Moundville phase

The Moundville phase, which was known to the early European explorers as the Province of Pa'sfalaya/Pafalaya, was a major Mississippian polity in the U.S. state of Alabama. Centered in the Black Warrior River valley, the Mico (or "great cacique") of Moundville held enormous amounts of power over its people. When its much more diminished descendants were encountered by a Spanish expedition, even they (called "lords" by the chroniclers) were able to manage and relocate whole granaries, mobilize forces, organize expedition parties and hire guides to help the Spanish. A large portion of the Moundville phase would split off in 1450 from a variety of reasons. Crop failure, political infighting, end of the Moundville lineage, disagreements on the polity's future, or even violent civil war all could have contributed to the split in the Moundville phase. The two main successors were the Province of Pafalaya (lineage based at the Snow's Bend Site), who stayed in the Black Warrior River and evidently replaced Moundville as the dominant power in the Moundville phase. The other, more powerful, successor was the Province of Tascalusa, east to the Alabama River, with its capital at Atahachi, known as the "Big Eddy phase."

The beginning of Mississippian influence is considered to have been established c. 1070 under the West Jefferson phase, but the Moundville phase only began around 1120, founded by a group who split away from the Shiloh phase.

Over the course of a century, the Moundville phase polity would rise to great heights. At least 29 mounds in its capital, and a population in its core province of between 10,000 and 30,000. By 1250, its shadow loomed over neighbors beyond its core province, notably at Chakchiuma (at the Butler mound), Talapatica (possibly located at the Lubbub Creek mound) and the 1GR2 mound chiefdom. Prestige goods from all over the Southeast arrived in the grand plaza of moundville for the elite and the Mico of Moundville, Appalachian copper, Lower Mississippian art, Cahokian stones, pearls and shells from the coast, colorful gemstones, and Datura drugs from New Mexico all coming together to be used in ceremonies and to boost the seeming divinity of Moundville elite.

Moundville phase continued to prosper somewhat during the early 14th century and prestige goods might've even increased in the region, despite mounds on the Moundville site itself being slowly abandoned. After however, it is certain that by 1400 Moundville began to decline in long-distance prestige goods exchange. High status individuals began to be buried away from the mounds, and by the late 15th century most mounds in the valley had stopped being built.

Vernon James Knight Jr. and Vincas P. Steponaitis have proposed that the Mico of Moundville still held a de jure sovereignty among the inhabitants of the Black Warrior River Valley. Interestingly, the various De Soto chronicles seem to identifiy a de facto political head of the region lay with the "Lord of the Province of Pafalaya," his principal town at the 15th-16th century Snow's Bend Site (town of Apafalaya?) in the north of the core Moundville province.

That first Mico of Moundville split off from Shiloh at the same time as another group split from Shiloh, the Province of Apalachicola, eventually known archaeologically as the Rood phase. Possibly even splitting for the same reason, Moundville likely remained amicable with the Province of Apalachicola throughout the centuries, and during the 16th-17th centuries, one of the two main provinces of Moundville descent, Tascalusa, would reunite with their brethren in Apalachicola and form the Upper and Lower Creek Confederacy.