There was no significant improvement in labor, power or transportation; all were still accomplished wholly by human effort without the aid of draft animals. Traveling by boat was known and probably used by both cultures.
Comparing the two peoples with other plant growers having no domestic food-draft animals, it seems apparent that each had an effective [political organization], a formalized vital [religion] with true priests (not “self-appointed” shamans) and a system of moral values and tenets that “church” and “state” were organized to maintain. All in all, from the broader cultural standpoint, they were amazingly alike.
UNDER-DEVELOPED NEIGHBORS—THE UPPER MISSISSIPPIANS (1100?-1600 A.D.)
Less advanced [Mississippi] tribes with customs showing some admixture of [Woodland] cultural elements living contemporaneously in Missouri, Iowa, Wisconsin, Indiana and Ohio, encircled the [Middle phase] peoples on the east, north and west. Known generally now as the Upper [phase] peoples their sole representative in Illinois was the [people] of the Langford [subculture], who dwelt around the southern end of Lake Michigan as well as in adjacent parts of Indiana and Michigan. The [type station] is the Fisher Village and Mounds near Joliet which were ably investigated by Mr. George Langford, Sr. some years ago.[16]
They built no flat-topped pyramids and left little, if any, evidence of their religious practices. Their [art], as exhibited by pottery, personal ornaments or weapons was not of a high order. There is no evidence that they played the chunkey game. Some copper hatchets and ornaments were in use, but these appear to be of Middle [Mississippi] workmanship and may have been trade articles.
On the positive side, they buried their dead in dome-shaped earthen mounds, usually in the [extended] position, frequently with food (in clay pots with shell spoons), weapons (arrows and tomahawks or hafted celts), personal ornaments and various utilitarian implements. Dwellings had subsurface circular floors and were doubtless dome-shaped (hemispherical). The bow and arrow were in common use with [arrowheads] primarily of slender simple triangular shape, very rarely with side notches. Implements, weapons and ornaments were chiefly of chipped [flint], ground or polished [stone], river clam [shells], bone and animal teeth. Copper was rarely employed.
Fig. 30. Characteristic pottery from the Langford [subculture], Upper [Mississippi] [phase], (Fisher Site near Channahon, Illinois). (Photograph by George Langford, Chicago Natural History Museum.)
Pots were generally of the globular or flattened globular shape (olla or jar), tempered with grit (early) and shell (later), and decorated with geometric designs in broad lines and dots, drawn (“trailed”) or impressed on the shoulder region with a blunt tool (such as an antler tine). Lips of vessels were usually pressure-notched and surfaces cord-roughened. Loop handles on the jars were common.
Numerous examples of flat [stone] tablets associated with a number of short solid antler cylinders lead one to suspect that a game of chance of some sort was played and that gambling was probably indulged in.