<Ol> <Li> The construction of large, truncated earthwork pyramid mounds, or platform mounds . Such mounds were usually square, rectangular, or occasionally circular . Structures (domestic houses, temples, burial buildings, or other) were usually constructed atop such mounds . </Li> <Li> Maize - based agriculture . In most places, the development of Mississippian culture coincided with adoption of comparatively large - scale, intensive maize agriculture, which supported larger populations and craft specialization . </Li> <Li> Shell tempered pottery . The adoption and use of riverine (or more rarely marine) shells as tempering agents in ceramics . </Li> <Li> Widespread trade networks extending as far west as the Rockies, north to the Great Lakes, south to the Gulf of Mexico, and east to the Atlantic Ocean . </Li> <Li> The development of the chiefdom or complex chiefdom level of social complexity . </Li> <Li> The development of institutionalized social inequality . </Li> <Li> A centralization of control of combined political and religious power in the hands of few or one . </Li> <Li> The beginnings of a settlement hierarchy, in which one major center (with mounds) has clear influence or control over a number of lesser communities, which may or may not possess a smaller number of mounds . </Li> <Li> The adoption of the paraphernalia of the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex (SECC), also called the Southern Cult . This is the belief system of the Mississippians as we know it . SECC items are found in Mississippian - culture sites from Wisconsin (see Aztalan State Park) to the Gulf Coast, and from Florida to Arkansas and Oklahoma . The SECC was frequently tied into ritual game - playing, as with chunkey . </Li> </Ol> <Li> The construction of large, truncated earthwork pyramid mounds, or platform mounds . Such mounds were usually square, rectangular, or occasionally circular . Structures (domestic houses, temples, burial buildings, or other) were usually constructed atop such mounds . </Li> <Li> Maize - based agriculture . In most places, the development of Mississippian culture coincided with adoption of comparatively large - scale, intensive maize agriculture, which supported larger populations and craft specialization . </Li> <Li> Shell tempered pottery . The adoption and use of riverine (or more rarely marine) shells as tempering agents in ceramics . </Li>

The mississippian civilization settled along the rocky mountains