The specific workshops where Mississippian copper and shell objects were produced have not always been clearly identified archaeologically, but the concentration of raw materials and production debris at major centers like Cahokia suggests that the most important objects were made in proximity to the most important people.

The art of Cahokia is not merely beautiful — though it is beautiful.

It is evidence of a visual and symbolic tradition that connected communities across half a continent, that expressed a coherent cosmological vision, and that was produced with a level of technical skill that took generations to develop and maintain.

The Population That Moved and Where They Went

When Cahokia’s population dispersed in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the movement was not random.

People moved into communities that were already connected to Cahokia through trade, through shared cultural practices, and through the kinds of kinship and political relationships that connected major centers to their hinterlands across the Mississippian world.