Building an infrastructure - Mississippian ditch-diggers excavating a trench for a palisade, Illinois State Museum.
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Infrastructure refers to a system of facilities and implements which help
people pursue their work and pleasure. An infrastructure serves to promote
social integration by providing structured lines of communication and spatial
organization, facilitating the transportation of people and materials, and
allowing large groups of people to plan and perform activities. As such, an
infrastructure speaks of a greater level of social complexity. In the context
of Mississippian people, infrastructure includes technological devices like
ridged fields, as well as socio-political devices like mounds, plazas, and
woodhenges that facilitated civic and religious integrative functions.
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