These crops allowed generations to thrive, feeding a population explosion. Subsistence was no longer the consuming pursuit it had been. Between 800 and 1400 A.D., towns and cities crowded the banks of the Mississippi and its tributaries. The burden of survival was lighter, and people could focus their energies on things other than staying warm and fed. Mississippian arts and crafts blossomed. Interaction among communities became more formalized and complex.

Before long, complicated political systems and alliances developed. This prosperity also saw the evolution of elaborate social customs and religious rites. The sociopolitical structure was that of the chiefdom, in which allied groups of communities were governed by members of an elite class whose positions were inherited or earned by outstanding accomplishments.

The Southeastern Ceremonial Complex, also known as the Southern Cult, was the belief system of the Mississsippian cultures, often seen in symbols on Mississippian arts and crafts. The symbols show a preponderance of female characters, serpents, and birds. Archeologists surmise that the emphasis on women and other living things suggests fertility's central role in the culture. Fertility symbols were reproduced in wood statuary, pipes, and pottery.

Evidence unearthed by archeologists paints a picture of bustling population centers, with houses of thatch and mud plaster stretching out far and wide among cultivated fields. Traders from distant places arrived via the river, bringing not only basic items but coveted luxury goods, such as copper, mica, alligator teeth, and conch shells.

While the moundbuilding people thrived, the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex became more intricate, and religion was increasingly the means of asserting authority. Civic/ceremonial mound centers grew larger and more ambitious in scale. Mississippian towns usually had anywhere from one to twenty flat-topped temple mounds, which served as platforms for temples or other important structures, such as the houses of the elite. Centers of power such as Cahokia in Illinois (shown in the artists' recreations here) were where the most impressive earthworks were built and where important festivals and ceremonies took place.

Though rich soil may have been plentiful in the Mississippi Valley, prehistoric people still competed for the best land, induced, perhaps, by their ever-increasing numbers. War seems to have become a more frequent means of enforcing political control as time went on. Villages were enclosed in wooden palisade walls, and the study of artifacts shows an increase in martial symbolism. Signs of violence on human remains underscore this development.

By about 1450 A.D., the Mississippian moundbuilding cultures had declined dramatically. In the end, some hypothesize, they may have been too successful. As in modern times, large numbers of people competing for limited resources created tension, as did the highly stratified class structure. Sanitation in the crowded river towns could have deteriorated, triggering an outbreak of epidemics. There is evidence of massive migrations of people, indicating sociopolitical turmoil on a large scale. By 1500, one could have traveled the once-populous river valley and covered great distances before coming upon a village.

That is essentially what the Europeans found when they came to the valley for the first time. The baffling shapes along the river were silent and overgrown by then, and it would be centuries before North America's new inhabitants would know of the epic that had unraveled before their arrival.

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