18 replies to this topic

[Bruce Klein]

Mound Builders, in North American archaeology, name given to those people who built mounds in a large area from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico and from the Mississippi River to the Appalachian Mts. The greatest concentrations of mounds are found in the Mississippi and Ohio valleys. The term “Mound Builders” arose when the origin of the monuments was considered mysterious, most European Americans assuming that the Native Americans were too uncivilized for this accomplishment.




http://www.cr.nps.go...ure/feature.htm

[bobdrake12]

Bruce,

This is a great subject!

Thanks for posting.

Bob


http://www.der.org/p.../n_america.html




Myths And The Moundbuilders - Dr Jane Buikstra excavates a burial mound in Illinois to find out more about the native Americans who built the mounds thousands of years ago.

[bobdrake12]

http://www.cast.uark...genmoundpg.html


The Mound Builders





While the Europeans were experiencing the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, Native Americans who lived along the Mississippi River and its tributaries were developing their own unique culture. These prehistoric Native Americans, who are called Mississippian Indians by archaeologists, lived in permanent towns which were built on a fairly standard pattern. Ceremonial buildings on large four sided flat-topped mounds faced a plaza. The villagers gathered in the plaza for important events, ceremonies, and to watch various games such as stickball and chunkey.





The earthen mounds were built over a period of years. Perhaps they began as a slight rise with an important building on it. After a time, the building burned. Maybe the people set it on fire because it had become infested with vermin or perhaps the grass roof caught fire accidently. Whatever the cause of the fire, the people brought basketful after basketful of dirt to make a mound. When they were satisfied, they built a new building on top. Archeologists do not know what purpose these buildings fulfilled. The most widely accepted ideas are that these buildings were either religious structures, or the homes of chiefs or other important families.

[bobdrake12]

http://www.cast.uark...tecmoundpg.html


The Toltec Mounds





In the modern farmlands of the Arkansas River Valley are the remains of a large group of ancient earthworks known as the Toltec Mounds. This impressive archeological site has attracted national interest for over 100 years and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1978. Toltec Mounds is one of the largest and most complex sites in the Lower Mississippi Valley. Located on the bank of Mound Pond, it once had an earthen embankment on three sides. A century ago, 16 mounds were known inside the embankment and two of them were 38 to 50 feet high. Today, several mounds and a remnant of the embankment are visible and locations of other mounds are known.

The embankment was an impressive earthwork 8 to 10 feet high and 5,298 feet long with a ditch on the outside. Mounds were placed along the edges of two open areas (plazas) which were used for political, religious, and social activities attended by people from the vicinity. Mound locations seem to have been planned using principles based on alignment with important solar positions and standardized units of measurement. Most of the mounds were square or rectangular, flat-topped platforms with buildings on them. Mound B (38'high) was constructed and enlarged over a long period of time with religious buildings on it. Mounds such as D,E,S, and G, were low platforms, apparently with houses on them. Mound C (12' high) was dome-shaped and constructed to cover burials. Native Americans also lived here in the 1400s, but they did not build the mounds.

[bobdrake12]

http://www.cast.uark...kinmoundpg.html

The Parkin Mound




Platforom mound at the Parkin site. (Courtesy Arkansas Archeological Survey)


The temple mound at Parkin is located in the center of the western edge of the site, on the east bank of the St. Francis River. Several large trees are present on the western side of the mound. This is a typical Mississippian flat-topped pyramidal mound, which functioned as the foundation for either a temple or a chief's residence. The 1.5 meter high apron or extension on the southern end of the temple mound also probably supported one or several structures. Other smaller mounds that have been partly leveled by farming were observed at the site. Six such mounds, measuring from a half meter to a meter in height, were mapped in 1940 by Philip Phillips, James Ford and James B. Griffin. These may have been house mounds supporting residences of important persons. Five of the small mounds are located near the large temple mound and were probably on the edge of a plaza area where ceremonies and games took place.

[bobdrake12]

Monks Mound is ~790 feet East-West, 1,037 feet North-South and is ~100 feet tall).


http://www.cr.nps.go...unds/mounds.htm


How Were Mounds Made?


Imagine groups of workers toiling from dawn to dusk, gathering baskets of dirt. They carry their burdens to a clearing, dump the soil, and tamp it down with their feet. As the days pass they retrace their footsteps time after time until a shape emerges and begins to grow. An earthen mound is born. Over years of ceremonial use, multiple layers of earth are added during repeated episodes of construction, gradually building a mound of impressive height. Variations of this scene were repeated throughout Mississippi over a span of at least 1,800 years.


More About Mounds


The shapes of mounds vary. They can be flat-topped pyramids, rounded domes, or barely perceptible rises on the landscape.


Mounds can stand alone or be in groups of as many as 20 or more, as at Winterville. Some mounds are arranged around broad plazas, while others are connected by earthen ridges.


How American Indians used the mounds also varied. The purposes of some of the most ancient mounds are still shrouded in mystery. Some societies buried their dead in mounds with great ceremony. Other cultures built temples atop the mounds, and worshipers approached by climbing steep stairs or ramps. Still other earthworks were symbolic pinnacles of power for leaders who dwelled atop them.


Regardless of the particular age, form, or function of individual mounds, all had deep meaning for the people who built them. Many earthen mounds were regarded by various American Indian groups as symbols of Mother Earth, the giver of life. Such mounds thus represent the womb from which humanity had emerged. With such sacred associations, mounds were powerful territorial markers and monuments of social unity, reinforcing and perpetuating community identity and pride.

[bobdrake12]

http://www.sover.net...nds/mounds.html

Mound Builders in America

by Jesse and Andy Ackemann with help from Barb and Bill





When we were in Ohio, we went to Mound City, a group of 23 mounds built by the people of the Hopewell Culture, a group of Native Americans, long ago. When we were in Illinois, we went to Cahokia Mounds, the site of a city of 20,000 people of the Mississippian Culture.





Most of the Hopewell mounds were big and round, but one was shaped like a Twinkie. The biggest mound was about 20 feet high. There was also a perimeter mound, a long skinny mound around the outside of the other mounds. The Hopewell people made these mounds out of dirt which they got out of "borrow pits" nearby. They carried the dirt in baskets.




Mound City Group, Chillicothe, OH


Each mound covered the remains of a charnel house, a wooden building used for meetings. The Hopewell people cremated the dead, burned the charnel house, and built a mound over the remains. They also placed artifacts, such as copper figures, mica, arrowheads, shells, and pipes in the mounds. A ranger showed us replicas of some of the artifacts.

Most of the artifacts in Mound City came from far away places. The Hopewell people traded with other Indians.





The Hopewell people got food from the rivers, woods, and prairies. They also grew crops, such as squash and sunflowers.

The Mississippian Culture's Cahokia


The Cahokia Mounds were bigger. The base of the biggest mound, Monk's Mound, covers 14 acres. It is as big as the base of the Great Pyramid. It is 100 feet high. Monk's Mound is a platform mound. It is flat in the top. There was a large house on the top that the king and his servants lived in. Other mounds were conical. They were used for burials. There were also ridgetop mounds used to mark the borders mound area. There were over 120 mounds in this area.




Central Cahokia Mounds, Collinsville, IL


These mound builders also made artifacts. Like the Hopewells, they traded for shells, copper, and flint. They made flint hoes which they used to get dirt and make gardens.

The Indians at Cahokia grew corn. Because of corn, many people could live in one place. As many as 20,000 people lived at Cahokia from 1100 to 1200 AD. They lived in houses made of wood, mud daub, and thatch. In the Visitor's Center at Cahokia there was a "mirrored village," which had lots of buildings. It showed the daily life of the people, and the mirrors made it look like a large village.

A two-mile long stockade surrounded the city. It was made of 20,000 logs which were stripped of bark and burned at both ends to keep out insects.

At Cahokia there were sun calendars made out of logs, called Woodhenges. We saw one made of 48 posts in a circle with a 410 foot diameter. The Indians used these circles to tell what season it was, and when to plant and harvest corn.

Both Hopewell Mound City and Cahokia are still sacred sites to Native Americans.


If you have questions or comments for us about the Mound Builders, please email us: barback@sover.net.

[bobdrake12]

Central Cahokia Mounds, Collinsville, IL

From: J. M. Faragher et al., 2000, Out Of Many: A History of The American People (NJ: Prentice Hall), page xlviii.


http://www.geocities...558/mound1.html


Who Were the Mound Builders?



Most people are aware of the great civilizations of Egypt and Mexico, but few, even American Indians themselves, realize there were great civilizations in North America as well.

Simply put, the Mound-Builders were American Indians. The civilizations that flourished here were spectacular in their own right and are known as the Mound-Builders incorrectly. The Mound-building took place over many hundreds of years and was practiced by many different groups. Remember we are talking about nations here. Saying Indians is like saying Europeans. Just as German and English cultures are very different, so are the Nations of Amerindians. Another thing the reader should realize is American Indians call themselves American Indians, NOT Native Americans. Mound building in one form or another flourished from 3000 B.C. until the mid 19th century and there were many different Native Americam cultures that built mounds. Thus, the term Mound-Builder is an innaccurate term. Cahokia Mounds ( another mis-named place as the Cahokia Indians were part of the Illiani Indians and were not the group that had occupied Cahokia Mounds ) in Illinois is representitive of the height of the Mississippian Culture Civilization in North America that reached it's peak around 1450 A.D. although it lasted well into the 18th century with the Natchez. Other forms of mound building lasted well into the late 19th century.

Credit has been given to almost every race on earth for the building of mounds. From the time the first settlers arrived rigth up to the present almost every race on earth has been considered as originators of this culture. Even when the true originators, the American Indian, were found to be the creators of this phase it would not be long before racism and romanticism would prevail and once again the theories would abound to answer the question,"Who built the mounds?" The purponents of these wildly speculative theories ignore things like the fact that many of the groups in the Americas pre-date those of the Old World. For example, Cahokia was a flourishing population center and a city in every sense of the word when London was a few scattered huts. There were domesticated plants being put to use, as the Koster site shows, when the Sumerians and Egyptians were still fledgeling civilizations, or not even established.

The fact is, however, the Mound Cultures were made up of many different cultures that shared cultural traits. There were also many phases of Mound Culture civilization practiced by almost all known Amerindain groups at some time and spanning eons. The hight of American Romanticism with the Mound Cultures peaked in the 19th century and it is at this time that Congress, in deciding on grants to the Bureau of Ethnology (today known as the Smithsonian Institute) decided that the question of who had built the mounds should be settled once and for all.

In 1881 the Congress of the United States gave $5000 to the Smithsonian Institution to conduct archeological excavations relating to the prehistoric Mound Builders and prehistoric mounds. Mr. Wills de Haas of Wheeling, West Virginia, was placed in charge of the project. Mr. de Haas who had studied Grave Creek Mound at Moundsville, West Virginia, resigned after a year. He was replaced by Cyrus Thomas and the project continued until 1890. The goal of the mound explorations was to settle the question of who were the Mound Builders. Were they an ancient vanished race as many scholars believed or were they the ancestors of the American Indians. By the completion of the project in 1890, over 2000 mounds and earthworks had been studied in the eastern United States. About 100 of these were in the Kanawha Valley. In 1894 Cyrus Thomas published his book Report on the Mound Explorations of the Bureau of Ethnology and proved that the Mound Builders were not a vanished race but the ancestors of the American Indian. This was the birth of modern American Archeology. Once the question of the identity of the Mound Builders was settled, archeologists began tracing the development of North American Indian culture.

Today the term Mound Builder is missused. The types of mounds built, although many and varied, can be divided into two basic culture types. These two basic types are usualy called Effigy and Temple and both groups as well as many Amerindian groups that did not belong to these two groups, practiced making various forms of burial mounds and cairns. Other types of mounds, such as burial, are varied in type to the extent as to warrant their own sub-groups.

A third form, probably the most famous, are called effigy mounds. This latter type includes sites such as the Serpent Mound on Ohio and other effigy mound groups. These sites often include other forms of mounds and earth-works and take many forms including birds.

Sometime around 6000 B. C., while Neolithic farming began in the Near and far East, it also began in North America. Several sites in North America show established settlements and farming occurring as early as 7000 B.C. Now, I know your thinking, "This is the New World," but the fact is that the Koster Site in Illinois, and Annis Shell Mound in Kentucky show unmistakeable agricultural pratices in the heart of North America during these times. There are indications that some of these sites are older still. In fact recent dates indicate some forms of agriculture as early as 10000 BC. Today, over 50% of the worlds domesticated produce comes from plants domesticated by the Amerindian.

Mound building is believed to have begun as a burial practice, the mound serving as both tombstone, tomb and offering site to the deceased. However, what is believed to be the oldest known mound complex in the Americas dates to about 3400 B.C., and shows no indication of any ceramonial purpose whatsoever. The mound group is near Monroe in northern Louisiana. This site demonstrates that the idea of mound culture developement being dependant on agricultural developement is an inaccurate one as the builders of this complex were hunter/gatherer cultures according to present studies on the site. This site further demonstrates that the oral traditions of my ancestors are not as trivial as many archaeologists believe them to be.

Later the practice of mound-building and earthworks grew into several basic and distinct types. The burial mound, the effigy Mound, and the temple or platform mound. Although the Effigy form is considered to be the older than the temple form and as such appears first in most books on the subject, the Platform mound is actually older. The earliest of these are found in Meso-America among the remains of the Olmec culture. It is here that we can see the development of mound building. The Olmec began with earthen platform mounds then began paving these mounds with stone until finally all their structures of this type were made of cut stone.

It is the earthen platform mound found in North America that characterizes the Mississippian period that began around 400 A. D.


© 1995 1997 1998 1999 2000 by Hutchison Research Center.

[bobdrake12]

http://www.cr.nps.go...ure/feature.htm










WONDERS OF GEOMETRIC PRECISION, the earthworks of the lower Mississippi were centers of life long before the Europeans arrived in America. As was the river itself. The alluvial soil of its banks yielded a bounty of beans, squash, and corn to foster burgeoning communities. Over the Mississippi’s waters, from near and far, came prized pearls, copper, and mica.

Today, most of the moundbuilders’ legacy is gone. Many of their earthworks have been plowed, pilfered, eroded, and built over. Yet evidence of the culture remains. This website is part of an effort to preserve the legacy that survives along the banks of the lower Mississippi.

[bobdrake12]

http://www.lth6.k12....tin/cahokia.htm


Cahokia Mounds




We visited Cahokia Mounds near Collinsville, IL on November 1, 1996. This was the site of the largest center of population in the Mississippian Period of prehistoric native American culture.




Monk's Mound is the largest mound in North America outside of Mexico. It is the largest earthen mound in the world.




This model shows what it looked like in A.D. 1300.




We climbed Monk's Mound which stands over 100 feet tall. From the top we could see for miles. We could even see the St.Louis Arch.




This model shows the Woodhenge, a prehistoric sun calendar, which stood west of Monk's Mound.

[bobdrake12]

http://medicine.wust.../woodhenge.html


Woodhenge



Fascinating information about the people who once built the great prehistoric city of Cahokia was revealed accidentally during excavations in the early 1960s. Professional archaeologists were trying desperately to save archaeological information which was to be destroyed by the construction of an interstate highway, which was later rerouted. After a summer of intense excavation, Dr. Warren Wittry was studying excavation maps when he observed that numerous large oval-shaped pits seemed to be arranged in arcs of circles. He theorized that posts set in these pits lined up with the rising sun at certain times of the year, serving as a calendar, which he called WOODHENGE. After further excavations by Wittry and other archaeologists, more post pits were found where predicted, and evidence that there were as many as five Woodhenges at this location. These calendars had been built over a period of 200 years (A.D. 900-1100). Fragments of wood remaining in some of the post pits revealed red cedar had been used for the posts, a sacred wood.

The first circle, only partially excavated, (date unknown) would have consisted of 24 posts: the second circle had 36 posts; the third circle (A.D. 1000), The most completely excavated, had 48 posts; the fourth, partially excavated, would have had 60 posts. The last Woodhenge was only 12, or possible 13 posts, along the eastern sunrise arc(if it had been a complete circle, it would have had 72 posts). Building only the sunrise arc might indicate that red cedar trees had become scarce.

It is not known why the size and location of the circles, and the number of posts was constantly changed --perhaps to include more festival dates or to improve and increase alignments.

Only three posts are crucial as seasonal markers -- those marking the first days of winter and summer (the solstices), and the one halfway between marking the first days of spring and fall (the equinoxes). Viewing was from the center of the circle, and several circles had large "observation posts" at that location, where it is likely the sunpriest stood on a raised platform. Other posts between the solstice posts probably marked special festival dates related to the agricultural cycle. The remaining posts around the circle have no known function, other than symbolically forming a circle and forming an enclosure to hold the sacred Woodhenge ceremonies. There have been suggestions some posts had alignments with certain bright stars or the moon, or were used in predicting eclipses, and others have suggested Woodhenge was used as an engineering "aligner" to determine mound placements, but none of this has been proven convincingly.

The most spectacular sunrise occurs at the equinoxes, when the sun rises due east. The post marking these sunrises aligns with the front of Monks Mound, where the leader resided, and it looks as though Monks Mound gives birth the sun. A possible offertory pit near the winter solstice post suggests a fire was burned to warm the sun and encourage it to return northward for another annual cycle and rebirth of the earth. This probably marked the start of the new year.

The third circle (A.D. 1000) was reconstructed in 1985 at the original location. The circle is 410 feet in diameter, had 48 posts spaced 26.8 feet apart (9 are missing on the west side, removed by a highway borrow pit). The posts were 15-20 inches in diameter and stood about 20 feet high. Red ocher pigment found in some of the post pits suggests the posts may have been painted. The post pits averaged 7 feet long and just over two feet wide, sloping from the surface at one end to a depth of four feet at the other, forming a ramp to slide the posts down to facilitate their raising.


cahokiamounds@ezl.com

[Bruce Klein]

Credit has been given to almost every race on earth for the building of mounds. From the time the first settlers arrived right up to the present almost every race on earth has been considered as originators of this culture. Even when the true originators, the American Indian, were found to be the creators of this phase it would not be long before racism and romanticism would prevail and once again the theories would abound to answer the question,"Who built the mounds?"

One idea I found interesting about the TLC TV program Susan and I watched about the "Mound Builders"... is that people were trying to attribute the structures to anyone other than the American Indians... a tragic string of events, The pervasive need was to get rid of the Indians and portray them as lower than human, even if it meant falsifying clear evidence.

[Lazarus Long]

I am glad you are taking notice my friends. It is also tragic that we as the richest nation on earth spend the absolute least upon preserving the antiquity of culture that is all around us. This is in part a result of the needs of parochail culture to White Wsh the cost of colonialization and to propagandize the idea that the Native Americans were somehow not deserving of the wealth of this land but it is also because of the same socio-economic issue that we must confront in the preservation of Old Growth Forest, Wet Lands, Mountain Micro Climes, and Undeveloped Coast Lines and River Systems.

Mounds are routinely destroyed when discovered BECAUSE they are on "Private Property" and they represent a demand from the commons that can overwhelm and destroy "value" in a percieved sense by the owner.

Here in my area we are facing a similar crisis. Look up the Stone Chambers of North America, Stone Chambers as an example.

I have played in many of these that are near my ancestral home since I was a child. None have been properly or truly scientifically investigated, none have been adequately catalogued to this date and there is too little interest on the part of even local departments of Archeology to dig too deep into their story.

I have also been a witness to the wonton destruction of more than a few that were in the way of "progress" (new, overlarge, high tax generating homes). There is a gross attitude of neglect and indifference to the treasure of our own nations antiquity that when many educated foreign folk observe they see as a cause to suspect our benign interest in their land use. We are nothing if not contradictory in our appearence abroad and the concern over how we develop our own historical and prehistorical sites would go far to demonstrate by example a more positive attitude. This would perhaps help earn more respect from other's abroad while at the same time develop our own cultural wealth and resource.

Additional Links:

New England Antiquities Research Association

Built by Irish Monks?

Druidic Chambers of North America

Links to Links

Photos

This one is very near my house and you can notice the edge of the road at its foot.


Do you folks realize that a nation like Mexico for all its poverty spends a much higher percentage of GNP on education and the preservation of its antiquities then we do in the United States?

It shows when one goes to look at their "ruins". They see these sites as a Common Heritage, there development is for the benefit of all poor and wealthy alike. Students from all over the world are admitted free with School ID and there are over 20,000 sites across Mexico alone that are identified yet only a small number of the most famous can recieve developmental capital because of the significant number.

In many cases in Central and Southern Mexico sites are being destroyed by developing Maquiladoras and "Poachers"in the contest between preservation History and the Cost of building a Future. This is not just an aside it is an element of the reason for groups like the Zapatistas and their organized resisitence to the Central Government that is usurping their control over traditional Mayan areas. The Culture Wars of the nineteenth and twentieth century have never gone away.

[bobdrake12]

Lazarus Long,

It is great to see you join in the discussion.

Have you been to the Central Cahokia Mounds in Collinsville, IL?

I understand that there are some complexities there. Hopefully, I can find an URL that gives data to back up what I have heard.

Yes, there is much more about ancient history in the Western Hemisphere than the myth that Columbus "discovered" America.

Bob


http://www.megahobby...on&key=LIN72212




Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria Set by Lindberg

From the Great Moments in History Series. This is the Columbus Discovers America set which includes the Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria models (each ship is 5"-6" long), a seascape diorama base, and a paint brush and 6 color acrylic (non-toxic water-base) paint set. Perfect for a School project. SKILL 2 Ages 8 and up.

[bobdrake12]

http://www.csuchico....CityJune28.html


Central Cahokia Mounds, Collinsville, IL




Monks Mound




Monks Mound And Adjacent Area. (From: Cahokia Mounds Tour Guide (1996) (Cahokia Mounds Museum Society, Collinsville, Illinois)


http://www.cr.nps.go...age/cahokia.htm



Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site, Illinois





Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site is located on the Mississippi River across from St. Louis, Missouri. This area was first inhabited by Indians of the Woodland culture about A.D. 700. By about 900 the Cahokia site was the regional center for the Mississippian culture with satellite settlements around it. After about 400 years, the population began to decline and the site was abandoned by 1500. In the late 1600s the Cahokia Indians came to the area; it is from these later Indians that the current name is derived. However, it is the building accomplishments of the earlier Indians that make this site significant. They constructed more than 100 earthen mounds, 87 of which have been documented. It is estimated that these industrious people moved 50 million cubic feet of earth in woven baskets to create this network of mounds. Monk's Mound, for example, covers an area of 14 acres and rises in 4 terraces to a height of 100 feet. Atop this would have been a massive building another 50 feet high. As the largest prehistoric earthen construction in the Americas, Monk's Mound is a testament to the sophisticated engineering skills of these people. (Inscribed in 1982)

[Lazarus Long]

Yes I have Bob and if you go back to the other forum you will find way in "our" past I posted some links to information aboutt he Cahokia Site. There are a number of disputes as to its actual size which I have heard to be reported as teh largest inthe known world of one full square mile at its base, but most of that was destroyed in the building of East St. Louis.

It is definitely however a Step Pyramid of Earthen Construction with various effigy and internment facets incorporated. It is reported by Lewis and Clarke in the expeditionary accounts and it was still inhabitated (though in profound decline) when they encountered the region.

There is also a remarkable structure in a park in Wisconsin's Aztlan State Park, which was a step pyramid, also earthen and originally topped by a stockade. On the Madison Campus of the University of Wisconsin behind the top of Bascomb Hill there are a number of effigy mounds preserved, interestingly enough along side the Observatory as well as in the community of the near West Side of Town. What ever ill can be said of the UW they can also be acknowledged for when they do something right.

Between the Arboretum, Muir Knoll, and the various Mound Preservation Projects they have over the years sponsored there has been a well spring of interest caused in fundamental environmental and socio-historic issues.

Our interests, friend Bob clearly run in the same gutter. We even share a love of fresh sushi & good beer.

[bobdrake12]

Monks Mound, Cahokia.


____________________________________________________________________


Lazarus Long,

Thanks for the information!

A Step Pyramid of Earthen Construction was built at the Cohokia Site and also another one was contructed in what is now known as Wisconsin's Aztlan State Park. I wonder how many more were built in that general area?

Yes, drinking an ice cold mug of beer has been one of my pleasures in life as well.

Bob

[bobdrake12]

http://www.mnh.si.ed.../pastpage2.html




The Ancients: Remembering the Past (Continued)


MESOAMERICAN CONTACT


Long before the large-scale migration of Mexican workers to the United States --long before there was a United States -- Native Americans traveled widely, embarked on far-flung commercial ventures, and engaged in extensive cross-cultural exchange.

Through well-established trading networks the civilizations of ancient Mexico came to share basic customs and beliefs. In time, Mesoamerican products and ideas spread to the cultures of North America.





For a thousand years, Mesoamerican merchants traded ritual objects like macaw feathers and copper bells for precious turquoise mined by the Anasazi and Hohokam of the American Southwest.




Turquoise mosaic mirrors adorned with the Feathered Serpent were crafted by artisans in Mexico and the Southwest. This exquisite example served as a royal emblem for the Maya kings of Chichen Itza, in the Yucatan Peninsula. The turquoise was probably imported from New Mexico.


Along with commerce, the First Americans shared a tremendous enthusiasm for a ballgame that was played like soccer.

Ballcourts were a focal point of ceremonial centers, from the Maya city-state of Copan, Honduras, to the Hohokam site of Snaketown, in Phoenix, Arizona.

Social and religious ideas from Mesoamerica eventually reached Native American cultures east of the Mississippi River.

By 900 A.D., trade relations, and perhaps migrations, contributed to the rise of the Mississippian Culture. Ancestors of the eastern Woodland and Cherokee tribes, they adopted corn agriculture, developed a stratified society, and began building ceremonial centers dominated by huge pyramid-like mounds




This complex culture flourished in Cahokia, Illinois, the Virginias, Georgia, Florida and Louisiana until the 15th century.


Current archaeological work suggests that the ancient peoples of Mexico and North America were in contact over great distances for a long period of time.

[bobdrake12]

http://www.comp-arch...ssissippian.htm


The Last Mound Builders

Some time after the demise of the Hopewell, mounds shaped in the form of birds, animals and reptiles were constructed in the US Midwest. In southern Ohio the Fort Ancient people constructed the Serpent Mound around AD 1075. However, the Mississippian culture built conical and, more often, rectilinear platform mounds. The latter are somewhat reminiscent of Hopewell mounds, like those in Marietta, Ohio. Many were temple mounds, others were burial mounds. The central sites also built palisaded enclosures or stockades. The largest of these Mississippian sites is Cahokia.





Cahokia is not only the largest prehistoric metropolis north of Mexico, it also has the largest prehistoric mound.

Monks mound measures at least 291 m (955 feet) north-south and 236 meters (774.3 feet) east-west. Its height is between 28 meters (92 feet) and 30 m (99 feet). Research has revealed new puzzles, suggesting that it is a very complicated structure. Undoubtedly, the builders did some clever engineering to keep this and other mounds from collapsing. This should not be a surprise, because even the 5000 – 6000 years ago megalithic tombs of the Funnel Beaker culture in Central and North Europe exhibit special internal features designed to drain water away. In all, there are at least 104 mounds at Cahokia.





The second largest Mississippian center is Moundville in Alabama. It stretched over more than 300 acres, had 20 platform mounds and a huge central “plaza,” or town square. The 100 acre plaza is thought to have functioned as a communal gathering place. It was enclosed by a palisade on all sides except the one by the River. Some of the smaller mounds that ringed the plaza contained richly furnished burials. At the edge of the plaza was a cemetery, yielding some 3000 burials.




Spiro, on the Arkansas River, Oklahoma covers nearly 90 acres. It includes a village with typical rectangular thatched houses, fifteen or more mounds and a cemetery harboring ca. 750 burials.

Etowah, Georgia, is a 54-acre site with only three reasonably well-preserved mounds, but Mound “A,” reaching a height of (21 meters) 63 feet is supposedly the second largest Mississippian mound after Cahokia’s Monks Mound. Mound ”A” is a temple mound. It faces the plaza with its formidable stairway. The plaza was made of red clay, brought to the site to construct the rectangular ceremonial center. Its axis runs east/west. The adjacent temple platform Mound “B,” also faces the plaza with its steep ramp or stairway. Four other, less distinct mounds also ring the plaza. Mound “C,” identified as a burial mound, is located behind Mound “A,” closest to the Etowah River. The 52-acre site was surrounded by a moat that seems to have been connected to the river.


By Maximilian O. Baldia

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