The Mississippiian Writing System

lthough it had many of the same characteristics as the other river valleys that spawned the First Civilizations, the area around the Mississippi river did not spawn a significant, advanced civilization. This failure in development of the people who lived there can be traced back to a single thing that they lacked; a system of writing. A few things contributed to this civilization not having a writing system, including fewer (if any) species of domesticable animals in their region and their isolation from other major civilizations, among other, smaller failures such as perhaps many poor harvest years or conflicts between other tribes or inside their own society. None of these factors is the single reason that the Mississippians did not have …show more content…
Without writing, government cannot become complex because there can be no widely accepted law code and no keeping of any records. Records, both for the government and farming inventory, are important for the growth and survival of a people because only through record keeping or a complex government, both which directly stem from writing, can a food surplus be established. The lack of the written word both indicates and creates a group that cannot hope to have long term success and prosperity, such as enjoyed by the other First Civilizations, each of which had some sort of writing system. Almost all tribes have some sort of religious practice, but without some sort of text records or mythology or inscriptions, the religions can never become complex, and can therefore never become significant enough to the culture of the tribe for the government to be able to use it to encourage things such as monumental architecture or adherence to the government’s law. There is no legitimacy in a government without writing, because they lack power and real laws, and can often be overturned, creating a chaotic society. Without a strong government, people simply divide themselves into kin groups, which are by definition to small to create a civilization, because one power must be supreme to many families in a territory and force cooperative work for the good of all others that the government holds power over to create a food surplus. The people of the Mississippi River Valley had no government, and therefore no food surplus, and therefore no significant