social pyramid was Moundville's political-religious leader [perhaps a male although females may also have occupied such a status] who possessed the most valuable emblems of status &rank available in Mississippian society. Just below this person in status were elites who, judging from the wealth of high status items found in their graves, enjoyed extraordinarily high status &perhaps political authority. Just who these people were and how they were related to the paramount leader is not known.

Next down the social pyramid were skilled artisans &craftworkers whose social positions were determined in part by sex &age distinctions with people having to achieve, rather than inherit, their social status.

At the base of the social pyramid were the men and women who farmed. Unlike the elites, who were buried with lots of exotic offerings in a sacred area within the truncated mounds, and unlike the artisans and skilled craftworkers who where accompanied into the next life by pots and tools, these "commoners" were buried without any grave offerings at all.

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Updated: 09 Mar 2000
by
crsmith