# American Indians and the lack of buildings **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 2, 2008, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-indians-and-the-lack-of-buildings/470735 "2008-11-02T16:51:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![tygerbryght](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a9a28c/32.png) [@tygerbryght](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tygerbryght)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2008, 7:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-indians-and-the-lack-of-buildings/470735/41 "2008-11-05T07:20:28Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > I’d like to see a cite for some or all of this, please. It sounds like you are mixing up meso-American stuff with North American stuff. I wish I _could_ give you a cite, but I already said I couldn’t. The absolute last class I took was in the early/mid-90s. I don’t think a single one of the profs I had is still at that university; they’re either dead, retired or have moved to other schools, so I don’t think I could find any of them to ask. I am fairly certain it wasn’t in a text for my one archaeology course, as that prof was young and took a theoretical/experimental approach to the class. I’ve got more (considerably more, I think) than 1,000 books, most of them in boxes, all jammed into a rather small 2 BR apartment. Two of the rooms are more than half full of boxes of books, in addition to the closets of the 2nd BR, which I use as my computer and music room. The BR I use as such has largish furniture, a treadmill, and 2 jammed bookcases, with 5 stuffed bookcases in the living room, and two here in the computer room - all with fiction. Non-fiction, including old textbooks, is in boxes, and what I had when I moved here 8 years ago is probably in the closets of this room - with other boxes of books in front of the doors. I’m not the one who put any of the boxes of books where they are. Since I became disabled I’m no longer able to move anything that heavy around. At different times, several different people have moved boxes of books around, so they’re all thoroughly stirred, if not shaken. I am _quite_ sure I’m not mixing it with Meso-American or any other “primitive” society. My memory is no longer near-eidetic, thanks to 2 closed-head injuries, but it’s still considerably better than that of anyone else I’ve ever met in person. I already said I shouldn’t have mentioned it. Since you don’t find it credible, pretend I didn’t say it, okay? AFAIK, it was the only culture I can recall ever reading about that had a mechanism for mandatory social status change, and that’s why it stuck so firmly in my memory. Maybe the author made it up; how should I know? ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2008, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-indians-and-the-lack-of-buildings/470735/42 "2008-11-05T14:12:27Z")
> [@tygerbryght](#): > > I wish I _could_ give you a cite, but I already said I couldn’t. I think I provided you and **DrDeth** a partial cite above :). Which is to say I _think_ you were recalling the Natchez and perhaps extrapolations to earlier Mississippian culture, who apparently practiced some sort of social class exogamy. As the wikipedia cite notes, it is an academically contentious area with some debates over the particulars. But your description matches up reasonably well with the “classic” hypothesis offered up by John Swanton. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2008, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-indians-and-the-lack-of-buildings/470735/43 "2008-11-05T17:44:59Z")
I must admit, from the little reading I have done (mostly research for 1 term paper), I would hesitate to call the Missisipian an empire (which to me implies unified nationhood) as much as I would call it a cultural complex uniting similar chiefdoms, centered around the ever-fascinating Southern Death Cult. Aah, I see we’re calling it the [Southeastern Ceremonial Complex](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southeastern_Ceremonial_Complex) now. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2008, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-indians-and-the-lack-of-buildings/470735/44 "2008-11-05T18:05:49Z")
> [@Tamerlane](#): > > It has been argued, but it is not conclusively proven ( as far as I know ), that the Mississippian mound-builders ( i.e. Cahokia ) were influenced by Mesoamerican contacts. I think the antiquity of the mound-builder cultures and the location of many main centres rules out all but a very casual connection, IMO. If the influence was worth anything, I’d expect to see a decreasing degree of influence as one heads from the Mississipi delta regions to the Great Lakes. I don’t think that’s the case, and the older the culture, the further North we find it - the Adena didn’t even extend to the Gulf Coast, IIRC, and the type-culture for the Hopewell, which did, is in Ohio. Although I’ve always been fascinated by how much the Southern Death Cult iconography just _looks_ Mesoamerican, damn it. I mean, something like [this](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/fe/Chromesun-warr_with_mace_gorget01.jpg) wouldn’t look out of place in a Mayan mural, would it? ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2008, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-indians-and-the-lack-of-buildings/470735/45 "2008-11-05T18:19:03Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Although I’ve always been fascinated by how much the Southern Death Cult iconography just _looks_ Mesoamerican, damn it. I mean, something like [this](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/fe/Chromesun-warr_with_mace_gorget01.jpg) wouldn’t look out of place in a Mayan mural, would it? I think that is a not inconsiderable part of the attraction of the hypothesis :). It seems slightly dubious to me as well, but you can readily imagine why people are taken with the idea - it would tie everything together rather neatly if true. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2008, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-indians-and-the-lack-of-buildings/470735/46 "2008-11-05T19:45:44Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > I must admit, from the little reading I have done (mostly research for 1 term paper), I would hesitate to call the Missisipian an empire (which to me implies unified nationhood) as much as I would call it a cultural complex uniting similar chiefdoms, centered around the ever-fascinating Southern Death Cult. > > Aah, I see we’re calling it the [Southeastern Ceremonial Complex](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southeastern_Ceremonial_Complex) now. I agree, but I admit that Tamerlane’s cite has convinced me that the Natchez culture could at least _be argued to be something empire-like_. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-indians-and-the-lack-of-buildings/470735.md?page=2)