Mark of the Mississippians: A Multi-Platform Digital Media Project

FAIN: GI-50299-11

Cahokia Mounds Museum Society (Collinsville, IL 62234-7617)
Lori Jean Belknap (Project Director: August 2010 to June 2013)

Implementation of a website on the history of the archaeological Mississippian sites of Cahokia, Moundville, Etowah, and Spiro, containing streaming media, virtual tours of the sites, and downloadable trail tours.

Mark of the Mississippians seeks to fill a void of information about the Mississippian culture that prospered in the Southeast and Midwest from AD 800 to about AD 1400...well before Christopher Columbus reached the new world. Polling among the general public reveals that little is known about this highly advanced culture, nor is the subject taught in schools, yet the Mississippians were the zenith of a cultural evolution that had taken place on the North American continent for 12,000 years. They are the forebears of many of today's Native American Tribes. The project tells their story in two powerful media elements: (a) a high definition television documentary, and (b) a robust website with, among other features, downloadable visitor tours of the four principal Mississippian sits, Cahokia, Etowah, Moundville, and Spiro. Mark of the Mississippians will help illuminate a pivotal chapter in American history that has been overlooked for too long.