Editing Pre-Columbian era (section)

===Mississippian culture===
{{Main|Mississippian culture}}
The Mississippian culture was spread across the Southeast and Midwest of what is today the United States, from the Atlantic coast to the edge of the plains, from the Gulf of Mexico to the Upper Midwest, although most intensively in the area along the [[Mississippi River]] and [[Ohio River]]. One of the distinguishing features of this culture was the construction of complexes of large earthen [[Platform mound|mounds]] and grand plazas, continuing the [[Mound Builders|mound-building]] traditions of earlier cultures. They grew [[maize]] and other crops intensively, participated in an extensive trade network, and had a complex stratified society. The Mississippians first appeared around 1000 CE, following and developing out of the less agriculturally intensive and less centralized Woodland period. The largest urban site of these people, [[Cahokia]]—located near modern [[East St. Louis, Illinois]]—may have reached a population of over 20,000. Other chiefdoms were constructed throughout the Southeast, and its trade networks reached to the Great Lakes and the Gulf of Mexico. At its peak, between the 12th and 13th centuries, Cahokia was the most populous city in North America. (Larger cities did exist in Mesoamerica and the Andes.) [[Monks Mound]], the major ceremonial center of Cahokia, remains the largest earthen construction of the prehistoric [[New World|Americas]]. The culture reached its peak in about 1200–1400 CE, and in most places, it seems to have been in decline before the arrival of Europeans.{{citation needed|date=March 2022}}

Many [[List of sites and peoples visited by the Hernando de Soto Expedition|Mississippian peoples]] were encountered by the expedition of [[Hernando de Soto]] in the 1540s, mostly with disastrous results for both sides. Unlike the Spanish expeditions in Mesoamerica, which conquered vast empires with relatively few men, the de Soto expedition wandered the American Southeast for four years, becoming more bedraggled, losing more men and equipment, and eventually arriving in [[Mexico]] as a fraction of its original size. The local people fared much worse though, as the fatalities of diseases introduced by the expedition devastated the populations and produced much social disruption. By the time Europeans returned a hundred years later, nearly all of the Mississippian groups had vanished, and vast swaths of their territory were virtually uninhabited.<ref>{{cite book|last=Hudson|first=Charles M.|author-link=Charles M. Hudson (author)|title=Knights of Spain, Warriors of the Sun: Hernando de Soto and the South's Ancient Chiefdoms|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eapFDwAAQBAJ&pg=PP1|year=1997|publisher=University of Georgia Press|isbn=978-0-8203-5290-9}}</ref>
{{Gallery|align=center
|width=180|File:Monks Mound in July.JPG|[[Monks Mound]] of [[Cahokia]] ([[UNESCO World Heritage Site]]) in summer. The concrete staircase follows the approximate course of the ancient wooden stairs.
|File:Chromesun kincaid site 01.jpg|An artistic recreation of [[Kincaid Mounds State Historic Site|The Kincaid site]] from the prehistoric Mississippian culture as it may have looked at its peak 1050–1400 CE
|File:Moundville Archaeological Park 64.JPG|Engraved stone [[Cosmetic palette|palette]] from Moundville, illustrating two [[Horned Serpent|horned rattlesnakes]], perhaps referring to [[Southeastern Ceremonial Complex#Great Serpent|The Great Serpent]] of the [[Southeastern Ceremonial Complex]]
|File:Hampson effigypot HRoe 2006.jpg|A human head effigy pot from the Nodena site
}}