Newark Earthworks

Deer on one of eight barrier mounds at the gap of the Octagonal Mound of the Newark Earthworks

Will post soon!

Hopewell Culture National Historical Park + Jarrod Burks presentation

Hopewell Mound Group, as mapped by
Ephraim Squier and Edwin Davis, published in 1848

Today we went to the primary site for the Middle Woodland societies known as the Hopewell Tradition: the Hopewell Cultural National National Historic Park in Chillicothe, Ohio. I'm beginning to appreciate the extent that manmade earthworks—mounds, earthen enclosures, and ditches, some lined to hold water—covered the landscape, particularly in Ross County, of Ohio.

In the Ohio River Valley, the Early Woodland society known as the Adena culture flourished from 1000–200 BCE. This culture evolved into the the Middle Woodland cultural tradition known as Hopewell, who flourished from 200 BCE to 500 CE. The trade network of the Hopewellian Exchange, while originating in Ohio, ultimately spanned from Canada to the Gulf Coast.

This little redwing blackbird is one seriously angry bird.

First we visited the Hopewell Mound Group on a tour led by Dr. Brett Ruby, who has also studied Hopewell sites in Indiana and Tennessee. He said that vegetation management is the park's greatest challenge. Ohio is incredibly lush. Since the earthen enclosures of the Hopewell Mound Group are no longer clearly visible, the park mowed a large swath into the foliage to reveal where the earthworks once stood. From north to south, the enclosures run 2,800 feet.

In 1891, three connected mounds were excavated and many of the Hopewell artifacts in museums today came from these burial mounds. All the other mounds at the site were excavated several times in subsequent years.

Copper repoussé, possibly representing a Carolina parakeet

The Hopewell Cultural National Historical Park maintains a number of close but not adjacent sites. We drove to the immense Siep Mound. Mound City is next to the museum includes 23 mounds, enclosed by earthen embankments with openings at regular intervals. The US Army destroyed most of these mounds in WWI, so they have been rebuilt. A walkway leads down to the nearby Scioto River.

The interpretative center has numerous artifacts and reproductions on display, including mica cut-outs, copper repoussé objects, ear spools, shell bead necklaces, and the characteristic effigy platforms pipes for which Hopewellian artists are so famous.

Muskrat (?) swimming in the Scioto River

Jarrod Burks gave a presentation to a packed house about his success mapping ancient earthworks with remote sensing technologies. These include LiDAR, Light Detection and Ranging, which allows earthworks to be seen through forest canopies, and the magnetometer, which through variations in the magnetic fields can sense underground trenches. Through walking carefully over a site with a magnetometer, either handheld or rolled, Burks can create a map of the underground site, which reveals ditches, earthworks, and post holes.

Remote sensing technologies are extremely exciting developments since they allow archaeologists to glean valuable information about sites, without disturbing burials or sacred sites by excavating them. Tribal archaeologists often couple remote sensing with surface collection, since both are non-intrusive, allowing tribes to know about their ancestors without disrespecting them.

Siep Mound

Mound City—these mounds have all been reconstructed

• Hopewell Cultural National Historical Park, official NPS site
• Jarrod Burks, Ohio Valley Archaeological Consultants
• Brett Ruby, papers on Academia.edu

Fort Ancient Earthworks

Sorry, no time to write much but here are images. More later!

Fort Ancient Archaeological Park museum. This site is the largest hilltop earthwork enclosure, located near Oregonia, Ohio. The edges of the hilltop were flanked by earthwork enclosures built by the earlier settlement of Woodland people who were part of the Hopewellian exchange. It was late settled by the Fort Ancient peoples.

Mica bird claw cut out, sometimes considered a peregrine falcon claw

"Stone circles" mean something else here in Ohio. The original stones are buried.
These replicas are carefully marked with coins laid down underneath so no one will mistake them.

Insanely beautiful view. If not covered in vegetation, this would overlook two serpent-shaped
effigy mounds, one marking the summer solstice; one the winter. Apparently the larger sites mark
both solar and lunar calendars.

Holder-Wright Earthworks, Jeffers Mound, and Kerr Mound

The 40-foot tall conical Jeffers Mound is covered in vegetation,
including approximately 40 trees and ring of poison ivy

Ohio State University’s American Indian Center sponsored Linda and my trip here to observe the prehistoric earthworks. The Newark Earthworks Center co-sponsored our trip, and our hosts are Marti Chaatsmith (Comanche-Choctaw) and Christine Ballengee Morris (Eastern Cherokee). Earthworks are ubiquitous in Ohio, and OSU and NEC are striving to protect them by increasing awareness about them.

Ohio has no federally recognized tribes; however, a number of historical tribes lived here before being relocated to Indian Territory and other regions. These tribes include (but are not limited to):

• Anishinaabe (Odawa, Ojibwe, Potawatomi)
• Delaware (Lenape)
• Eel River people
• Erie
• Kaskaskia (enrolled today in the Peoria Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma)
• Miami
• Mingo (enrolled today in the Seneca-Cayuga Nation)
• Piankashaw (enrolled today in the Peoria Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma)
• Sauk
• Shawnee
• Wea (enrolled today in the Peoria Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma)
• Wyandotte (Wendat).

 What's interesting is that the Miami, Shawnee, and Wyandotte people arrived in Ohio from the East in the 17th century and openly state they did not build the earthworks. Adena earthworks date back 3,000 to 2,200 years, and Hopewell earthworks date back 2,200 to 1,500 years, so in truth, it would be extremely difficult to determine what tribes are connected to the earthworks. It is debated whether or not Fort Ancient culture, which only dates back 1,000 to 250 years, descends from the Hopewell tradition. Did Fort Ancient develop in situ or emigrate from another region into Ohio?

A Miami scholar told Marti Chaatsmith that Miami weren't connected to the earthworks and had no specific language about them. He suggested that verbs would be the place to look—to planning and building major earthworks. What Indigenous language has these terms? Seems like Anishinaabemowin would be an intriguing candidate to study.

During our busy first day we visited the Holder-Wright earthworks in Dublin, Jeffers Mound in Worthington, and the Kerr Mound located between two residential houses in Pickerington.

I’ll share more details when there’s time!

Ohio Earthworks

Map of precontact sites in Ohio by Heironymous Rowe

Thanks to American Indian Studies Program at the Ohio State University, Linda Lomahaftewa and I are embarking on another precolumbian journey—this time to explore Ohio's Ancient Earthworks!

Ohio is the birthplace of three major civilizations:

• Adena culture (ca. 1000 - 200 BCE)
• Hopewell Exchange (ca. 200 BCE - 500 CE)
• Fort Ancient culture (1000-1750 CE )

Marti Chaatsmith, the Associate Director of the Newark Earthworks Center, and Christine Ballengee Morris, Professor of Arts Administration and Policy at OSU, created an amazing itinerary that includes:

• The Great Serpent Mound

  

  Hopewellian copper bird, the Mound City, Ohio

• Fort Ancient Earthworks
• Mound City [Hopewell Culture National Historic Park],
• Newark Earthworks: the Octagon and Great Circle Earthworks
• Panther Mound
•  Jeffers Mound
• Wright-Holder Earthworks
• Ohio Historical Society
• Flint Ridge State Park
• and, for fun, the Longaberger Basket Building.

We'll post our discoveries and adventures here. For more information about Ohio's precontact earthworks, check out:

• Newark Earthworks Center blog
• Ancient Ohio Trail.

Solar Map Project | Paraguayan Petroglyphs

Happy 2013! I've been much occupied elsewhere and have neglected this blog in recent months, but just discovered a brilliant project. The Solar Map Project is documenting petroglyphs in the Amambay hills of Paraguay and will produce a 30-minute documentary about them.

Carved into natural rock shelters, these ancient petroglyphs are founds throughout the jungles where Paraguay borders Brazil. They are not well known, even within Paraguay, and survived for so long because of the remoteness of the region; however, logging and large-scale agriculture in growing rapidly in the Amambay Department. Deforesting exposes the petroglyphs to the elements and vandalism is on the rise.

Frank Weaver is the driving force of the Solar Map Project. He was born in Pedro Juan Caballero, Paraguay and currently lives in Florida. He's passionate about environmental and social justice, particularly for the indigenous peoples of eastern Paraguay. In the 1980s, Weaver's father and grandmother founded the one of the first environmental NGOs in Paraguay. A camera was donated to the NGO, and eight-year-old Weaver became the organization's cameraman. He has visited the petroglyph sites with Paï-Tavytera people since he was a child (Solar Map Project).

In addition to the documentary, the Solar Map Project is photographing the petroglyphs and interviewing Paï-Tavytera people about their oral history. In discussing petroglyphs with different anthropologists, Weaver noticed they did share their information much with the public. To bring global awareness to the dangers facing the petroglyphs and the Paï-Tavytera, Weaver has been releasing his photography to the public through Creative Commons (Solar Map Project).

For the Paï-Tavytera people the Amambay hills are where "God Created the Universe" (Weaver). Members of the Guaraní people, Paï-Tavytera live in eastern Paraguay and southwestern Brazil. The Paraguayan Paï-Tavytera resisted assimilation, enslavement, and forced conversation by Jesuit missionaries in the 19th century. They have been able to maintain their traditional hunting and farming lifestyle, although this is increasingly difficult with the current settlement and deforestation of their lands (Flowers). Popular arts include featherwork and body painting. Basketry is commonly made by men and ceramics by women (Flowers).

Works Cited

• Flowers, Nancy M. "Paï-Tavytera." Countries and Their Cultures.
• Weaver, Frank. "Solar Map Project Frank Weaver." Good Karma for All. 
• "Frank Weaver."  Solar Map Project.

Links

• Solar Map Project, official website
• Solar Map Project's photosteam, Flickr
• Solar Map Project, Facebook page

Photo taken by the Solar Map Project, in Pedro Juan Caballero, Amambay, PY.

Oldest Known Rock Art in the Americas Discovered in Brazil

Rough sketch of "Little Horny Man"

Motorhead’s advice to “Rock out with your cock out” takes on new meaning in light of a recent archaeological discovery. Dubbed “The Little Horny Man,” a petroglyph of a stick man with an outsized phallus is the oldest reliably dated rock art in the Americas. Found in Lapa do Santo, a rock shelter in Brazil, the petroglyph dates between 12,000 and 9,000 years ago (Chol).

Lapa do Santo is located in the state of Minas Gerais, in central-eastern Brazil. Not far away is Lapa Vermelha, where Luzia, the oldest known human remains in the Americas was found. She lived 11,500 years ago (Smith).

Lapa do Santo is a large, limestone rock shelter. Almost at the end of a nine-year-excavation, archaeologists unearthed the petroglyph after digging 13 feet below the cave's surface (Chol).

The Little Horny Man stands twelve inches tall and eight inches wide. Walter Alves Neves, an archaeologist and biological anthropologist at the University of São Paulo believes the image is connected to a fertility rite (Chol). The stick figure is highly abstracted and features a “C”-shaped head and tri-digits, that is, both hands only have three fingers represented (Koebler). The less defined legs and feet appear to be in a squatting position.

The dates of the petroglyph were determined by carbon dating the sediment that covered it (Chol). Petroglyphs are images pecked into a rock surface, as opposed to pictographs that are painted upon the surface. This petroglyph is wildly different from other ancient rock art found in Brazil and Argentina. The diversity in art occurs at such an early date making the out-dated Clovis model of migration highly unlikely (Koebler).

• Chol, Charles. “'Little Horny Man': Rock Carving of Giant Phallus Discovered.” Live Science. 22 February 2012. Web.
• Koebler, Justin. “Ancient Brazilian Carving Believed to Be Among World's Oldest.” US News and World Report. 22 Feb 2012. Web.
• Smith, Chuck R. “Who Was First? Untangling America’s Prehistoric Roots”. Cabrillo College. 18 Feb 2000. Web.

• Image Gallery of the Little Horny Man, Live Science
• Video tour of Lapa do Santo (in Portuguese)

Toltec Mounds, Arkansas

The unassuming state of Arkansas boasts over 40,000 archaeological sites (AAS). The number of mounds in the state is staggering. And one of the largest mound sites in Arkansas is Toltec Mounds, so named because the Knapps, who once owned the land, thought Toltecs from Mexico surely most have built these elaborate platform mounds (TMS).


Built between 650 and 1050 CE, this ceremonial site sits near an oxbow lake separated from the Arkansas River centuries ago. Toltec served as a ceremonial center for adjacent farming communities; very few people actually lived on site. Of the 18 mounds at Toltec, the tallest stands at 39 feet. Certain mounds are positioned to correspond with sunrises and sunsets during both equinoxes and solstices. (TMS). The Toltec Mounds were abandoned abruptly in 1050, which is interestingly enough when Cahokia gained ascendency in a cultural "big bang," that many attribute in part to the explosion of a supernova on July 5, 1054 (Cahokia, Wilford).

The culture that built Toltec Mounds is called the Plum Bayou culture. Their descendants are unknown. Through NAGPRA, archaeologists legally have to consult with the Quapaw tribe about human remains and cultural patrimony of Toltec Mounds; however, the Quapaw only arrived in the region after the 13th century. Quapaw oral history says they migrated from the Ohio River Valley. The idea of a culture with no known descendants is somewhat haunting, but whether the Quapaw intermarried the Plum Bayou people or not, I'm glad that they have a tribe advocating on behalf of their burials and sacred items today.

Damon, Pythias, and a friend

The museum and grounds were well kept. A wooden structuretakes you out onto the lake among cypress looking back at the mounds. A couple of catfish resided in the audiovisual room. I asked what their names were and sure enough they did have names—Damon and Pythias.

• "Arkansas Archeological Survey." Encyclopedia of Arkansas History and Culture. 16 Sept 2010.
• "The 'Origins' of Cahokia Mounds." Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site. 2008.
• "Toltec Mounds Site." Encyclopedia of Arkansas History and Culture. 16 Sept 2010.
• Wilford, John. "Star Explosion of 1054 Is Seen in Indian Bowl." The New York Times. 19 June 1990.

Chucalissa, Tennessee

Sinti (snake) mosaic, based on pottery design

Digging for a swimming pool in a segregated African-American park in 1938, the Civilian Conservation Corps unearthed precolumbian artifacts from a Mississippian mound complex. The University of Tennessee investigated the site, which showed evidence of human occupation dating back to at least to 1000 BCE. The town site dates back to 1000 CE and was alternately abandoned and rebuilt. The main occupation dates from 1400 and was thought to be abandoned by the 1541 arrival of Hernando de Doto in the region (CH Nash Museum).

Curvilinear "wave" patterns are ubiquitous in this region

The name "Chucalissa" means "abandoned house" in Choctaw (Visitor's Guide 2). Today the site is west of T. O. Fuller State Park, and it's difficult to believe you're still in the city of Memphis, surrounded by towering forests on all sides, and a nearby power plant. ("What is it with mounds and power plants?" commented Linda.) The CH Nash Museum has an extensive collection of artifacts from the site on display, and their signage ties in the African-American history of the area. Signage is geared toward children, making the site and lifeways of the people who lived there directly relevant to the visitors. Recently added panels show input from Choctaw and Chickasaw tribes. Perhaps the interpretive materials here are some of the best because instead of exoticizing the precontact residents of the site, they humanize them.

A replica village of high-pitched thatched-roof huts was torn down from the site for not being sufficiently accurate to the originals, but photos reveal that they look as good as any found in other sites.

Platform mound at Chucalissa, 1350–1600 CE

Human effigy bowl, note the elaborate hat

The main platform mound dominates the site. The front is covered by concrete, which ironically, gives more of a sense of what the mound looked like in its heyday, since most mounds were sealed in red or yellow clay. Built between 1350 and 1600 CE, the 25-foot-high mound measures 150 feet long at its base. Postmold evidence reveals that two 50-square foot buildings once stood on the platform's surface (Visitor's Guide 6-7).

Across the large plaza, where demonstration stickball games are still occasionally played, sits a residential ridge mound and the smaller and older platform mound, worn down by plowing. The site also features the obligatory dugout canoe and herb garden. Plant signage features the pawpaw, an important source of food and textiles, and sassafras, important for teas and medicine. Near an employee's house is a prodigious stand of river cane, Arundinaria.

Contemporary tribes thought to have ancestral links to Chucalissa during its different occupations include the Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Quapaw.

• "A Visitor's Guide to Chucalissa." The Friends of Chucalissa, Memphis, Tennessee.
• "CH Nash Museum: Chucalissa." The University of Memphis College of Arts and Sciences. 2011.

Pinson Mounds, Tennessee

Incised greenstone pendant

The two-thousand-year-old Middle Woodland site, Pinson Mounds has my vote, hands down, for the creepiest site we've visited. This is probably due to the rain, the mist rising from the forests, the echoing insect calls, or the incised human skull rattles found on a male burial and on display in the museum. Built near the southern fork of the Forked Deer River, Pinson Mounds were constructed from 200 BCE through the 400 CE (Mainfort and Kwas).

Pinson is part of the Miller sub-tradition, a precolumbian culture that settled along the Tombigbee River in western Alabama, northeastern Mississippi, and western Tennessee, that flourished from 250 BCE to 550 CE (Peregrine and Ember 327). The Miller diet featured hickory nuts, goosefoot, maygrass, deer, turtles, fish, and shellfish (328-9). Miller peoples were part of the Hopewellian exchange. Many of the ceramics interred at Pinson were imported from throughout the southeast, while some of the Pinson stone artifacts came from as far away as Ohio (328, 333).

Pinson contains possibly 30 mounds, including five platform mounds. Unlike later Mississippian mounds, these early mounds have no conclusive evidence of buildings on their surface (328). Only three of the mounds were burial mounds; one of these being the Twin Mounds (Mainfort and Kwas). Few people are believed to have lived at the site; instead, it was a ceremonial center for the region (Peregrine and Ember 333).

Saul's Mound, Pinson Mound #9

At 72 feet tall, Saul's Mound, or Mound 9, is the second-tallest mound in the United States. Currently by trees and foliage, the mound is actually rectangular, with the corners corresponding to the four cardinal directions.

The park's museum is quite large and resembles a mound on the outside with turf-covered earth shored on its side. I can't help but think this architecture is genius and must help with their heating and air conditioning bills. They have an extensive collection of pottery, lithic tools, a dugout canoe, and other artifacts. The outside of the museum is covered with yucca plants, which seems incongruous, but as I found out, Yucca filamentosa is actually common throughout the south, growing as far east as Virginia.

As we drove away, we passed the amusing site of a flock of wild turkeys foraging on a mound, which lifted some of the creepiness of the site.

back entrance of the museum, covered in yucca plants

• Mainfort, Robert C., Jr. and Mary L. Kwas. "Pinson Mounds State Archaeological Park." Tennessee Encyclopedia. 1 Jan 2010.
• Peregrine, Peter Neal and Melvin Ember. Encyclopedia of Prehistory: North America, Volume 6. New Haven, CT: Human Relations Area Files, Inc., 2001.

Old Stone Fort, Tennessee

Scenery and local residents of the Old Stone Fort, TN

Built two thousand years ago by Middle Woodland era peoples, the so-called Old Stone Fort is a series of embankments near the forks of the Duck and Little Duck Rivers. The rivers and embankments encompass 52 acres. No evidence of military or defensive action exist; the "Fort" designation was provided by early European-American settlers (Potter 252).

I made the classic move; I skimmed the signage, then hit the trail, wondering, "Where's the stone fort?" After circling through the woods, and running into the same pack of deer over and over, I finally circled back and realized that the low mounds at the entrance of the park were the "stone fort." Originally, three sections of wall made of rocks and earth encircled the area. They were once 4-6 feet tall (Faulkner); however, time has worn down the walls and soil has completely covered the rocks. The entrance way is marked by two taller "pedestal mounds" (Faulkner). This site, occupied for thirteen generations, beginning in the Hopewell Era, is believed to be a ceremonial site (Potter 252), and five Hopewell settlements were were located nearby. No burials have been found on the site, so the "Fort" is thought to be an ancient astronomical observatory (Faulkner).

Remnants of earth-covered walls at the fort's southern entrance

The two rivers have dramatic falls and are lined with stone. Remnants of 19th century grist mills can be seen. The flowered meadows, the parklike forests, and the rushing rivers are gorgeous. I want to live here. If there's any land that resembles this area available in Oklahoma, let me know!

The museum, when it finally opened, was mainly filled with maps and lithic tools. The park hosts annual flint knapping gatherings. The park also has camping, picnicking, playgrounds, hiking trails, and bathrooms, which house exciting and interactive living spider exhibits.

• Faulkner, Charles F. "Old Stone Fort State Archaeological Park." The Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture 2.0. 23 Feb 2011.
• Potter, Susanna Henighan. Moon Handbooks: Tennessee. Berkeley, CA: Avalon Travel Publishing, 2009.

Kituwah, North Carolina

Kituwah, also spelled ᎩᏚᏩ and Giduwa, the mother mound of the Cherokee, was easily the most active mound site we visited. At only five feet tall, the mound not easy to locate, but the Eastern Band Cherokee posted signs marking the entrance.
Several times we've asked locals for directions to mounds, who came up blank—only to discover they lived within a mile of the mound. Seeing how many signs were up and how many activities happened at the mound, I find it amazing how a neighbor down the street had never heard of Kituwah.

The mound, located near a fork in the Tuckasegee River, contains the sacred, eternal fire (Pluralism). Kituwah is the location where God gave the sacred fire and laws to the Cherokee people (Curry). The site was a village that was razed by British soldiers in the late 18th century. The Cherokees lost the mound in a land cession treaty with the United States in 1823. In 1996, the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians successfully purchased the mound and surrounding lands. In a ceremony in 1998, Cherokee children began rebuilding the mound by adding a small patch of red dirt (Pluralism).

Stickball pole next to the mound

Archaeologists believe that Kituwah has been occupied for 10,000 years, and at one point 200 people lived on the site (Pluralism). Noninvasive archaeological studies, using a gradiometer which measures magnetic fields, reveals numerous hearth sites within the mound, including a large central hearth, around which a ceremonial building was rebuilt every 20 years since the 15th century. Test holes have revealed 15 burials on the land, with the possibility of many more. The Eastern Band promises no major excavations will disrupt the mound in the future (Pluralism).

Cherokee children's gardens near the ceremonial grounds

A local Cherokee man told us that if we wanted to climb the mound to approach from the east, but we didn't feel that it would be appropriate for us to walk on it. Our friends from Squirrel Ridge Ceremonial Ground danced near the mound, and the Kituwah Ceremonial Ground planned to play stickball and have a feast at the mound site that very afternoon. The tribe sponsors youth retreats at the mound site.

Some frankly shocking proposals for development of the mound site have been put forward, even from members of the tribal council (Pluralism). Currently there's a Cherokee children's garden and a substantial amount of corn cultivation, which seems appropriate use of the land. The tribe and local community successfully fought the construction of a major Duke Energy power substation in the area, so hopefully they will be successful in keeping the sacred site intact in the future.

• Curry, Andrew. "American Scene: Cherokee Holy of Holies: Abstract." Archaeology. Vol. 55, No. 5, Sept-Oct 2000.
• "Kituwah Mound, NC (Eastern Cherokee)." The Pluralism Project at Harvard University. 2004.

Etowah Mounds, Georgia

Gimme That Old Time Religion, based on the Rogan Plates, 1995

The Etowah Mounds, near Cartersville, Georgia, was built between 800 and 1550 CE by ancestral members of the Muscogee Creek Confederacy (NPS). Situated near the Etowah River, the site housed several thousand people at its peak, around 1300 CE, making it one of the largest Middle Mississippian communities in the southeast (NPS). It is also the most intact of these sites (GDNR).

The entire site had seven mounds; six of which remain today (GDNR). The largest is Mound A, second Mound B, and third Mound C, all of which are platform mounds — that is, they have flat surfaces. Mound C, the burial mound, was the only mound to be excavated. The signage at the mound site today actually mentions NAGPRA and repatriation efforts.

This is the home of the famous Rogan Plates, a pair copper repoussé plates of a dancing bird-human, wielding a mace and a severed head, and dating from 1300 CE. They are easily some of the most famous of Mississippian artworks. Some believe these plates were manufactured at Cahokia, and similar plates with slight stylistic variations imply these plates were then copied by local Etowah artists.

Female and male marble effigy statues

Etowah also boasts a pair of painted marble statues, depicting a woman and a man—22 and 24 inches high respectively—thought to be carved between 1250 and 1375 CE. Carved in the round, these effigies shed light on clothing and hairstyles of Etowah society.

A large school group was picnicking at the museum when we arrived. The museum displays a wide range of artifacts, including the marble statues, copper plats, mica ornaments, pottery, bone and shell beads, stone pipes, and even woven cloth fragments.

Wattle-and-daub hut with a thatch roof

Outside are the remains of a defensive ditch that surrounded three sides of the community — the river runs along the fourth side. There's an impressive reconstruction of a wattle-and-daub hut, typical of the time. It was constructed in the traditional way with poles bent over each other to form the rectangular frame of the house, with green cane woven in and out of the poles and covered with clay daub to form the walls. These are capped with conical thatch roof.

Mound B, as viewed from Mound A

The grounds have a small garden and signage mentions that the museum is dedicated to eventually replacing the turf grass with native plants. Some plants have signage with Muscogee Creeks plant names. Mounds A and B have stairways leading up, and Mound A towers at 63-feet. The river is gorgeous, and nature walks leads out towards it, for those who brought bug spray.

• Georgia Department of Natural Resources. "Etowah Indian Mounds Historic Site." State Parks and Historic Sites. 2011.
• National Park Service, US Department of the Interior. "Notice of Inventory Completion for Native American Human Remains and Associated Funerary Objects in the Possession of the Michael C. Carlos Museum, Emory University, Atlanta, GA." Federal Register. 7 Dec 2001 (Volume 66, Number 236): 63557-63558.

Moundville, Alabama

Jones Museum, Moundville, Alabama

You definitely need an entire day to take in Moundville. Adjacent to the gorgeous Black Warrior River, the 172-acre park has 32 platform mounds, museum, gift shop, coffee shop, campgrounds, natural walk, reconstructed village, visitor's center, and even conference room.

This southern Mississippian settlement is second only to Cahokia in size. Moundville was built and occupied between 1000 to 1450 CE (MAP). Mound A sits in the center of a large rectangular plaza. This was clearly a stratified society but we had to laugh at all the various mound museums' signage which repeatedly emphasis the "elite" nature of the societies.

Architectural details

The recently renovated Jones Museum was first built in 1939 and combines art deco and Mississippian architectural elements in a way that I hope enjoys a revival and grows in popularity. Wouldn't it be cool if the town of Moundville, Alabama decided all new construction should be in the Neo-Mississippian Deco style? The skull and bone friezes comes from ceramics found at Moundville, while the wooden columns carved as birds resemble intact wood carvings pulled up from muck ponds in Florida.

The museums have extraordinary relics on display, many on loan from the National Museum of the American Indian. It's good to see the artifacts in the location in which they were created.

When I first saw a Mississippian feline pipe at the National Museum of Natural History's collections, I thought it had been misplaced from the Asian collections. The Florida panther, a subspecies of Puma concolor once lived in Alabama, and bobcats, Lynx rufus, are still common in the state.

The displays are flashy and attractive but far too speculative for my tastes. For instance the wall text states that Moundville religion was obsessed on death and the afterlife. Images of uktena and hand-in-eyes are presented as "death" imagery. If people studied contemporary American culture exclusively based on digging up cemeteries — the burials with fine clothes and jewelry, in elaborate coffins, and the extensive engraved stone sculptures marking the graves — they might think Americans were completely devoted to a death cult as well.

The mannikins and people portrayed in wall murals simply did not look like Indians. I thought the image of the bride being carrying on a litter to her husband was a bit over the top, but then discovered the Theodore De Bry engraving, A Bride Is Carried to the Chief, published in 1591, which no doubt inspired the scene.

Left: display in the Ford Museum; right: A Bride Is Carried to the Chief, Theodore De Bry, published in Frankfurt, 1591

Nonetheless, the museum had gorgeous pieces. I kept look at the labels to see if they were replicas, but they weren't. From October 5th to 8th Moundville with host its annual Native American Festival, featuring artists, performers, and educators and sounds like a major event. I'm curious to know which artists participate. The park also hosts gatherings of flintknappers.

The people thought to have built Moundville are Upper Creeks belonging to the tribal town Tuskegee, called Napochi in one early chronicle, who were Upper Creeks, members of the Muscogee Creek confederacy.

Mounds at Moundville, Alabama

Reconstructed Mississippian house on the top of a platform mound, Moundville, Alabama

"Ancient Site." Moundville Archaeological Park. 2011.
"Carnivores." Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources: Outdoor Alabama. 2008.

For more information about our trip, please visit Exploring the Ancient Southeastern Woodlands. 

Nanih Waiya Cave and Mound, Mississippi

Nanih Waiya Cave,
Louisville, Mississippi

"Nanih Waiya" means "Leaning Hill" in Choctaw and is the Inholitopa iski, Mother Mound, of the Choctaw people. Origin stories alternately say the Choctaw people emerged to the surface of the earth through the cave or that in their migrations, Nanih Waiya is where they settled down permanently (Carleton).

Nanih Waiya Cave is in a dark, secluded area off paved roads. We couldn't help but wonder if the cave's hill was also a mound. The cave itself is nestled into roots of several trees and looks like a burrow that leads both to the right and left. The giant hill is capped by oak trees with a bare summit that someone clears and sweeps up. A slow moving creek, filled with bald cypress trees, runs along the base of the hill. Paths lead into the thick woods, which are filled with noise and movement of birds, lizards, and other animals. The aromatic earth smells and bird calls bring the area to life. In the background was a low hum that turned out to be from a factory located near the mound. Despite the picnic tables scattered on one face of the hill, this site felt very intimate and ancient.

Creek west of the cave site, Louisville, MS

The mound is located southwest, on Nanih Waiya Road near Neshoba, Mississippi. It was enclosed by a fence and the gate was locked but thankfully some intrepid soul with wirecutters had visited before us, so easy enough to hop through and circumnavigate the impressive 215-foot long mound.  It is thought to have been built between 100 BCE and 400 CE (Myers), based on artifacts recovered from the surface of the mound, since it has never been excavated. While the platform mound is remarkably well preserved,  surroundings structure and mounds have been destroyed by years of plowing.

Choctaws made pilgrimages to the mound and left offerings on its surface for centuries. Tribal councils historically met on top of the mound (Carleton).

Nanih Waiya Mound, Neshoba, Mississippi

The mound was ceded to the United States in the 1830 Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek. Both the cave and the mound became a Mississippi state park but due to budget constraints the state agreed to return the lands to the Mississippi Choctaw in 2008. Over a thousand tribal members showed up to celebrate the return of Nanih Waiya. Miko Beasley Denson declared that every second weekend of August is an official tribal holiday, Nanih Waiya Day, which is celebrated at the cave site with feasting and dancing (Myers). That might explain why the cave site felt so much more alive to us than the mound. However, the tribe is going has plans to redevelop the state park, including the mound, as a tribal heritage park, open to the public and with their own signage and interpretation.

Traveling through the lands surrounding the Choctaw Reservation, Linda observed that the scenery looked like Norma Howard's paintings, even down to the cotton fields.

• Carleton, Ken. "Nanih Waiya: The Mother Mound of the Choctaw." NPS Archeology Program: The Delta Endangered. Vol 1, 1: Spring 1996.
• Myers, Debbie Burt. "Nanih Waiya Day Includes Traditional Choctaw Dance, Food." Neshoba Democrat. 18 September 2011.
• "Nanih Waiya Mound." Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians. 2011.

For more information about our trip, please visit Exploring the Ancient Southeastern Woodlands.

Grand Village of the Natchez and Emerald Mound, Mississippi

The Great Sun's Mound

The Grand Village of the Natchez is within the city of Natchez, Mississippi, since the town probably built up around the Natchez village. Natchez are considered to be the last Mississippian peoples — retaining their social structure and ceremonial cycle well past European contact.

The Natchez peace chief is the Great Sun, who traditionally was carried in a litter and whose feet never touched the ground. The title of the war chief was the Tattooed Serpent. The Grand Village is dominated by the Great Sun's Mound, an immense platform mound, and the Temple Mound, aligned 30 degrees off from the cardinal points.

Pecan, Carya illinoinensis

The site feels incredibly immense. The visitor's center is well staffed and has an excellent selection of baskets on display and for sale. Gardeners have created plant labels and a nature walk. Next to the replica Natchez house, a claustrophobic but tall conical structure, workers planted a small garden, with an overpowering aroma. The small native grapevines are swamped by sea of wild onions!

In the future, I'll never think of mounds without thinking of pecan trees. Their heights were dizzying, and many of the trees might have been alive when the village was still active. It's interesting to consider that while the thick, green grass is such a prominent feature of mounds today, all turf grasses were imported from Europe. Ground covers such as sorrel, purslane, other spreading plants, or bunch grasses are indigenous, but many mounds and plazas were carefully capped with color clay or sprinkled with fine river sand.

Alligator basket by Lorena Langley (Coushatta)

This Grand Village was the Natchez ceremonial center from 1682 to 1729. After warring with the French in 1730, the Natchez ultimately moved to Indian Territory and joined the Muscogee Creek Nation and the Cherokee Nation. Today Natchez people are enrolled in these tribes but have their own organization. Hutke Fields, the Natchez peace chief, maintains his own blog.

For more information about our trip, please visit Exploring the Ancient Southeastern Woodlands.

Emerald Mound

A montage attempting to convey the immense size of Emerald Mound, Adams, MS

Located only twelve miles from the Grand Village is Emerald Mound. This pentagon-shaped platform mound is almost eight acres large and is the second-largest precontact earthwork in the United States. The pentagonal primary mound has two mounds on its surface. It was once surrounded by a protective ditch and six other mounds, which have since been plowed over. Mississippian people, mostly likely Natchez, settled the area at least by 900 CE. Construction on the mound is thought to have begun around 1250, and the mound was used by Natchez well into historical times in the 19th century.

What I haven't read anywhere about the mounds is how much living tribes visit and use the mounds. Natchez traditionalists have traveled from Oklahoma and have held dances on top of Emerald Mound. Despite removal, tribes still maintain relationships to their sacred sites today.

Winterville Mounds, MS and Poverty Point, LA

Mound A, Winterville Site, Mississippi

Today, things became more unpredictable. We naïvely followed the GPS, past cottonfields,  through a burning field of sugarcane, past semi-suicidal dogs, to a gravel road, to a rutted dirt road in the thick woods for miles until reaching an extensively (mostly) abandoned settlement of shipping containers and trailers on metal slits straight out of the worst '70s horror movie, before beating a hasty retreat.

Winterville Mounds

We visited Winterville Mounds north of Greenville, Mississippi. Until last week, I'd never even heard of the site, but at one time it boasted 23 mounds around two grand plazas, surrounded by settlements of farmers. Built around 1000 CE by ancestral Choctaw and Chickasaw peoples or possibly relatives of the Natchez, Winterville Mounds has a protected park and museum with twelve of the mounds, most of which have never by excavated (MDAH).

Winterville Museum

Archaeologists believe that only elite families lived in the mound complex, many of which form an oval around Mound A, which towers at 55 feet even today (MDAH). Another mound, almost as tall, is completely surrounded by woods. A major fire burned the complex in the late 14th century, and it was abandoned by the 1450s (MDAH).

I love the architecture of the museum, with earth shored up around the sides. This construction would make so much sense in the windy Plains, where the earth would stabilize interior temperatures. On display is a fantastic photo of cows saving their lives from the 1927 flood by standing on the top of Mound A. This brings the possibility to mind that one reason for mound building might not be status but the practical purpose of preserving temples and sacred items from flooding, which would have been more prevalent during the Mississippian era, with its heavy rainfalls and lack of levees and dams.

Having seen thousands of Mississippian artifacts in museum collections, it's exciting to see the environments these art works and tools originated — lush with oak trees, bald cypress, sumac, frogs, butterflies, dragonflies, and turtles. One word of warning, if you visit this site, get bug spray or boots because the little black ants sting like crazy.

• "Winterville Mounds." Mississippi Department of Archives and History. Web.

Poverty Point

The Bird Mound or Mound A, Poverty Point

Much much ancient than the Mississippian mounds, Poverty Point has arrowheads dating back over 10,000 years. The complex earthworks date back to 1600 BCE. Mound A, an effigy mound that once formed the shape of a bird, was the largest mound in the Americas when it was built in 1400 BCE. Even today it still has over 90,000 tons of dirt. There's no evidence of structures on the top of the mound (PPSHS).

Mound B was a platform mound that has been mostly excavated. There's no evidence of buildings on the mound.

Mound B, once a platform mound

The site is defined by six concentric semi-circles of earthwork embankments, that were once five feet high, that enclosed a central plaza and face the Bird Mound. It's been suggested that houses sat on top of these ridges. This elaborately planned architecture predates agriculture. The Poverty Point people were hunter-gatherers, and they built on the site between 1600—700 BCE.

Thousands of variously-shaped clay blobs have been found at the site. Called Poverty Point Objects or PPOs, they were heated and put into cooking pots. I don't think they'd be difficult to make; it'd be interesting to try to cook stew with them.

• "Driving Guide." Poverty Point State Historical Site. Epps, LA.