Mississippian House Life

Mississippian House Life. . When people built houses here, they dug holes in the ground and set posts in them to form the corners and to support the walls and roof. Long after these houses had fallen or burned down, the posts left a stain of a different color in the soil called Postmolds. By mapping the location of these postmolds, archaeologists can know how large the houses were and how far apart they were spaced. , When we know how big a house is, we can also estimate how many people lived in it. Based on the amount of trash left by the occupants and by comparing Chucalissa with other Mississippian sites, we think 4 adults and several children lived in these houses. The houses of Chucalissa would have been very small for these families. It is likely that the living space was added to by making shades and arbors. During the summer, most household activities would take place outside. People would only use the house for storing food, tools and ritual objects, and for sleeping on cool nights. , How many people live in your house?, (aside:), 700 years ago the ridges around this plaza were filled with houses. As many as 1000 people lived at Chucalissa in dozens of houses that spilled over onto the sides of the bluff. Though we cannot know exactly what these houses looked like, archaeologists are able to reconstruct how they would have been built.