ABSTRACT
The Mississippian cultural complex, located in the midcontinental region of the United States, emerged approximately 1,000 years ago and was essentially gone before the first European explorers arrived to the American shores. One of the controversies surrounding the Mississippian system is whether it should be characterized as a complex chiefdom or a state. In many ways, the Mississippian system is a “test case” of how archaeologists recognize complexity, a subject addressed in some detail in Chapters 2 and 3.
