At the same time, burials began to include an increasingly elaborate number and variety of luxury goods such marine shell beads, copper gorgets and ear spools, paint pallets, galena crystals and mineral based pigments. One adult male (presumably a chief) was interred during this period with anklets and bracelets of beads covered with copper, three sheet copper gorgets, a sheet-copper hair ornament held by a bison horn pin, a pearl necklace, an effigy amethyst pendant carved in the form of a human head, and a copper-bladed axe.
From 1300-1450, control of the region became aggregated at Moundville, with increasing numbers of chiefly burials; at the same time, certain types of symbolism became restricted to the center. By 1500, though, power had shifted away from Moundville, and by 1540, when Hernando de Soto passed by, only three of the mounds were in use.
