Painting of a Mandan Village by George Catlin
By 1600, the Mandan
civilization was thriving on strong social controls, hierarchies,
clan relationships, and social organization. Their villages
were now home to as many as 2000 people. Rectangular lodges
had evolved into the circular ones that would be associated with
village Indians of the upper Missouri. Earth lodges,
forty to fifty feed in diameter, were home to as many as forty
people, and a typical village had as many as 200 lodges arranged
around a central plaza. It was during this time that the
Mandans, who were becoming wealthy traders, came under attack from
nomadic tribes.