Conflict and agriculture during the late prehistoric period in the Upper Mississippi Valley

Abstract

The end of the prehistoric period is a time of drastic change in the lives of humans who inhabited the Upper Mississippi Valley. Approximately AD 1000 people began to practice corn agriculture rather than simple cultivation in order to compensate for a shortage of food resulting from population increase. During the same time period there is an escalation in conflict in the Upper Mississippi Valley. The purpose of this study is to observe the tends in both agriculture and conflict from AD 500-European contact and determine whether the early sites that adopted agriculture also experienced more conflict than sites with minimum corn consumption.