The archaeology of how communities in the North American midcontinent responded to environmental change has had global significance for understanding hydroclimate-human relationships in non-industrialized societies. We evaluate how an agriculturalist settlement network, the Angel polity, coped with environmental change through comparing the radiocarbon-derived occupation history to local proxies for hydroclimatic change from Martin Lake, Indiana. Located within the northeast Mississippian (AD 1000–1500) frontier, the Angel polity consisted of a network of hamlets and villages, encompassing ∼800 km² in southwest Indiana with the Angel Mounds site serving as the polity’s social nexus. The results indicate that Angel Mounds was established as the Medieval Climate Anomaly transitioned to Little Ice Age (LIA) drought with the construction of a community centered around a platform mound earthwork. The Angel polity’s population became more centralized at Angel Mounds during the initial decades of the LIA drought conditions and a large fortification was constructed at Angel Mounds during this time. The dissolution of the Angel polity occurred in AD 1350–1450 during a profound LIA-associated mega-drought and regional depopulation of the midcontinent. These results provide an example of how non-industrialized, agriculturalist communities responded to episodes of hydroclimatic change.

北美中部大陆社区如何应对环境变化的考古学对于理解非工业化社会中的水文气候与人类关系具有全球意义。我们通过将放射性碳衍生的占领历史与印第安纳州马丁湖的水文气候变化的当地代理进行比较，评估农业定居点网络天使政体如何应对环境变化。Angel 政体位于密西西比东北部（公元 1000-1500 年）边界内，由小村庄和村庄网络组成，涵盖约 800 平方公里²在印第安纳州西南部，天使丘网站作为政体的社会纽带。结果表明，随着中世纪气候异常过渡到小冰河时代 (LIA) 干旱，随着以平台土墩土方工程为中心的社区建设，天使丘建立起来。在 LIA 干旱条件的最初几十年中，天使政体的人口更加集中在天使丘，在此期间在天使丘建造了一个大型防御工事。天使政体的解体发生在公元 1350 年至 1450 年期间，当时发生了与 LIA 相关的特大干旱和中部大陆的区域性人口减少。这些结果提供了一个例子，说明非工业化的农业社区如何应对水文气候变化事件。