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Spiro Mounds: North America's lost civilisation
The story of the long-forgotten Spiro settlement seems particularly timely. It tells of a people desperately trying to adapt to a changing climate that would ultimately destroy their society. And at a moment when interest in Indigenous communities is growing, it's a chance to marvel at the craftsmanship and sophistication of a forgotten nation whose trade routes snaked thousands of miles across the continent. Spiro's treasures include engraved conch shells from the Florida Keys, copper breastplates from the Great Lakes and beads from the Gulf of California. Spiro was home to a ceremonial centre for a loosely aligned confederation of mound-building nations called the Mississippian Culture. Together it included about 3 million people from more than 60 tribes, speaking 30 different languages. The other principal cities were in Etowah, Georgia; Moundville, Alabama; and Cahokia, Illinois, near St. Louis, which was the biggest. These settlements rose to prominence beginning in the 800s during a period of favourable weather patterns that allowed them to create stable, agriculture-based societies, said Dennis Peterson, an archaeologist and manager of the Spiro site. Traditionally, women tended crops like corn, beans, squash and sunflowers, while men hunted small game. Spiro, located on the Arkansas River, sat at a natural passage between the east and west, and grew as a trade centre. But around 1250, the rains became less predictable during a period known as the Little Ice Age. The cities began to crumble. To save itself, Spiro's priests made a desperate attempt to "restart the universe". Archaeologists say the leaders rebuilt an existing royal burial mound, filling the hollow chamber with the most powerful ritual objects they had including rare minerals, feathered capes, axes and other weapons. The hope was that the ceremonial burying of sacred property would return the city to its previous state, bringing back the steady rains and long growing seasons that had let Spiro flourish. But the drought cycle continued, and by 1450, the mound city was abandoned. The residents drifted off, their descendants joining today's Caddo Nation and the Wichita and Affiliated Tribes, whose territories once included parts of the US states of Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Kansas. Posted by: Skidmark 2021-06-23 |
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