Mound Builders - Wikipedia

Pre-Columbian cultures of North America For other uses, see Mound builder (disambiguation).

Many pre-Columbian cultures in North America were collectively termed "Mound Builders", but the term has no formal meaning. It does not refer to specific people or archaeological culture but refers to the characteristic mound earthworks that indigenous peoples erected for an extended period of more than 5,000 years. The "Mound Builder" cultures span the period of roughly 3500 BCE (the construction of Watson Brake) to the 16th century CE, including the Archaic period (Horr's Island), Woodland period (Caloosahatchee, Adena and Hopewell cultures), and Mississippian period. Geographically, the cultures were present in the region of the Great Lakes, the Ohio River Valley, Florida, and the Mississippi River Valley and its tributary waters.[1] Outlying mounds exist in South Carolina at Santee and in North Carolina at Town Creek.

The first mound building was an early marker of political and social complexity among the cultures in the eastern part of what is now the United States. Watson Brake in Louisiana, constructed about 3500 BCE during the Middle Archaic period, is the oldest known and dated mound complex in North America. It is one of 11 mound complexes from this period found in the Lower Mississippi Valley.[2] These cultures generally had developed hierarchical societies that had an elite. These commanded hundreds or even thousands of workers to dig up tons of earth with the hand tools available, move the soil long distances, and finally, workers to create the shape with layers of soil as directed by the builders. However early mounds found in Louisiana preceded such cultures and were products of hunter-gatherer cultures.

From about 800 CE, the mound-building cultures were dominated by the Mississippian culture, a large archaeological horizon, whose youngest descendants, the Plaquemine culture and the Fort Ancient culture, were still active at the time of European contact in the 16th century. One tribe of the Fort Ancient culture has been identified as the Mosopelea, presumably of southeast Ohio, who spoke an Ohio Valley Siouan language. The bearers of the Plaquemine culture were presumably speakers of the Natchez language isolate. The first written description of these cultures were made by members of Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto's expedition, between 1540 and 1542.

Mounds

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The namesake cultural trait of the Mound Builders was the building of mounds and other earthworks. These burial and ceremonial structures were typically flat-topped pyramids or platform mounds, flat-topped or rounded cones, elongated ridges, and sometimes a variety of other forms. They were generally built as part of complex villages. The early earthworks built in Louisiana around 3500 BCE are the only ones known to have been built by a hunter-gatherer culture, rather than a more settled culture based on agricultural surpluses.

The best-known flat-topped pyramidal structure is Monks Mound at Cahokia, near present-day Collinsville, Illinois. This community was the center of the Mississippian culture. This mound appears to have been the main ceremonial and residential mound for the religious and political leaders; it is more than 100 feet (30 m) tall and is the largest pre-Columbian earthwork north of Mexico. This site had numerous mounds, some with conical or ridge tops, as well as palisaded stockades protecting the large settlement and elite quarter. At its maximum about 1150 CE, Cahokia was an urban settlement with 20,000–30,000 people.

Some effigy mounds were constructed in the shapes or outlines of culturally significant animals. The most famous effigy mound, Serpent Mound in southern Ohio, ranges from 1 foot (0.30 m) to just over 3 feet (0.91 m) tall, 20 feet (6.1 m) wide, more than 1,330 feet (410 m) long, and shaped as an undulating serpent.

Early descriptions

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Between 1540 and 1542, Hernando de Soto, the Spanish conquistador, traversed what became the southeastern United States. There he encountered many different mound-builder peoples who were perhaps descendants of the great Mississippian culture. De Soto observed people living in fortified towns with lofty mounds and plazas and surmised that many of the mounds served as foundations for priestly temples. Near present-day Augusta, Georgia, de Soto encountered a group ruled by the Lady of Cofitachequi. She told him that the mounds within her territory served as burial places for nobles.

The artist Jacques le Moyne, who had accompanied French settlers to northeastern Florida during the 1560s, likewise noted Native American groups using existing mounds and constructing others. He produced a series of watercolor paintings depicting scenes of native life. Although most of his paintings have been lost, some engravings were copied from the originals and published in 1591 by a Flemish company. Among these is a depiction of the burial of an aboriginal Floridian tribal chief, an occasion of great mourning and ceremony. The original caption reads:

Sometimes the deceased king of this province is buried with great solemnity, and his great cup from which he was accustomed to drink is placed on a tumulus with many arrows set about it.

— Jacques le Moyne, 1560s

Maturin Le Petit, a Jesuit priest, met the Natchez people, as did Le Page du Pratz (1758), a French explorer. Both observed them in the area that today is known as Mississippi. The Natchez were devout worshippers of the sun. Having a population of some 4,000, they occupied at least nine villages and were presided over by a paramount chief, known as the Great Sun, who wielded absolute power. Both observers noted the high temple mounds that the Natchez had built so that the Great Sun could commune with God, the sun. His large residence was built atop the highest mound, from "which, every morning, he greeted the rising sun, invoking thanks and blowing tobacco smoke to the four cardinal directions".[3][4][5]

Archaeological surveys

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The most complete reference for these earthworks is Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley, written by Ephraim G. Squier and Edwin H. Davis. It was published in 1848 by the Smithsonian Institution, which had commissioned the survey. Since many of the features that the authors documented have been destroyed or diminished by farming and development, their surveys, sketches, and descriptions are still used by modern archaeologists. All of the sites that they identified as located in Kentucky came from the manuscripts of Constantine Samuel Rafinesque.

Chronology

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Archaic era

[edit] Main article: Archaic period in the Americas

Radiocarbon dating has established the age of the earliest Archaic mound complex in southeastern Louisiana. One of the two Monte Sano Site mounds, excavated in 1967 before being destroyed for new construction at Baton Rouge, was dated at 6220 BP (plus or minus 140 years).[6] Researchers at the time thought that such hunter-gatherer societies were not organizationally capable of this type of construction.[6] It has since been dated as about 6500 BP or 4500 BCE,[7] although not all agree.[8]

Watson Brake is located in the floodplain of the Ouachita River near Monroe in northern Louisiana. Securely dated to about 5,400 years ago (around 3500 BCE), in the Middle Archaic period, it consists of a formation of 11 mounds from 3 feet (0.91 m) to 25 feet (7.6 m) tall, connected by ridges to form an oval nearly 900 feet (270 m) across.[9] In the Americas, the building of complex earthwork mounds started at an early date, well before the pyramids of Egypt were constructed. Watson Brake was being constructed nearly 2,000 years before the better-known Poverty Point, and the building continued for 500 years.[9] Middle Archaic mound construction seems to have ceased about 2800 BCE. Scholars have not ascertained the reason, but it may have been because of changes in river patterns or other environmental factors.[10]

With the 1990s dating of Watson Brake and similar complexes, scholars established that pre-agricultural, pre-ceramic American societies could organize to accomplish complex construction during extended periods, invalidating scholars' traditional ideas of Archaic society.[11] Watson Brake was built by a hunter-gatherer society, the people of which occupied this area only on a seasonal basis. Successive generations organized to build the complex mounds over 500 years. Their food consisted mostly of fish and deer, as well as available plants.

Poverty Point, built about 1500 BCE in what is now Louisiana, is a prominent example of Late Archaic mound-builder construction (around 2500 BCE – 1000 BCE). It is a striking complex of more than 1 square mile (2.6 km2), where six earthwork crescent ridges were built in concentric arrangement, interrupted by radial aisles. Three mounds are also part of the main complex, and evidence of residences extends for about 3 miles (4.8 km) along the bank of Bayou Macon. It is the major site among 100 associated with the Poverty Point culture and is one of the best-known early examples of earthwork monumental architecture. Unlike the localized societies during the Middle Archaic, this culture showed evidence of a wide trading network outside its area, which is one of its distinguishing characteristics.

The Tomoka Mound Complex on the St. Johns River in Florida included a mound constructed between 4629 and 4000 BP (2679 to 2050 BCE).[12] Horr's Island in Southwest Florida included a burial mound dated to 3400 BCE, making it the oldest known burial mound in North America.[13]

Woodland period

[edit] Main article: Woodland period

The oldest mound associated with the Woodland period was the mortuary mound and pond complex at the Fort Center site in Glade County, Florida. Excavations and dating in 2012 by Thompson and Pluckhahn show that work began around 2600 BCE, seven centuries before the mound-builders in Ohio.

The Archaic period was followed by the Woodland period (circa 1000 BCE). Some well-understood examples are the Adena culture of Ohio, West Virginia, and parts of nearby states. The subsequent Hopewell culture built monuments from present-day Illinois to Ohio; it is renowned for its geometric earthworks. The Adena and Hopewell were not the only mound-building peoples during this period. Contemporaneous mound-building cultures existed throughout what is now the Eastern United States, stretching as far south as Crystal River in western Florida. During this time, in parts of present-day Mississippi, Arkansas, and Louisiana, the Hopewellian Marksville culture degenerated and was succeeded by the Baytown culture.[14] Reasons for degeneration include attacks from other tribes or the impact of severe climatic changes undermining agriculture.

Coles Creek culture

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Main article: Coles Creek culture

The Coles Creek culture is a Late Woodland culture (700–1200 CE) in the Lower Mississippi Valley in the Southern United States that marks a significant change in the cultural history of the area. Population and cultural and political complexity increased, especially by the end of the Coles Creek period. Although many of the classic traits of chiefdom societies had not yet developed, by 1000 CE, the formation of simple elite polities had begun. Coles Creek sites are found in Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Mississippi, and Texas. The Coles Creek culture is considered ancestral to the Plaquemine culture.[15][16]

Mississippian cultures

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Main article: Mississippian culture

Around 900–1450 CE, the Mississippian culture developed and spread through the Eastern United States, primarily along the river valleys.[17] The largest regional center where the Mississippian culture was first definitely developed is located in Illinois along a tributary of the Mississippi and is referred to as Cahokia. It had several regional variants including the Middle Mississippian culture of Cahokia, the South Appalachian Mississippian variant at Moundville and Etowah, the Plaquemine Mississippian variant in south Louisiana and Mississippi,[18] and the Caddoan Mississippian culture of northwestern Louisiana, eastern Texas, and southwestern Arkansas.[19] Like the mound builders of the Ohio, these peoples built gigantic mounds as burial and ceremonial places.[20]

Fort Ancient culture

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Main article: Fort Ancient culture

Fort Ancient is the name for a Native American culture that flourished from 1000 to 1650 CE among a people who predominantly inhabited land along the Ohio River in areas of modern-day southern Ohio, northern Kentucky, and western West Virginia.

Plaquemine culture

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Main article: Plaquemine culture

A continuation of the Coles Creek culture in the lower Mississippi River Valley in western Mississippi and eastern Louisiana. Examples include the Medora site in West Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana; and the Anna and Emerald Mound sites in Mississippi. Sites inhabited by Plaquemine peoples continued to be used as vacant ceremonial centers without large village areas much as their Coles Creek ancestors had done, although their layout began to show influences from Middle Mississippian peoples to the north. The Winterville and Holly Bluff (Lake George) sites in western Mississippi are good examples that exemplify this change of layout, but a continuation of site usage.[21] During the Terminal Coles Creek period (1150 to 1250 CE), contact increased with Mississippian cultures centered upriver near the future St. Louis, Missouri. This resulted in the adaption of new pottery techniques, as well as new ceremonial objects and possibly new social patterns during the Plaquemine period.[22] As more Mississippian cultural influences were absorbed, the Plaquemine area as a distinct culture began to shrink after CE 1350. Eventually, the last enclave of purely Plaquemine culture was the Natchez Bluffs area, while the Yazoo Basin and adjacent areas of Louisiana became a hybrid Plaquemine-Mississippi culture.[23] This division was recorded by Europeans when they first arrived in the area. In the Natchez Bluffs area, the Taensa and Natchez people had held out against Mississippian influence and continued to use the same sites as their ancestors. The Plaquemine culture is considered directly ancestral to these historic period groups encountered by Europeans.[24] Groups who appear to have absorbed more Mississippian influence were identified as those tribes speaking the Tunican, Chitimachan, and Muskogean languages.[22]

Disappearance

[edit] See also: Mississippian shatter zone

Following the description by Jacques le Moyne in 1560,[25] the mound-building cultures seem to have disappeared within the next century. However, there were also other European accounts, earlier than 1560, that give a first-hand description of the enormous earth-built mounds being constructed by Native Americans. One of them was Garcilaso de la Vega (c.1539–1616), a Spanish chronicler also known as "El Inca" because of his Incan mother. He was the record-keeper of the noted De Soto expedition that landed in present-day Florida on May 31, 1538. Garcilaso gave a first-hand description in his Historia de la Florida[26] (published in 1605, Lisbon, as La Florida del Inca) describing how the Indians had built mounds and how the Native American mound cultures practiced their traditional way of life.[26] De la Vega's accounts also include vital details about the Native American tribes' systems of government present in the southeast, tribal territories, and the construction of mounds and temples.[26] A few French expeditions in the 1560s[25] reported staying with Indian societies who had built mounds.[27]

Diseases

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Later explorers to the same regions, only a few decades after mound-building settlements had been reported, found the regions largely depopulated with its residents vanished and the mounds untended. Conflicts with Europeans were dismissed by historians as the major cause of population reduction since few clashes had occurred between the natives and the Europeans in the area during the same period. The most widely accepted explanation today is that new infectious diseases brought from the Old World, such as smallpox and influenza, had decimated most of the Native Americans from the last mound-builder civilization, as they had no immunity to such diseases.[28][29][30][31]

The Fort Ancient culture of the Ohio River valley is considered a "sister culture" of the Mississippian horizon, or one of the "Mississippianised" cultures adjacent to the main area of the mound building cultures. This culture was also mostly extinct in the 17th century, but remnants may have survived into the first half of the 18th century.

While this culture shows strong Mississippian influences, its bearers were most likely ethnolinguistically distinct from the Mississippians, possibly belonging to the Siouan phylum. The only tribal name associated with the Fort Ancient culture in the historical record is the Mosopelea, recorded by Jean-Baptiste-Louis Franquelin in 1684 as inhabiting eight villages north of the Ohio River.

The Mosopelea is most likely identical to the Ofo (Oufé, Offogoula) recorded in the same area in the 18th century. The Ofo language was formerly classified as Muskogean but is now recognized as an eccentric member of the Western Siouan phylum. The late survival of the Fort Ancient culture is suggested by the remarkable amount of European-made goods in the archaeological record. Such artifacts would have been acquired by trade even before direct European contact. These artifacts include brass and steel items, glassware, and melted down or broken goods reforged into new items.

The Fort Ancient peoples are known to have been severely affected by disease in the 17th century (Beaver Wars period). Carbon dating seems to indicate that they were wiped out by successive waves of disease.

Massacre and revolt

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Because of the disappearance of the cultures by the end of the 17th century, the identification of the bearers of these cultures was an open question in 19th-century ethnography. Modern stratigraphic dating has established that the "Mound builders" have spanned an extended period of more than five millennia so that any ethnolinguistic continuity is unlikely. The spread of the Mississippian culture from the late 1st millennium CE most likely involved cultural assimilation, in archaeological terminology called "Mississippianised" cultures.

19th-century ethnography assumed that the Mound-builders were an ancient prehistoric race with no direct connection to the Southeastern Woodland peoples of the historical period who were encountered by Europeans. A reference to this idea appears in the poem "The Prairies" (1832) by William Cullen Bryant.[32]

The cultural stage of the Southeastern Woodland natives encountered in the 18th and 19th centuries by British colonists was deemed incompatible[26] with the comparatively advanced stone, metal, and clay artifacts of the archaeological record.[27] The age of the earthworks was also partly over-estimated.

Caleb Atwater's misunderstanding of stratigraphy caused him to significantly overestimate the age of the earthworks. In his book, Antiquities Discovered in the Western States (1820), Atwater claimed that "Indian remains" were always found right beneath the surface of the earth, while artifacts associated with the Mound Builders were found fairly deep in the ground. Atwater argued that they must be from a different group of people. The discovery of metal artifacts further convinced people that the Mound Builders were not identical to the Southeast Woodland Native Americans of the 18th century.[27]

It is now thought that the most likely bearers of the Plaquemine culture, a late variant of the Mississippian culture, were ancestral to the related Natchez and Taensa peoples.[33] The Natchez language is a language isolate.

The Natchez are known to have historically occupied the Lower Mississippi Valley. They are first mentioned in French sources of around 1700, when they were centered around the Grand Village close to present-day Natchez, Mississippi. In 1729 the Natchez revolted and massacred the French colony of Fort Rosalie. The French retaliated by destroying all the Natchez villages. The remaining Natchez fled in scattered bands to live among the Chickasaw, Creek, and Cherokee people. They traveled with them on the Trail of Tears when federal Indian removal policies after 1830 forced the Native Americans out of the Southeast and west of the Mississippi River to Indian Territory (admitted in the early 20th century as the state of Oklahoma). The Natchez language became extinct in the 20th century, with the death in 1957 of the last known native speaker, Nancy Raven.

Maps

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• Hopewell traditions
• Adena culture
• Troyville culture and Baytown culture
• Coles Creek culture

• Mississippian culture
• Caddoan Mississippian culture
• Fort Ancient culture
• Plaquemine culture

Pseudoarchaeology

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The myth of the Mound Builders

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Based on the idea that the origins of the mound builders lay with a mysterious ancient people, various other suggestions were belonging to the more general genre of Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact theories, specifically involving Vikings, Atlantis, and the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel, summarised by Feder (2006) under the heading of "The Myth of a Vanished Race".[27]

Benjamin Smith Barton in his Observations on Some Parts of Natural History (1787) proposed the theory that the Mound Builders were associated with "Danes", i.e. with the Norse colonization of North America. In 1797, Barton reconsidered his position and correctly identified the mounds as part of indigenous prehistory.

Notable for the association with the Ten Lost Tribes is the Book of Mormon (1830). This provides a related belief, as its narrative describes two major immigrations to the Americas from Mesopotamia: the Jaredites (ca. 3000 - 2000 BCE) and an Israelite group during 590 BCE (termed Nephites, Lamanites and Mulekites). While the Nephites, Lamanites, and Mulekites were all of Jewish origin coming from Israel around 590 BCE, the Jaredites were a non-Abrahamic people separate in all aspects, except in a belief in Jehovah, from the Nephites. The Book of Mormon depicts these settlers building magnificent cities, which were destroyed by warfare about CE 385. The Book of Mormon can be placed in the tradition of the "Mound-Builder literature" of the period and has been called "the most famous and certainly the most influential of all Mound-Builder literature".[34]

Josiah Priest's 1833 400-page publication American Antiquities centered around his study of the Bible and antiquarian journals, supplemented by information from his travels. After visiting earthworks in Ohio and New York, Priest concluded that these mounds could be traced back to a lost race that had inhabited America even before the Native Americans. This idea is now referred to as the "mound builder myth" and still has supporters in society today. The book grew in popularity because of Priest's views on Native Americans. "It tapped into the widely accepted view of those times that Native Americans were merely bloodthirsty savages, bent on the destruction of all but their own race. It was inconceivable to Priest and like-minded men that a race so lazy and inept could conceive and build such huge, elaborate structures."[35] Priest speculated that the original dwellers could be the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel.[36]

The reasoning Priest gives for his conclusion that there was an even earlier settler than the Native Americans relies upon his interpretation of the Biblical flood story. According to Priest, after the great flood disappeared, Noah and his ark landed in America. While surveying the land, Noah also discovered mounds that had been constructed before the waters rose. Upon seeing this, Noah questioned where these agricultural phenomena came from. "Surveying the various themes of mound builder origins, he could not decide whether the mounds were the work of Polynesians, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Israelites, Scandinavians, Welsh, Scotts, or Chinese, although he felt certain the Indians had not built them."[37] Priest's racism has also been discussed in detail by author Robert Silverberg,[38] archaeologist Stephen Williams,[39] and author Jason Colavito.[40] Later authors placing the Book of Mormon in this context include Silverberg (1969),[41] Brodie (1971),[42] Kennedy (1994),[43] and Garlinghouse (2001).[44]

Some nineteenth-century archaeological finds (e.g., earth and timber fortifications and towns,[45] the use of a plaster-like cement,[46] ancient roads,[47] metal points and implements,[48] copper breastplates,[49] head-plates,[50] textiles,[51] pearls,[52] native North American inscriptions, North American elephant remains etc.) were well-publicized at the time of the publication of the Book of Mormon and there is the incorporation of some of these ideas into the narrative. References are made in the Book of Mormon to a then-current understanding of pre-Columbian civilizations, including the formative Mesoamerican civilizations such as the (Pre-Classic) Olmec, Maya, and Zapotec.

Lafcadio Hearn in 1876 wrote about a theory that the mounds were built by people from the lost continent of Atlantis.[27][53] The Reverend Landon West in 1901 claimed that the Serpent Mound in Ohio was built by God, or by man inspired by him. He believed that God built the mound and placed it as a symbol of the story of the Garden of Eden.[54][55]

More recently, Black nationalist websites claiming association with the Moorish Science Temple of America, have taken up the Atlantean ("Mu") association of the Mound Builders.[56] Similarly, the "Washitaw Nation", a group associated with the Moorish Science Temple of America established in the 1990s, has been associated with mound-building in Black nationalist online articles of the early 2000s.[57]

In a January 2023 episode of Tucker Carlson's Fox Nation show Tucker Carlson Today had a guest who stated that: "They didn't build 'em. Someone before them built 'em". Carlson replied: "That's right" and said there was "skeletal evidence of people who bear no genetic resemblance to the current Indians".[58]

Newark Holy Stone

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On June 29, 1860, David Wyrick, the surveyor of Licking County near Newark, discovered the so-called "Keystone" in a shallow excavation at the monumental Newark Earthworks, which is an extraordinary set of ancient geometric enclosures created by Indigenous people.[59] There he dug up a four-sided, plumb-bob-shaped stone with Hebrew letters engraved on each of its faces. The local Episcopal minister John W. McCarty translated the four inscriptions as "Law of the Lord", "Word of the Lord", "Holy of Holies", and "King of the Earth". Charles Whittlesey, who was one of the foremost archaeologists at that time, pronounced the stone to be authentic. The Newark Holy Stones, if genuine, would provide support for monogenesis, since they would establish that American Indians could be encompassed within Biblical history.

After his first expedition, Wyrick uncovered a small stone box that was found to contain an intricately carved slab of black limestone covered with archaic-looking Hebrew letters along with a representation of a man in flowing robes. When translated, once again by McCarty, the inscription was found to include the entire Ten Commandments, and the robed figure was identified as Moses. Naturally enough, it became known as the Decalogue Stone.

Rather than being found beneath only a foot or two of soil, the Decalogue Stone was claimed to have been buried beneath a forty-foot-tall stone mound. Instead of modern Hebrew typography, the characters on the stone were blocky and appeared to be an ancient form of the Hebrew alphabet. Finally, the stone bore no resemblance to any modern Masonic artifact. In 1870, Whittlesey declared finally that the Holy Stones and other similar artifacts were "Archaeological Frauds".[60]

Giants

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In 19th-century America, many popular mythologies surrounding the origin of the mounds were in circulation, typically involving the mounds being built by a race of giants. A New York Times article from 1897 described a mound in Wisconsin in which a giant human skeleton measuring over 9 feet (2.7 m) in length was found.[61] In 1886, another New York Times article described water receding from a mound in Cartersville, Georgia, which uncovered acres of skulls and bones, some of which were said to be gigantic. Two thigh bones were measured with the height of their owners estimated at 14 feet (4.3 m).[62] President Abraham Lincoln referred to the giants whose bones fill the mounds of America.

But still there is more. It calls up the indefinite past. When Columbus first sought this continent – when Christ suffered on the cross – when Moses led Israel through the Red-Sea – nay, even, when Adam first came from the hand of his Maker – then as now, Niagara was roaring here. The eyes of that species of extinct giants, whose bones fill the mounds of America, have gazed on Niagara, as ours do now. Co[n]temporary with the whole race of men, and older than the first man, Niagara is strong, and fresh to-day as ten thousand years ago. The Mammoth and Mastodon – now so long dead, that fragments of their monstrous bones, alone testify, that they ever lived, have gazed on Niagara. In that long – long time, never still for a single moment. Never dried, never froze, never slept, never rested.[63]

The antiquarian author William Pidgeon in 1858 created fraudulent surveys of mound groups that did not exist.[64] Beginning in the 1880s, the supposed origin of the earthworks with a race of giants was increasingly recognized as spurious. Pidgeon's fraudulent claims about the archaeological record were shown to be a hoax by Theodore Lewis in 1886.[65] A major factor contributing to public acceptance of the earthworks as a regular part of North American prehistory was the 1894 report by Cyrus Thomas of the Bureau of American Ethnology. Earlier authors making a similar case include Thomas Jefferson, who excavated a mound and from the artifacts and burial practices, noted similarities between mound-builder funeral practices and those of Native Americans in his time.

Walam Olum

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The Walam Olum hoax had considerable influence on perceptions of the Mound Builders. In 1836, Constantine Samuel Rafinesque published his translation of a text he claimed had been written in pictographs on wooden tablets. This text explained that the Lenape Indians originated in Asia, told of their passage over the Bering Strait, and narrated their subsequent migration across the North American continent. This "Walam Olum" tells of battles with native peoples already in America before the Lenape arrived. People hearing of the account believed that the "original people" were the Mound Builders and that the Lenape overthrew them and destroyed their culture. David Oestreicher later asserted that Rafinesque's account was a hoax. He argued that the Walam Olum glyphs were derived from Chinese, Egyptian, and Mayan alphabets. Meanwhile, the belief that the Native Americans destroyed the mound-builder culture had gained widespread acceptance.

See also

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• List of burial mounds in the United States
• Petroform
• Prehistory of Ohio
• Southeastern Ceremonial Complex
• Tumulus, mounds (or barrows) of Europe and Asia
• Tumulus culture
• Mormon publications:
  • Heartland model - an interpretation of the Book of Mormon that the Mound Builders were among those peoples described.
  • Zelph (Archaeology and the Book of Mormon)

References

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1. ^ Squier p. 1
2. ^ Robert W. Preucel, Stephen A. Mrozowski, Contemporary Archaeology in Theory: The New Pragmatism, John Wiley & Sons, 2010, p. 177
3. ^ Mallory O'Connor, Lost Cities of the Ancient Southeast (University Press of Florida, 1995).
4. ^ Ephraim Squier and Edwin Davis, Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley (Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge, vol. 1. Washington DC, 1848)
5. ^ Biloine Young and Melvin Fowler, Cahokia: The Great Native American Metropolis (University of Illinois Press, 2000).
6. ^ a b Rebecca Saunders, "The Case for Archaic Period Mounds in Southeastern Louisiana", Southeastern Archaeology, Vol. 13, No. 2, Winter 1994. Retrieved November 4, 2011
7. ^ "Important new findings in Louisiana". Archaeo News. Stone Pages. Retrieved September 5, 2011.
8. ^ Joe W. Saunders, "Middle Archaic and Watson Brake", in Archaeology of Louisiana, edited by Mark A. Rees, Ian W. (FRW) Brown, LSU Press, 2010, p. 67
9. ^ a b Saunders, in Rees and Brown (2010), Archaeology of Louisiana, pp. 69–76
10. ^ Saunders, in Rees and Brown (2010), Archaeology of Louisiana, pp. 73–74
11. ^ Saunders, in Rees and Brown (2010), Archaeology of Louisiana, p. 63
12. ^ Piatek, Bruce John (1994). "The Tomoka Mound Complex in Northeast Florida". Southeastern Archaeology. 13 (2): 109–118. ISSN 0734-578X.
13. ^ Russo, Michael (1994). "Why We Don't Believe in Archaic Ceremonial Mounds and Why We Should: The Case from Florida". Southeastern Archaeology. 13 (2): 93–109. ISSN 0734-578X.
14. ^ "Southeastern Prehistory-Late Woodland Period". Retrieved September 23, 2008.
15. ^ Kidder, Tristram (1998). R. Barry Lewis; Charles Stout (eds.). Mississippian Towns and Sacred Spaces. University of Alabama Press. ISBN 978-0-8173-0947-3.
16. ^ "Troyville-Coles Creek". Louisiana prehistory. July 1, 2010. Archived from the original on January 10, 2012.
17. ^ Adam King (2002). "Mississippian Period: Overview". New Georgia Encyclopedia. Archived from the original on March 1, 2012. Retrieved July 1, 2010.
18. ^ "Mississippian and Late Prehistoric Period". Retrieved July 1, 2010.
19. ^ Peter N. Peregrine (1995). Archaeology of the Mississippian culture: a research guide. Garland Publishing. p. 165. ISBN 978-0-8153-0336-7.
20. ^ Nash, Gary B. Red, White and Black: The Peoples of Early North America Los Angeles: 2015. Chapter 1, p. 6
21. ^ "Mississippian and Late Prehistoric Period". Retrieved October 20, 2016.
22. ^ a b "Plaquemine-Mississippian". Archived from the original on April 2, 2015. Retrieved October 20, 2016.
23. ^ Guy E. Gibbon; Kenneth M. Ames (August 1, 1998). Archaeology of prehistoric native America: an encyclopedia. Routledge. pp. 657–658. ISBN 978-0-8153-0725-9.
24. ^ "The Plaquemine Culture, A.D 1000". Retrieved September 8, 2008.
25. ^ a b Thomas, Cyrus (2018). Burial Mounds of the Northern Sections. Salzwasser-Verlag Gmbh.
26. ^ a b c d Haughton, Brian (2008). Haunted Spaces, Sacred Places: A Field Guide to Stone Circles, Crop Circles, Ancient Tombs and Supernatural Landscape. USA: The Career Press. pp. 295–296. ISBN 978-1-60163-000-1.
27. ^ a b c d e Feder, Kenneth L. (2005). "The Myth of the Moundbuilders" (PDF). Frauds, Myths, And Mysteries: Science and Pseudoscience in Archaeology. Central Connecticut State Univ: McGraw Hill. pp. 151–155, 159–160, 164–166. ISBN 978-0-07-286948-4. Retrieved May 19, 2012.
28. ^ Davis Brose and N'omi Greber (eds.), Hopewell Archaeology (Kent State University Press, 1979)
29. ^ Roger Kennedy, Hidden Cities: The Discovery and Loss of Ancient North American Civilization (Free Press, 1994)
30. ^ Robert Silverberg, "...And the Mound-Builders Vanished from the Earth", originally in the 1969 edition of American Heritage, collected in the anthology A Sense of History [Houghton-Mifflin, 1985]; available online here Archived August 28, 2008, at the Wayback Machine.
31. ^ Gordon M. Sayre, "The Mound Builders and the Imagination of American Antiquity in Jefferson, Bartram, and Chateaubriand", Early American Literature 33 (1998): 225–249.
32. ^ Bryant, William Cullen, "The Prairies" (1832) Archived January 5, 2007, at the Wayback Machine
33. ^ "The Plaquemine Culture, A.D 1000". Retrieved September 8, 2008.
34. ^ Curtis Dahl, "Mound-Builders, Mormons, and William Cullen Bryant", The New England Quarterly, vol. 34, no. 2, June 1961, pp. 178–90 ("Undoubtedly the most famous and certainly the most influential of all Mound-Builder literature is the Book of Mormon (1830)). Whether one wishes to accept it as divinely inspired or the work of Joseph Smith, it fits exactly into the tradition. Despite its pseudo-Biblical style and its general inchoateness, it is certainly the most imaginative and best sustained of the stories about the Mound-Builders" (at p. 187).
35. ^ Harpster, Jack; Stalter, Jeff. "Captive! The Story of David Ogden and the Iroquois." ABC-CLIO, LLC., 2010, p. xi.
36. ^ These tribes made up the Kingdom of Israel in Biblical times. When Assyria left their kingdom in ruins, the tribes disappeared and were never seen again.
37. ^ Silverberg, Robert. "The Mound Builders." Ohio UP, 1986, pp. 65-66, cited in De Villo Sloan, 2002.
38. ^ Silverberg, Robert (1968). Mound Builders of Ancient America: The Archaeology of a Myth. Greenwich, CT: New York Graphic Society.
39. ^ Williams, Stephen (1991). Fantastic Archaeology: The Wild Side of North American Prehistory. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 978-0812213126.
40. ^ Colavito, Jason (2020). The Mound Builder Myth: Fake History and the Hunt for a "Lost White Race". Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 978-0806164618.
41. ^ Robert Silverberg, Mound Builders of Ancient America: The Archeology of a Myth (New York: New York Graphic Society, 1968); Silverberg 1969 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFSilverberg1969 (help).
42. ^ Fawn M. Brodie, No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith (rev. ed., New York: Knopf, 1971) p. 36.
43. ^ Kennedy 1994 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFKennedy1994 (help).
44. ^ Garlinghouse, Thomas, "Revisiting the Mound Builder Controversy", History Today, September 2001, Vol. 51, Issue 9, p. 38.
45. ^ See Squier 1849 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFSquier1849 (help)
46. ^ See mound builder homes of "clay-plastered poles": Stuart, George E., Who Were the "Mound Builders"?, National Geographic, Vol. 142, No. 6, December 1972, pg. 789
47. ^ See Searching for the Great Hopewell Road, based on the investigations of archaeologist Dr. Bradley Lepper, Ohio Historical Society, Pangea Production Ltd, 1998
48. ^ See Priest, Josiah, American Antiquities and Discoveries in the West, pg. 179;
49. ^ See Mound Builders & Cliff Dwellers, Lost Civilizations series, Dale M. Brown (editor), pg. 26
50. ^ Priest, Josiah, American Antiquities and Discoveries in the West, 176; Mound Builders & Cliff Dwellers, Lost Civilizations series, Dale M. Brown (editor), pg. 26
51. ^ See Ritchie, William A. The Archaeology of New York State, pp. 259, 261
52. ^ See freshwater pearl necklaces, and pearls sewn on clothing: Mound Builders & Cliff Dwellers, Lost Civilizations series, Dale M. Brown (editor), pg. 26
53. ^ Hearn, Lafcadio (April 24, 1876). "The Mound Builders". The Commercial. Retrieved May 17, 2012.
54. ^ Ohio Historical Society (1901). Ohio history, Volume 10. Retrieved July 25, 2011. The Garden of Eden, it seems, is now definitely located. The site is in Ohio, "Adams" county, to be more precise...The Rev. Landon West of Pleasant Hill, O., a prominent and widely known minister of the Baptist church... arrives at the conclusion that this great work was created either by God himself or by man inspired by Him to make an everlasting object lesson of man's disobedience, Satan's perfidy and the results of sin and death. In support of this startling claim the Rev. Mr. West quotes Scripture and refers to Job 16:13: "By His spirit. He hath garnished the heavens; His hand hath formed the crooked serpent."
55. ^ Brook Wilensky-Lanford (May 23, 2011). "Adam and Eve –and Reverend West – in Ohio". The Common. Archived from the original on November 4, 2011. Retrieved July 25, 2011. The Eden I found in a 1909 pamphlet by Reverend Landon West—the Serpent Mound earthwork that is now an Ohio state park—was still preserved for all to see, so I went...Details that fell outside of West's lifetime were hard to fit into the book: his son Dan West became the founder of the Heifer Project charity, and his accomplishments no doubt helped preserve the memory of his father's Garden of Eden.
56. ^ "The Mound Builders of North America Part I". Federation : MSTA. Retrieved December 24, 2017.
57. ^ "The Black Washitaw Nation of America". May 12, 2010. Retrieved December 24, 2017.
58. ^ "RANDALL CARLSON on TUCKER CARLSON TODAY - S02E123 - ENVIRONMENTAL EARTHWORKS". YouTube.
59. ^ Townsend, Richard F. (September 6, 2016), "The Newark Earthworks: Monumental Geometry and Astronomy at a Hopewellian Pilgrimage Center", Hero, Hawk, and Open Hand: American Indian Art of the Ancient Midwest and South, Art Institute of Chicago, ISBN 978-0-300-22560-0, retrieved April 14, 2022{{citation}}: CS1 maint: work parameter with ISBN (link)
60. ^ Feder, Kenneth L. (2006). Frauds, myths, and mysteries : science and pseudoscience in archaeology. Internet Archive. Boston : McGraw-Hill. ISBN 978-0-07-286948-4.
61. ^ "Wisconsin Mound Opened: Skeleton Found of a Man Over Nine Feet High with an Enormous Skull". The New York Times. December 20, 1897.
62. ^ "Monster Skulls and Bones". The New York Times. April 5, 1886.
63. ^ Lincoln, Abraham (1953). "Fragment: Niagara Falls [c. September 25–30, 1848]". In Basler, Roy P. (ed.). Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln. Vol. 2. pp. 10–11.
64. ^ Pidgeon, William (1858) Traditions of Dee-Coo-Dah and Antiquarian Researches. Horace Thayer, New York.
65. ^ Lewis, Theodore H. (January 1, 1886). "The 'Monumental Tortoise' Mounds of 'Dee-Coo-Dah'". The American Journal of Archaeology. 2 (1): 65–69. doi:10.2307/496041. JSTOR 496041. S2CID 133844936. Retrieved September 1, 2023.

Further reading

[edit]

• Abrams, Elliot M.; Freter, AnnCorinne, eds. (2005). The Emergence of the Moundbuilders: The Archaeology of Tribal Societies in Southeastern Ohio. Athens: Ohio University Press. ISBN 978-0-8214-1609-9.
• Thomas, Cyrus. Report on the mound explorations of the Bureau of Ethnology. pp. 3–730. Twelfth annual report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1890–91, by J. W. Powell, Director. XLVIII+742 pp., 42 pls., 344 figs. 1894.
• Mark Jarzombek, Architecture of First Societies: A Global Perspective, (New York: Wiley & Sons, August 2013)
• Feder, Kenneth L. Frauds, Myths, and Mysteries: Science and Pseudoscience in Archaeology. 5th ed. New York: McGraw Hill, 2006.
• Squier, E. G.; Davis, E. H. (1847). Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley. Washington DC: Smithsonian Institution.
• Gale, George (1867). Upper Mississippi: or, Historical Sketches of the Mound-builders, the Indian tribes and the Progress of Civilization in the North-west, from A.D. 1600 to the Present Time. Chicago: Clarke.

External links

[edit] Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article "Mound-builders".

• Lost Race Myth Archived June 11, 2011, at the Wayback Machine
• LenaweeHistory.com | Mound Builders section, The Western Historical Society 1909, reprint.
• Artist Hideout, Art of the Ancients
• Ancient Monuments Placemarks
• The Mound Builders at Project Gutenberg
• With Climate Swing, a Culture Bloomed in Americas (mound builders in Peru)
• Science 19 September 1997 (a mound complex in Louisiana at 5400u–5000 years ago)
• Bruce Smith video on the 1880s Smithsonian explorations to determine who built the ancient earthen mounds in eastern North America can be viewed as part of series 19th Century Explorers and Anthropologists: Developing the Earliest Smithsonian Anthropology Collections

v t e Pre-Columbian North America
Periods Lithic Archaic Formative Classic Post-Classic
Archaeological cultures	Adena Alachua Ancient Beringian Ancestral Pueblo (Anasazi) Anishinaabe Avonlea Baytown Belle Glade Buttermilk Creek complex Caborn-Welborn Cades Pond Calf Creek Caloosahatchee Clovis Coles Creek Comondú Deptford Folsom Fort Ancient Fort Walton Fremont Glacial Kame Glades Hohokam Hopewell List of Hopewell sites La Jolla Las Palmas Maritime Archaic Mississippian List of Mississippian sites Mogollon Monongahela Old Cordilleran Oneota Paleo-Arctic Paleo-Indians Patayan Plano Plaquemine Poverty Point Red Ocher Safety Harbor Santa Rosa-Swift Creek St. Johns Steed-Kisker Suwannee Valley Tchefuncte Troyville Weeden Island Woodland
Archaeologicalsites	Angel Mounds Anzick Site Bandelier National Monument Bastian Benson Blue Spring Shelter Bluefish Caves The Bluff Point Stoneworks Brewster Cahokia Candelaria Cave Carlisle Fort Casa Grande Chaco Canyon Coso Rock Art District Crystal River Cuarenta Casas Cueva de la Olla Cutler Eaker El Fin del Mundo El Vallecito Effigy Mounds Etowah Indian Mounds Eva Folsom Fort Ancient Fort Center Fort Juelson Four Mounds Gila Cliff Dwellings Glenwood Grimes Point Helen Blazes Holly Bluff Hopewell Culture National Historical Park Horr's Island Huápoca Key Marco Kimball Village Kincaid Mounds Kolomoki Mounds Lake Jackson Mounds Lehner Mammoth-Kill Site L'Anse aux Meadows Lynch Quarry Site Marksville Marmes Rockshelter Meadowcroft Rockshelter Mesa Verde Moaning Cavern Moorehead Circle Morrison Mounds Moundville Mummy Cave Nodena Site Ocmulgee Mounds Old Stone Fort Orwell Site Paquime Painted Bluff Parkin Park Pinson Mounds Plum Bayou Mounds Portsmouth Earthworks Poverty Point Pueblo Bonito Rassawek Recapture Canyon River Styx Roberts Island Rock Eagle Rock Hawk Rosenstock Village Russell Cave Salmon Ruins Serpent Mound Sierra de San Francisco Shell ring sites Spiro Mounds Stallings Island SunWatch Taos Pueblo Town Creek Indian Mound Turkey River Mounds Upward Sun River Velda Mound West Oak Forest Earthlodge Wickiup Hill Windover Winterville Wupatki
Humanremains	Anzick-1 Arlington Springs Man Buhl Woman Kennewick Man La Brea Woman Leanderthal Lady Melbourne Man Minnesota Woman Peñon woman Spirit Cave mummy Vero man
Miscellaneous	Aridoamerica Ballgame Black drink Ceremonial pipe Chanunpa Chunkey Clovis point Container Revolution Eastern Agricultural Complex Eden point Effigy mound Falcon dancer Folsom point Green Corn Ceremony Horned Serpent Kiva Medicine wheel Metallurgy Mi'kmaq hieroglyphic writing Mound Builders N.A.G.P.R.A. Norse colonization of North America Oasisamerica Piasa Projectile point Southeastern Ceremonial Complex Stickball Three Sisters agriculture Thunderbird Transoceanic contact Underwater panther Water glyphs
Related Genetic history Pre-Columbian era

v t e Adena Culture
List of Adena culture sites Woodland period Mound Builders List of archaeological periods (North America)
Ohio sites	Adena Austin Brown Arledge Beam Farm Clemmons Conrad Coon Hunters George Deffenbaugh Enon Fortner Great Mound Hartley Highbanks Metro Park Hillside Haven Hodgen's Cemetery Horn Hurley Jackson Karshner Kinzer Luthor List McDaniel Miamisburg Mound Cemetery Odd Fellows' Cemetery Old Maid's Orchard Orators Carl Potter Raleigh Reeves D.S. Rose Ross Trails Circle Short Woods Park Shrum Snead Spruce Run David Stitt Story (Cincinnati) Story (Chillicothe) Williamson Wolf Plains Wright-Patterson Zaleski
Kentucky sites	Biggs Gaitskill Jim King Mound Mound Hill Mount Horeb Ramey Round Hill
West Virginia sites	Camden Park Mound Cotiga Mound Cresap Mound Criel Goff Mound Grave Creek Lynden Reynolds Farm Mound Neibert Mound St. Albans Site St Mary's Mound Turkey Creek Mound
Indiana sites	Mounds State Park
Category

v t e Hopewellian peoples
Woodland period List of Hopewell sites Mound Builders List of archaeological periods (North America)
Ohio Hopewell	Beam Farm Benham Mound Cary Village Site Cedar-Bank Works Dunns Pond Mound Ellis Mounds Ety Enclosure Ety Habitation Site Everett Knoll Complex Fort Ancient Fortified Hill Works Great Hopewell Road High Banks Works Hopeton Earthworks Hopewell Culture National Historical Park Indian Mound Cemetery Keiter Mound Marietta Earthworks Moorehead Circle Mound of Pipes Nettle Lake Mound Group Newark Earthworks Oak Mounds Orators Perin Village Site Pollock Works Portsmouth Earthworks Rocky Fork Enclosures Rocky Fork Mounds Seip Earthworks and Dill Mounds District Shawnee Lookout Shriver Circle Earthworks Stubbs Earthworks Tremper Mound and Works Williamson Mound Archeological District
Crab Orchard culture	Carrier Mills Archaeological District Cleiman Mound Hubele Site Mann Site Mount Vernon Site O'byams Fort site Wilson Site Yankeetown Site
Goodall Focus	Goodall Site Norton Mound Group
Havana Hopewell culture	Albany Mounds State Historic Site Dickson Mounds Duncan Farm Golden Eagle-Toppmeyer Site Kamp Mound Site Mound House site Naples Archeological District Naples Mound 8 Ogden-Fettie Site Rockwell Mound Sinnissippi Mounds Toolesboro Mound Group
Kansas City Hopewell	Cloverdale archaeological site Renner Village Archeological Site Trowbridge Archeological Site
Marksville culture	Crooks Mound Grand Gulf Mound Marksville Prehistoric Indian Site Mott Archaeological Preserve
Miller culture	Bynum Mound and Village Site Ingomar Mound Miller Site Pharr Mounds Pinson Mounds
Point Peninsula Complex	Lewiston Mound Serpent Mounds Park LeVescounte Mounds
Swift Creek cultureSanta Rosa-Swift Creek culture	Crystal River Archaeological State Park Etowah Indian Mounds Leake Mounds Kolomoki Mounds Miner's Creek site Pierce Site Swift Creek mound site Third Gulf Breeze Yearwood site Yent Mound
Other Hopewellian peoples	Armstrong culture Copena culture Fourche Maline culture Laurel Complex Saugeen Complex Old Stone Fort (Tennessee)
Exotic trade items	Copper Galena Mica Fresh water pearls Obsidian Pipestone Sea shells
Related topics Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley Black drink burial mound Ceremonial pipe Effigy mound Hopewell pottery Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks Horned Serpent Eastern Agricultural Complex Underwater panther

v t e Late Woodland cultures
Mound Builders List of archaeological periods (North America)
Sites	Baum Site Beattie Park Mound Group Book Site Bowen Site (12 MA 61) Brinsfield I Site Brokaw Site Clampitt Site (12-LR-329) Fisher Site Hoye Site Little Maquoketa River Mounds State Preserve Man Mound Memorial Park Site Nottingham Site Ormond Mound St. Croix River Access Site Sommerheim Park University of Tennessee Agriculture Farm Mound
Cultures	Alachua culture Avonlea culture Clemson Island culture Manahoac Monongahela culture Oliver Phase Princess Point complex Springwells Phase Suwannee Valley culture Weeden Island culture
Related topics Steuben point Belle Glade culture Extreme weather events of 535–536 Fort Ancient culture Mississippian culture Oneota St. Johns culture

v t e Coles Creek and Plum Bayou cultures
Late Woodland period List of archaeological periods (North America)
Coles Creek sites	Aden Site Balmoral Mounds Boone's Mounds Churupa Plantation Mound Coles Creek Site Crippen Point site Cypress Grove Mound DePrato Mounds Greenhouse Site Feltus Mound Site Filhiol Mound Site Fisher Site Flowery Mound Frogmore Mound Site Ghost Site Mounds Greenhouse Site Insley Mounds Kings Crossing Site Lamarque Landing Mound Marsden Mounds Mazique Archeological Site Mott Mounds Mound Plantation Peck Mounds Raffman Site Scott Place Mounds Shackleford Church Mounds Spanish Fort Sundown Mounds Transylvania Mounds Troyville Earthworks Venable Mound Wade Landing Mound
CoastalColes Creek sites	Atchafalaya Basin Mounds Bayou Black Mound (16TR78) Bayou Cypremont (16SMY7) Bayou Grande Cheniere Mounds Bayou L'Ours Site Bayou Portage Mounds Bayou Sorrel Mounds (16IV4) Clovelly Site (16LF64) Cypress Point Site (16VM112) Eagle Point Site (16IB123) Gibson Mounds (16TR5) Greenwood Cemetery Site (16SMY10) Kleinpeter Mounds Little Cheniere Site (16CM22) Little Pecan Island Site Jerry Haas Site (16SJ51) Machias Lake (16SB2) Morgan Mounds Pecan Mounds (16SM37) Pennison Mounds (16AS16) Portage Mounds (16SM5) Richeau Field Site (16TR82) Schwing Place Mound (16IV13) Sims Site Southwest of Cut Off Lagoon (16SB50) St. Gabriel Mounds (16IV128) Temple Mounds Site (16LF4)
Plum Bayou sites	Baytown Site Chandler Landing Site Coy Site Dogtown Site Hayes site Maberry Site Plum Bayou Mounds Roland Site
Related topics Eastern Agricultural Complex Fourche Maline culture Mississippian culture Natchez Plaquemine culture Platform mound Taensa Troyville culture

v t e Mississippian and related cultures
List of Mississippian sites Timeline of Mississippi valley
MiddleMississippian	American Bottomand Upper Mississippi Aztalan Big Eddy Cahokia Monks Mound Mound 34 Mound 72 Ramey state Woodhenge Cloverdale Dickson Mounds Emerald Acropolis Emmons Cemetery Horseshoe Lake John Chapman Kuhn Station Larson Lunsford-Pulcher McCune Mitchell Orendorf Sleeth Starr Steed-Kisker culture Sugarloaf Mound Lower Ohio River and Confluence area Adams Site Dogtooth Bend Mounds Kincaid Mounds Marshall Site Millstone Bluff Orr-Herl Rowlandton Mound Towosahgy Turk Site Twin Mounds Ware Mounds Wickliffe Mounds Middle Ohio River Angel Phase Annis Mound Bone Bank Caborn-Welborn culture Ellerbusch Hovey Lake-Klein Hovey Lake District Murphy Prather Slack Farm Tolu Welborn Village Yankeetown Tennessee andCumberland Backusburg Beasley Mounds Brentwood Library Brick Church Castalian Springs Dunbar Cave Fewkes Group Hiwassee Island Link Farm Mound Bottom Riverview Sellars Obion Old Town Swallow Bluff Central and Lower Mississippi Belle Meade Boone's Boyd Campbell Carson Chucalissa Denmark Eaker Janet's Menard-Hodges Murphy Nodena Nodena Phase Owl Creek Parkin Quigualtam Tipton Phase Tunica Koroa Yazoo Walls Phase
South AppalachianMississippian	Adamson Avery Beaverdam Creek Bell Field Mound Bessemer Biltmore Blair Bussell Island Chauga Chiaha Chota Citico Coosa Dallas Phase Dyar Etowah Garden Creek Hoojah Branch Irene Jere Shine Joara Joe Bell King Lamar Lamar phase Liddell Little Egypt Long Swamp Mabila Mandeville McMahan Moccasin Bend Moundville Mouse Creek Phase Mulberry Muscogee (Creek) Nacoochee Nikwasi Ocmulgee Park Mound Pisgah Phase Punk Rock Shelter Rembert Roods Landing Rucker's Bottom Savannah Shiloh Sixtoe Summerour Taskigi Tomotley Toqua Town Creek Waddells Mill Pond Wilbanks
Fort Walton culture	Anhaica Apalachee Apalachee Province Cayson Corbin-Tucker Fort Walton Mound Lake Jackson Leon-Jefferson culture Letchworth Velda Yon
Pensacola culture	Bottle Creek Dauphin Island Fort Walton Hickory Ridge Cemetery Naval Live Oaks Cemetery Pensacola people
PlaquemineMississippian	Anna Atchafalaya Basin Emerald Fitzhugh Flowery Fosters Ghost Glass Grand Village of the Natchez Holly Bluff Jaketown Jordan Julice Mangum Mazique Medora Mott Natchez Taensa Pocahontas Routh Scott Place Sims Transylvania Venable Winterville
CaddoanMississippian	Battle Belcher Blue Spring Shelter Bluffton Caddo Caddoan Mounds Gahagan Hughes Ka-Do-Ha Indian Village Keller Spiro
Upper Mississippiancultures	Oneota Anker Beattie Park Blood Run Carcajou Point Fifield Fisher Mound Group Gentleman Farm Grand Village of the Illinois Griesmer Hartley Fort Hotel Plaza Hoxie Farm Huber Juntunen Knoll Spring Mero Site Moccasin Bluff Oak Forest Palos Plum Island Roche-a-Cri Petroglyphs Schwerdt Summer Island Fort Ancient culture Alligator Effigy Mound Clover Dodge Leo Petroglyph Serpent Mound SunWatch Indian Village
Culture	Agriculture Beans Chenopodium Little barley Maize Marshelder Pumpkin Squash Sunflower Three Sisters Tobacco Artwork Emmons mask Copper plates Rogan plates Spiro plates Wulfing cache Duck River Cache Long-nosed god maskette Mill Creek chert Pottery Shell gorget Stone statuary Languages Caddoan Central Algonquian Cherokee Mobilian Jargon Muskogean Natchez Taensa Siouan Timucuan Tunican Yuchi Religion Ballgame (Southeastern) Northern Black drink Burial mound Ceremonial pipe Chanunpa Chunkey Earth/fertility cult Green Corn Ceremony Horned Serpent Platform mound Red Horn Sacred bundle Village bundle Southeastern Ceremonial Complex Stone box grave Thunderbird Underwater panther
Related topics Chevron bead Clarksdale bell Mound Builders de Soto Expedition

v t e Fort Ancient culture
List of archaeological periods (North America) Mound Builders
AndersonFocus	Fort Ancient Site Hine Site Kemp Site State Line Site SunWatch Indian Village
Baum Focus	Alligator Effigy Mound Baldwin Site Baum Site Gartner Site Serpent Mound
Feurt Focus	Buffalo Indian Village Site Feurt Mounds and Village Site Hardin Village Site Leo Petroglyph Hobson Site
MadisonvilleFocus	Buckner Site Clay Mound Cleek-McCabe Site Clover Site Fox Farm Site Hahns Field Site Larkin Site Lower Shawneetown Madisonville Site Ronald Watson Gravel Site Sand Ridge Site Turpin Site
Related topics Bone Stone Graves Bone Mound II Cole culture Mississippian culture Monongahela culture Oliver Phase Oneota Owasco culture Springwells Phase

v t e Prehistoric technology
Prehistory Timeline Outline Stone Age Subdivisions New Stone Age Technology history Glossary
Tools Farming Neolithic Revolution Founder crops New World crops Ard / plough Celt Digging stick Domestication Goad Irrigation Secondary products Sickle Terracing Food processing(Paleolithic diet) Fire Basket Cooking Earth oven Granaries Grinding slab Ground stone Hearth Aşıklı Höyük Qesem Cave Manos Metate Mortar and pestle Pottery Quern-stone Storage pits Hunting Arrow Boomerang throwing stick Bow and arrow history Nets Spear spear-thrower baton harpoon Schöningen woomera Projectile points Arrowhead Transverse Bare Island Cascade Clovis Cresswell Cumberland Eden Folsom Lamoka Manis Mastodon Plano Systems Game drive system Buffalo jump Toolmaking Earliest toolmaking Oldowan Acheulean Mousterian Aurignacian Clovis culture Cupstone Fire hardening Gravettian culture Hafting Hand axe Grooves Langdale axe industry Levallois technique Lithic core Lithic reduction analysis debitage flake Lithic technology Magdalenian culture Metallurgy Microblade technology Mining Prepared-core technique Solutrean industry Striking platform Tool stone Uniface Yubetsu technique Other tools Adze Awl bone Axe Bannerstone Blade prismatic Bone tool Bow drill Burin Canoe Oar Pesse canoe Chopper tool Cleaver Denticulate tool Fire plough Fire-saw Hammerstone Knife Microlith Quern-stone Racloir Rope Scraper side Stone tool Tally stick Weapons Wheel illustration
Architecture Ceremonial Kiva Pyramid Standing stones megalith row Stonehenge Dwellings Neolithic architecture long house British megalith architecture Nordic megalith architecture Burdei Cave Cliff dwelling Dugout Hut Quiggly hole Jacal Longhouse Mudbrick Mehrgarh Pit-house Pueblitos Pueblo Rock shelter Blombos Cave Abri de la Madeleine Sibudu Cave Roundhouse Stilt house Alp pile dwellings Stone roof Wattle and daub Water management Check dam Cistern Flush toilet Reservoir Well Other architecture Archaeological features Broch Burnt mound fulacht fiadh Causewayed enclosure Tor enclosure Circular enclosure Goseck Cursus Henge Thornborough Megalithic architectural elements Midden Oldest extant buildings Timber circle Timber trackway Sweet Track
Arts and culture Material goods Baskets Beadwork Beds Chalcolithic Clothing/textiles timeline Cosmetics Glue Hides shoes Ötzi Jewelry amber use Mirrors Pottery Cardium Cord-marked Grooved ware Jōmon Linear Unstan ware Sewing needle Weaving Wine winery wine press Prehistoric art Art of the Upper Paleolithic Art of the Middle Paleolithic Blombos Cave List of Stone Age art Bird stone Cairn Carved stone balls Cave paintings Cup and ring mark Geoglyph Hill figure Golden hats Guardian stones Gwion Gwion rock paintings painting pigment Megalithic art Petroform Petroglyph Petrosomatoglyph Pictogram Rock art Rock cupule Stone carving Sculpture Statue menhir Stone circle list British Isles and Brittany Venus figurine Prehistoric music Evolutionary musicology music archaeology Alligator drum Paleolithic flute Divje Babe flute Gudi Prehistoric religion Evolutionary origin of religion Paleolithic religion Spiritual drug use Burial Burial mounds Bowl barrow Round barrow Mound Builders culture U.S. sites Chamber tomb Cotswold-Severn Cist Dartmoor kistvaens Clava cairn Court cairn Cremation Dolmen Great dolmen Funeral pyre Gallery grave transepted wedge-shaped Grave goods Jar burial Kuyavian long barrows Long barrow unchambered Grønsalen Megalithic tomb Mummy Passage grave Rectangular dolmen Ring cairn Simple dolmen Stone box grave Tor cairn Unchambered long cairn Other cultural Archaeoastronomy sites lunar calendar Behavioral modernity Origin of language Prehistoric counting Prehistoric medicine trepanning Prehistoric warfare Symbols symbolism

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