Using either the Anasazi/Mississippian or the Iroquois/Algonquian, compare and describe their attitudes about community in such areas as settlement patterns, food sources, social organization, cultural and political structures, and conflict.

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

The ideal answer should include:
- Settlement patterns:
* Anasazi: population pressure and dry climate resulted in a change from pit-house villages to pueblos that were secure and inaccessible cliff dwellings; over 25,000 known communities including Pueblo Bonito
* Mississippian: permanent urban community sites along floodplains of the Mississippi Valley including Cahokia; residential neighborhoods
* Iroquois: along the coast and river valleys of the Northeast; longhouses in villages surrounded by palisades
* Algonquian: less-extensive dwellings in smaller villages without palisades; dense populations in farming areas along Atlantic coast and in the Ohio Valley
- Food sources:
* Anasazi: maize grown in irrigated, terraced fields; hunting with bows and arrows; more-complex irrigation canals, dams, and terraced fields as climate grew drier; Pueblo descendants used dry-farming methods and drought-resistant plants
* Mississippian: quickly maturing Northern Flint maize; greater farm productivity with flint hoes; storage of large food surpluses; abundant animal resources
* Iroquois: women produced crops of corn, beans, squash, and sunflowers
* Algonquian: hunters and foragers in areas north of the Great Lakes and northern New England; farmers along the Atlantic coast and in the Ohio River Valley
- Social organization:
* Anasazi: Pueblo descendants lived in communal villages; strict communal code of behavior enforced by matrilineal clans and secret religious societies
* Mississippian: dozens of urban communities; mound building suggested high degree of social organization; tribute labor to construct public works
* Iroquois: matrilineal extended families
* Algonquian: patrilineal families; 50 distinct cultures
- Cultural and political structures:
* Anasazi: adapted artistic and engineering technology that spread from Mexico; craft specialization; trade networks; lack of writing system; kivas for religious ceremonies; Pueblo governing systems composed of a combination of matrilineal clans and secret religious societies; seasonal public ceremonies; kachinas were ancestral spirits
* Mississippian: adapted artistic and engineering technology that spread from Mexico; craft specialization; trade networks; lack of writing system; earliest city-states north of Mexico; hierarchal chieftains who controlled surrounding farmers; monumental temple mounds; chiefs redistributed foodstuffs and lived in luxury atop the mounds; human sacrifices
* Iroquois: five nations united in a confederacy; wampum belts symbolized unity of the confederacy; women chose male leaders of confederacy
* Algonquian: organized in bands with loose affiliations although confederacies were later formed; engaged in fur trade with Europeans
- Conflict:
* Athapascan raids resulted in abandonment of the Four Corners area
* Mississippian: violent competition between city-states for limited space along rivers; highly organized combat between tribal armies; endemic violence led to abandonment of metropolitan centers
* Iroquois: violent conflicts over territory; confederacy prohibited warfare with each other but encouraged war with neighboring Iroquoian speakers
* Algonquian: confederacies formed during fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, possibly for defensive reasons