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Plaquemine culture was an archaeological culture
Archaeological culture

In addition to its usual meaning in social science, in archaeology, the term wikt:culture is also used in reference to several related concepts unique to the discipline....
 in the lower Mississippi River
Mississippi River

The Mississippi River is the longest river in the United States, with a length of from its source in Lake Itasca in Minnesota to its mouth in the Gulf of Mexico....
 Valley in western Mississippi
Mississippi

Mississippi is a U.S. state located in the Deep South of the United States. Jackson, Mississippi is the state capital and largest city. The state's name comes from the Mississippi River, which flows along its western boundary, and takes its name from the Anishinaabe language word misi-ziibi ....
 and eastern Louisiana
Louisiana

The State of Louisiana is a U.S. state located in the U.S. Southern States of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans....
. Good examples of this culture are the Medora Site, in West Baton Rouge Parish, La, and the Anna
Anna Site

Anna Site is a prehistoric Plaquemine culture archaeological site. It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1993.References...
, Emerald Mound
Emerald Mound Site

The Emerald Mound Site is a Plaquemine culture Mississippian culture period archaeological site located on the Natchez Trace Parkway near Stanton, Mississippi, Mississippi, United States....
, Winterville
Winterville Site

The Winterville Site is an archaeological site consisting of Platform mound and plazas that is the type site for the Winterville phase of the Plaquemine culture-Mississippian culture....
 and Holly Bluff
Holly Bluff Site

The Holly Bluff Site is an archaeological site that is a type sitefor the Lake George phase of the prehistoric Temple Mound period of the area....
 (Lake George) sites located in Mississippi. Plaquemine culture was contemporaneous with the Middle Mississippian culture in the Cahokia
Cahokia

Cahokia is the site of an ancient Native Americans in the United States city near Collinsville, Illinois, Illinois in the American Bottom floodplain, across the Mississippi River from St....
 site in St. Loius, Missouri. It is considered ancestral to the Natchez
Natchez people

The Natchez are a Native Americans in the United States people who originally lived in the Natchez Bluffs area, near the present-day city of Natchez, Mississippi....
 and Taensa
Taensa

The Taensa were a people of northeastern Louisiana, specifically on Lake Saint Joseph west of the Mississippi River between the Yazoo River and Saint Catherine Creek settlements in what is present-day Tensas Parish, Louisiana, as reported by Nicolas de la Salle in 1682....
 Peoples.






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Plaquemine culture was an archaeological culture
Archaeological culture

In addition to its usual meaning in social science, in archaeology, the term wikt:culture is also used in reference to several related concepts unique to the discipline....
 in the lower Mississippi River
Mississippi River

The Mississippi River is the longest river in the United States, with a length of from its source in Lake Itasca in Minnesota to its mouth in the Gulf of Mexico....
 Valley in western Mississippi
Mississippi

Mississippi is a U.S. state located in the Deep South of the United States. Jackson, Mississippi is the state capital and largest city. The state's name comes from the Mississippi River, which flows along its western boundary, and takes its name from the Anishinaabe language word misi-ziibi ....
 and eastern Louisiana
Louisiana

The State of Louisiana is a U.S. state located in the U.S. Southern States of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans....
. Good examples of this culture are the Medora Site, in West Baton Rouge Parish, La, and the Anna
Anna Site

Anna Site is a prehistoric Plaquemine culture archaeological site. It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1993.References...
, Emerald Mound
Emerald Mound Site

The Emerald Mound Site is a Plaquemine culture Mississippian culture period archaeological site located on the Natchez Trace Parkway near Stanton, Mississippi, Mississippi, United States....
, Winterville
Winterville Site

The Winterville Site is an archaeological site consisting of Platform mound and plazas that is the type site for the Winterville phase of the Plaquemine culture-Mississippian culture....
 and Holly Bluff
Holly Bluff Site

The Holly Bluff Site is an archaeological site that is a type sitefor the Lake George phase of the prehistoric Temple Mound period of the area....
 (Lake George) sites located in Mississippi. Plaquemine culture was contemporaneous with the Middle Mississippian culture in the Cahokia
Cahokia

Cahokia is the site of an ancient Native Americans in the United States city near Collinsville, Illinois, Illinois in the American Bottom floodplain, across the Mississippi River from St....
 site in St. Loius, Missouri. It is considered ancestral to the Natchez
Natchez people

The Natchez are a Native Americans in the United States people who originally lived in the Natchez Bluffs area, near the present-day city of Natchez, Mississippi....
 and Taensa
Taensa

The Taensa were a people of northeastern Louisiana, specifically on Lake Saint Joseph west of the Mississippi River between the Yazoo River and Saint Catherine Creek settlements in what is present-day Tensas Parish, Louisiana, as reported by Nicolas de la Salle in 1682....
 Peoples.

Description


Architecture and mounds

The Plaquemine Culture occupied the rest of Louisiana not taken by the Caddo culture
Caddo

The Caddo Nation is a confederacy of several Southeastern tribes Native Americans in the United States tribes, who, in the 16th century, inhabited much of what is now East Texas, western Louisiana and portions of southern Arkansas and Oklahoma....
 during this time frame and are considered descendants of the Troyville-Coles Creek culture
Coles Creek culture

Coles Creek culture is an archaeological culture in the Lower Mississippi River valley in the southern United States. The period marks a significant change in the cultural history of the area....
. A prominent feature of Plaquemine sites are large ceremonial centers with two or more large mound
Mound

A mound is a general term for an artificial wikt:heaped pile of earth, gravel, sand, rock s, or debris. The most common use is in reference to natural earthen formation such as hills and mountains, particularly if they appear artificial....
s facing an open plaza
Plaza

Plaza is a Spanish language word related to "field" which describes an open urban public space, such as a city square. All through Spanish America, the plaza mayor of each center of administration held three closely related institutions: the cathedral, the cabildo or administrative center, which might be incorporated in a wing...
. The flat-topped, pyramidal mounds
Platform mound

A platform mound is any earthworks or mound intended to support a structure or activity.The Mississippian Native American Platform Mound...
 were constructed in several stages. Sometimes they were topped by one or two smaller mounds. Mounds were often built on top of the ruins of a house or temple and similar buildings were usually constructed on top of the mound. In earlier times, buildings were usually circular, but later they were likely to be rectangular. They were constructed of wattle and daub
Wattle and daub

Wattle and daub is a building material used for making walls, in which a woven lattice of wooden strips called wattle is daubed with a sticky material usually made of some combination of wet soil, clay, sand, animal dung and straw....
, and sometimes with wall posts sunk into foot-deep wall trenches. At times, shallow, oval or rectangular graves were dug in the mounds. These might have been for primary burials, but more often they were for the reburial of remains originally interred elsewhere.

Pottery

One kind of pottery occasionally placed in the graves is called "killed" pottery. This type has a hole in the base of the vessel that was cut while the pot was being made, usually before it was fired. They also decorated their pots in other characteristic ways. They sometimes added small solid handles called lugs and textured the surface by brushing clumps of grass over the vessel before it was fired. They often cut designs into the surface of the wet clay, and like their Caddo contemporaries, the Plaquemine peoples engraved designs on pots after they were fired. Plaquemine peoples also had undecorated pots that they used for ordinary daily tasks. . Pottery during this phase still used dry clay particles a tempering material, with the use of ground shell being a marker for Mississippian cultural contact.

See also



External links