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A  people group who were established around the beginning of the 13th century. They were a very warrior based tribe who built there civilization based on a godly sign. They were very developed socially, intellectually, and artistically.

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This group of Native American people lived in the Midwest of North America. They lived in mud mounds and were very efficient agriculturally. They grew plants in greenhouse like buildings and buried their dead efficiently.

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Mississippian culture
Reconstruction of Mound Builders homes and houses

The Mound Builders
This article contains information about the Mound Builders culture, their temples, homes and houses. The ancient people of the Mississippian culture of the Mound Builders of North America built large earthen mounds as part of their village complex. Each village had a mound on which a temple and the chief's house was built. The top of mound was approached by a flight of steps and the temple and chief's house were located at each end of the mound, separated by a plaza. The Mound Builders inhabited many areas across the eastern part of the United States and Canada. The greatest concentrations of mounds are found in the Mississippi and Ohio valleys.

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Mound Builders Definition
Who were the Mound Builders? Definition: The 'Mound Builders' was the name given by early archaeologists to the ancient people who constructed elaborate earthworks from the Great Lakes to the Gulf Coast across the North American continent. The purpose of the earthen constructions varied from ceremonial centers and burial mounds to the focal points of villages where Sun Temples and Chief's Houses were constructed. The Mound Builders developed a complex agricultural society called the Mississippian culture (700 A.D. to 1,300 A.D.)

Mound Builders Culture and Beliefs: Mythical Creatures
The ancient Mississippian culture of the Mound Builders of North America were major elements in the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex of American prehistory (S.E.C.C.) The customs, rituals, traditions many famous mythical creatures derive from the beliefs of the Mound Builders. The Mound Builders associated great mystical value to the serpent. The Great Serpent represented a malevolent creature whereas the Horned Serpent and Feathered Serpent, were generally viewed as a benevolent, although fearful, creature. The Avanyu, a horned snake-like symbol both feature in Hopi and other Pueblo art. The origins of the mythology surrounding the Thunderbird, the Piasa Bird ("The bird that devours men") were also believed to have derived from the Mound Builders.

Mound Builders Culture and Beliefs: Mythical Creatures
The ancient Mississippian culture of the Mound Builders of North America were major elements in the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex of American prehistory (S.E.C.C.) The customs, rituals, traditions many famous mythical creatures derive from the beliefs of the Mound Builders. The Mound Builders associated great mystical value to the serpent. The Great Serpent represented a malevolent creature whereas the Horned Serpent and Feathered Serpent, were generally viewed as a benevolent, although fearful, creature. The Avanyu, a horned snake-like symbol both feature in Hopi and other Pueblo art. The origins of the mythology surrounding the Thunderbird, the Piasa Bird ("The bird that devours men") were also believed to have derived from the Mound Builders. The picture is of the Great Serpent Mound in Ohio, a gigantic serpent form made in earth. Across the widely opened jaws it measures 75 feet, the body measures 30 feet across and 5 feet high, the length of the Great Serpent is 1,348 foot (411 meters). The tail is thrown into a triple coil.

Mound Builders Religion
The Mound Builders worshipped the sun and their religion centered around a temple served by shaven head priests, a shaman and the village chiefs. The Mound Builders had four different social classes called the Suns, the Nobles, the Honored Men and Honored Women and the lower class. The chiefs were called the 'Suns'. The 'Great Sun' ruled the people in all civil matters and the 'Tattooed Serpent' ruled the people in matters of war. The Great Sun and the Tattooed Serpent lived in the Grand Village or city. Lesser Suns from the royal family ruled smaller villages. Human sacrifice and ritual suicide formed a part of their culture. The wives and members of the entourage of the Great Sun and the Tattooed Serpent (up to 100 people) were expected to perform ritual suicide upon the death of a chief so that they might accompany him into the afterlife.

The Grand Village
The Grand Village of the Mound Builders was organized around an open plaza with two, flat-topped mounds at either end. The smaller mound was the residence of the Great Sun, and the larger mound was the Sun Temple. The Sun Temple contained the perpetual fire and was approached by one flight of steps. The structures had no windows and only one door. The Sun Temple faced east towards the rising sun. Other houses in the Mound Builders village were built in a similar style, but were not constructed on the top of mounds.

Artists representation of the
Mound Builders Grand Village

Mound Builders

Interesting Facts and information about the Mound Builders

Definition, pictures and description of the Mound Builders

Fast Facts, pictures and description of the Mound Builders temples, houses and homes

Interesting Homework resource for kids on the history of the ancients

The Mound Builders: Influence on Native Indian Tribes
The culture of the Mississippian Mound Builders influenced many of the early descendents of the Native Indian tribes including the Caddo, the Natchez and the Creeks who built highly organised villages consisting of grass huts built in the style of the Mound Builders homes. As time passed their housed developed into wattle and daub constructions.

Mound Builders Temples, Homes and Houses

The Grand Village of the Natchez
The picture shows the Sun Temple and the Chief's house in the Grand Village of the Natchez Native Indian tribe. They were constructed by using a framework of poles and beams covered with wattle and daub. The walls were then covered by cane mats and a thatched grass roof which were carefully clipped and neat. The interior walls were also lined with woven cane mats.

The Serpent
The icons displayed on the top of the Sun temple are very curious. They look similar to Piasa and the Great Flying Serpent mythical creatures that featured so strongly in the Mississippian Mound Builders culture. The Mound Builders believed that the Upper world was inhabited by spirit birds and the people of the earth who were ruled by powerful spirits like the Piasa and the Serpent and that the Underworld was inhabited by spirit snakes or serpents. It seems logical that the Sun temple icons would represented the mythical creatures of the other worlds.

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Mississippian culture Reconstruction of Mound Builders homes and houses The Mound Builders This article contains information about the Mound Builders culture, their temples, homes and houses. The ancient people of the Mississippian culture of the Mound Builders of North America built large earthen mounds as part of their village complex.

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They were a mound building society. Most Mississippian mounds are rectangular, flat-topped earthen platforms upon which temples or residences of chiefs were erected. These buildings were constructed of wooden posts covered with mud plaster and had thatched roofs. They didn't work in stone or metal, hence little is known about them as very few of their artifacts or architecture have survived.

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Hiawatha was the legendary chief of the Onondaga tribe who advocated peace with the European settlers. He is credited with establishing the Iroquois Confederacy. He was a follower of the Great Peacemaker (Deganawida) and shared the vision of the prophet and acted as the spokesman for Deganawida.

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Boats and boating--Equipment and supplies

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They were seafarers, mainly speaking the Old Norse Language, who raided and traded from their Northern European homelands across wide areas of northern, central and eastern Europe, during the late 8th to late 11th centuries. They were mostly known for having advanced sailing and navigational skills, and characterized by the longship. A voyage was set to North America and set up short-lived settlements in present-day L'Anse aux Meadows, Newfoundland, and Labrador, Canada.

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Venetian merchant and adventurer Marco Polo traveled from Europe to Asia from 1271 to 1295. He wrote Il Milione which was a book about his travels. Marco was not given credit for what he did but he did inspire Columbus, nearly two centuries after he passed.

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He became the first European mariner to round the southern tip of Africa, opening the way for a sea route from Europe to Asia. Dias rounded Cape of Good Hope and then sailed around Africa’s southernmost point, Cabo das Agulhas. He made a path for other explorers such as Columbus to go out on voyages.

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Vasco da Gama had a mission to reach India and open a sea route from Europe to the East. After sailing down the western coast of Africa and rounding the Cape of Good Hope, he made numerous stops in Africa before reaching the trading post in India. After his voyage to India he was recognized as a hero by Portugal, and was sent on a second expedition to India in 1502, during which he brutally clashed with Muslim traders in the region. Two decades later, da Gama again returned to India, this time as Portuguese viceroy; he died there of an illness.

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Ferdinand of Aragon & Isabella of Castile

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Ferdinand of Aragon & Isabella of Castile

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The marriage in 1469 of royal cousins, Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile, eventually brought stability to both the country of Aragon and Castile.Both Isabella and Ferdinand understood the importance of unity; together they effected institutional reform in Castile and left Spain one of the best administered countries in Europe.

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Christopher Columbus made four trips across the Atlantic Ocean from Spain. He was determined to find a direct water route west from Europe to Asia, but he never did. Instead, he accidentally stumbled upon the Americas.

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He was the founder of the Missions, currently known as California. He wanted to become a missionary for the new world and thats what he did but religion made him blind to what he was actually doing especially for the Franciscans.

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Robert was an explorer best known for leading an expedition down the Illinois and Mississippi rivers. He claimed the region watered by the Mississippi and its tributaries for France and named it Louisiana after King Louis XIV. His last expedition to establish fur trading posts failed and he died.

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Don requested to conquer and govern New Mexico was approved in 1595. In 1598 he crossed the Rio Grande. From there he sent out small parties in all directions to search for treasure that did not exist. In a last attempt to recover his dignity he led an expedition west to the Colorado River and south to the Gulf of California, but he still found no gold.He was so ashamed that he resigned.

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Giovanni da Verrazzano was an Italian explorer who charted the Atlantic coast of North America between the Carolinas and Newfoundland. The final voyage crew was attacked by a large assemblage of cannibalistic natives, in what is now Jamaica, who killed them and ate them all.

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He was the ninth emperor of the Aztecs and had a close confrontation with Hernan Cortes. Montezuma tried to trick Cortes into not pretending to be the white bearded god that was supposed to come and Montezuma was later killed as a prisoner of war.

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Hernan Cortes was a Spanish conquistador and explorer who defeated the Aztec empire and claimed Mexico for Spain. Cortes joined an expedition to Cuba. In 1518, he set off to explore Mexico. There he strategically aligned some native peoples against others to overthrow them. King Charles I appointed him governor of New Spain in 1522.

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In 1513, he joined Vasco Nunez de Balboa in his march to the "South Sea," during which Balboa discovered the Pacific Ocean. In 1532, Pizarro and his brothers conquered Peru. In 1535 Pizarro founded the nation's new capital, Lima. Pizarro was assassinated in 1541, in Lima, Peru, by vengeful members of an enemy faction of conquistadors.

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Hernando de Soto accompanied Pizarro in his conquest of Peru in 1532. Seeking greater glory and riches, de Soto embarked on a major expedition in 1538 to conquer Florida for the Spanish crown. In 1541 de Soto and his crew were the first Europeans to encounter and cross the Mississippi river.

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In 1519, after a battle between Mayans and Spaniards, twenty young slave women were offered to the Spanish. Malinche was one of the quickest to learn Spanish and she became Hernan Cortes' interpreter. She and Cortes had a very close romantic relationship where they had a son. Records  indicate that Malinche informed Cortes of an Aztec plot to destroy his army and their conquest which is now considered treason.

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Though initially he was a willing participant in the conquest of the Caribbean, Spanish explorer and missionary Bartolome de Las Casas later worked against the opression of indigenous races especially the Indians by Europeans. He wrote a number of works which inspired later revolutionary thinkers.

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Francisco was serving as governor of an important province in New Spain (Mexico) when he heard reports of the so-called Seven Golden Cities located to the north. In 1540, Coronado led a major Spanish expedition up Mexico’s western coast and into the region that is now the southwestern United States. He discovered what is now called the Grand Canyon and other landmarks.

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The West: A Film by Steven Ives | Ken Burns | PBS

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The West: A Film by Steven Ives | Ken Burns | PBS | The West | Ken Burns | PBS

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A nine-part series chronicling the turbulent history of one of the most extraordinary landscapes on earth. Beginning when the land belonged only to Native Americans and ending in the 20th century, the film introduces unforgettable characters whose competing dreams transformed the land. It was a...

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Magellan was trying to discover a western route to Spice Islands. On his route he discovered what is now known as the Strait of Magellan and became the first European to cross the Pacific Ocean. Only one ship returned home three years later. Although it was laden with valuable spices from the East, only 18 of the fleet’s original crew of 270 returned with the ship. Magellan himself was killed in battle on the voyage.

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He helped establish the town of Darién on the Isthmus of Panama, becoming interim governor. In 1513, he led the first European expedition to the Pacific Ocean, but news of the discovery arrived after the king had sent Pedro Arias de Ávila to serve as the new governor of Darién. Ávila, reportedly jealous of Balboa, had him beheaded for treason in 1519.

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He participated in the conquest of Cuba in the early 1500s and later battled the Aztecs in Mexico. Cabrillo eventually made his fortune in Guatemala, mining gold and trading goods, mostly slaves. In hopes of more riches, he set out to explore the California coast. He died from an infection from a wound suffered after an attack on his expedition by Tongva tribesmen.

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In 1496, King Henry VII issued letters patent to Cabot and his son, which authorized them to make a voyage of discovery and to return with goods for sale on the English market. In London in late 1497, Cabot proposed to King Henry VII that he set out on a second expedition across the north Atlantic. This time, he would continue westward from his first landfall until he reached the island of what is now Japan.The ship was lost and Cabot was believed to have perished in 1499.

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Juan was believed to have accompanied Christopher Columbus on his 1493 voyage to the New World. A decade later, he was serving as governor of the eastern province of Hispaniola when he decided to explore a nearby island, which became Puerto Rico. In pursuit of a rumored fountain of youth Ponce de Leon led an expedition to the coast of what is now Florida in 1513. Thinking it was the island he sought, he sailed back to colonize the region in 1521, but was fatally wounded in an Indian attack soon after his arrival.