Key Events

• 1000

  Villages, known as pueblos, are built over the remains of earlier pithouses; in the Mimbres Valley, New Mexico, Black-on-White ceramics (1978.412.123) are placed in subfloor burials.

• 1000

  Mississippian cultural patterns are well established in the Midwest and Southeast, grounded in population growth and economic stability; maize agriculture and long-distance exchange systems are in place.

• 1050

  The four-terraced Monks Mound, the largest earthen structure in the United States, is under construction at Cahokia.

• 1100

  Pueblo Bonito, the largest of the great houses of Chaco Canyon, is a multistoried structure with almost 700 rooms; the Chaco regional system, with its ceremonial structures known as great kivas, as well as mounds and other earthworks, dominates northwestern New Mexico.

• 1150

  The drought in Chaco Canyon leads to its abandonment.

• 1200

  Beans are a staple in the Eastern Woodlands and are grown together with maize.

• 1200

  Population in the northern San Juan Basin of New Mexico concentrates in cliff dwellings such as Mesa Verde; Snaketown in Arizona is abandoned.

• 1200

  Moundville on the Black Warrior River in Alabama, a political and religious center with a large population, produces ceramic, stone, and copper objects.

• 1250

  Hohokam settlements increase in southern Arizona. Major construction at Casas Grandes, on the Casas Grandes River in northern Chihuahua, includes ballcourts, walk-in wells, and sewer systems. Casas Grandes is an important center for trade with Mexico.

• 1300

  The inhabitants of Spiro, in Le Flore County, Oklahoma, enlarge Craig Mound with aspects of both platform and funerary structures; many objects of the Southern Cult are placed in burials.

• 1300

  Etowah, in northeastern Georgia, dominates the region; its major mounds, Mounds A, B, and C, are enlarged, and precious objects of the Southern Cult are placed in Mound C burials.

• 1300

  The population of Cahokia declines; a defensive wall is built at the site’s center.

• 1300

  Populations leave the northern region of the Southwest and settle south along the Little Colorado River and the Rio Grande.

• 1325

  The Kachina (Katsina) cult is established in the Southwest’s upper Little Colorado River Valley. The cult is visually manifest in supernatural beings, masked impersonators, and dolls.

• 1350

  In the Southwest’s Puebloan area, village size increases and populations concentrate into fewer, larger centers; the enclosed plaza–possibly an influence from Mexico–becomes common.

• 1350

  The Southern Cult reaches its peak of influence. Similarities in religious practices and art proliferate across the Eastern Woodlands; warrior, bird-man, and serpent imagery are among the visual themes.