Moundville phase
The Moundville phase, 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 of Moundville held enormous amounts of power over its people. When its much more diminished descendants were encountered by a Spanish expedition, even they 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, 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 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, Talapatica 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 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.
Nomenclature
The archaeological manifestation of the Moundville phase and its namesake most famous site, was named such for its large earthen pyramids. Charles Hudson, leading expert on the De Soto Expedition, identifies the Moundville site as Zabusta "The Place of Burr-Oaks." The region as a whole was called variously by the De Soto Chronicles as The Province of Pafalaya, Pafallaya. It's believed that Pafalaya or Pafallaya was identical to the name used by neighboring tribes to call the Choctaws, Pa'sfalaya, or the long-haired ones. This is because of the Eastern Division of the Choctaws, likely the continuation of the Province of Pafalaya.History
Pre-Moundville Initial Mississippianization (1070-1120)
The Mississippian Era was defined by intense maize agriculture, temple mounds, and theocratic-aristocratic "theater states." Among Muscogee-speakers, the base government subdivision was the Talwa or Okla, the greater town or chiefdom, ruled by a Mico. The beginnings of Mississippian influence in the Black Warrior River Valley began in the 1070s, when the West Jefferson phase emerged. the West Jefferson phase is viewed as a Woodland group in the process of Mississippianization, transition to a Mississippian culture. It held some Mississippian traits such as shell-working industry, chunkey-stone manufacturing and the presence of foreign Mississippian green-stones. The not yet consolidated, but partially Mississippianized made it a perfect destination for a certain group of Mississippians coming out from the Shiloh phase.Founding and Initial Consolidation (1120-1200)
The transition from West Jefferson to the Moundville I phase is dated to around 1120. The establishment of the Moundville phase is thought to be an exodus coming out from the Shiloh site, perhaps leaving due to a Cahokian relationship to Shiloh around this time, the product of which were the first mounds at Shiloh. Another group that left around this time, perhaps even for the same reason as Moundville, was the ancestors of the Rood phase, or the Province of Apalachicola. This ancestral tie between the Apalachicola and Moundville came into use centuries down the line, when the Moundville-descended Alabama River Province, the Moundville-descended Cusseta Province, and Apalachicola Province allied to form the Muscogee Confederacy.Regional Dominance and Elaboration of Power (1200-1300)
Starting from 1200, Moundville grew rapidly. At its peak there were at least 29 earthen pyramids in its capital of Moundville, and a population in its core province of between 10,000 and 30,000. This core population was spread out in many small farming settlements, grouped and governed by a dozen or more administrative mound centers home to only some bureaucrats and the Mico 's immediate family. The nucleated center at it all, Zabusta/Moundville, was only home to around 1,000-1,700 people permanently, but likely held elaborate and large festivities seasonally that included most of the province, much like other Mississippian capitals, such as Ivitachuco in Apalachee which assembled at least 30,000 people at a time for certain, possibly religious, events. This limitation in a nucleated residential population comes from a mixture of factors, like lack of modes of transportation for firewood and food.By 1250, its sociopolitical influence reached beyond its core province, notably at Chakchiuma, Talapatica and the 1GR2 mound chiefdom. Considering the relationship of Chakchiuma with the Chickasaw and Alabama Micoships during contact period, and the general distance that other Mississippian polities extended, it's likely that the Chickasaw and Alabama also had some sort of tributary relationship with Moundville.
The Moundville Province became so large that groups began to split from Moundville, like Moundville did from Shiloh. One chiefly lineage is thought to have left to the Bottle Creek Mounds north of Mobile Bay during this period and another to the Cedar Creek Mound site on the Alabama River. The Bottle Creek Mounds was the capital of a kingdom unrivaled across the entire Gulf Coast with subsidiary centers like the Crossroads Mounds site in the vicinity of Lower Halls Landing, Baldwin County, likely ancestral to the Chickasawhays that moved west to join the Choctaw Confederacy after contact. This intrusion was the beginning of a Gulf Coast manifestation of the Mississippian culture, known as the Pensacola Culture, composed principally of influences from Moundville and the Lower Mississippi Valley. The Cedar Creek mound site, near Elm Bluff, Alabama, was another intrusion of Moundvillians, this time to the Alabama River. They became a regional center for the local woodland White Oak phase, reflecting a mix of both White Oak and Moundville I designs in their ceramics.
Necropolis & Decentralized Stage (1300-1530)
Mounds continued to be expanded and raised throughout the late 13th century, but as the Medieval Warm Period came to a close, elaborate ceremonialism involving the entire population of the valley became more difficult to sustain, and the Moundville Province had to look inward to maintain its own population before projecting power outwards, likely leading to the decline in hard power material influences on the former tributaries.To accommodate this development, elites began to repurpose Moundville/Zabusta itself as a necropolis, a ceremonial center for death. Already considered a prestigious place for souls to enter the Milky Way, Moundville leaned even more into this spiritual and mortuary aspect. Academics now believe that Moundville became a place where ritualism was conducted to contact dead souls, possibly with the help of Datura psychoactive substances, linked to a new religious movement based around Datura and a giant Moth deity. The former neighborhoods within Zabusta emptied out into farmsteads, small farming settlements, dispersed throughout the valley that answer to small administrative mound centers that held only the administrators, bureaucrats, the Mico and his immediate family.
In the 15th century Moundville's prestige elite burials shifted to outside the walls of Moundville, signaling another blow to Moundville's prestige. Conflict plagued the early 15th century province, and it came to a boiling point around 1450, when a substantial Moundville phase population left the province to the Alabama River, formerly the outskirts of the Paramountcy. The newly established the Province of Tascalusa, expanded rapidly, courting a Bottle Creek offshoot, the Province of Mabila, partially subjugating the minor chiefdom of Piachi, and partially subjugating the province of Talisi. After contact, the democratized Tascalusa would eventually ally with their related Province of Apalachicola to form the powerful Muscogee/Creek Confederacy. It's been proposed that, although diminished, Moundville still could've remained prestigious enough to be the de jure ceremonial capital of the Province of Pafalaya even until the De Soto Period. We may never know for sure, but perhaps the Lord of Pafalaya at the Snow's Bend Site seen by De Soto was an attempt at reestablishing a centralized Moundville chiefdom.