We took the Trace on our way to Natchez on this trip, and we walked around two Indian mounds on the way – one is the Mangum Indian mound:
This sign reads:
“Excavation of this site tells us much about the people of the late prehistoric periods. The Plaquemine culture included the ancestors of the modern tribes of Mississippi and Louisiana. It was a society with elaborate agriculturally oriented religious ceremonies. From the burials on this mound we have learned that there was a high infant mortality and that upon the death of a chief, a burial ritual was enacted in which his retainers were slain and buried with him.”
The other mound we went to, just a few miles from the Mangum Mound, is the Emerald Mound:
The sign reads:
“Before you is the second largest temple mound in the United States. Only Monks Mound in Cahokia, Illinois, is larger. This eight acre mound, constructed from a natural hill, was built and used from about 1300 to 1600 by the Mississippians, ancestors of the Natchez Indians.
Unlike dome shaped mounds constructed only for burials, Emerald Mound supported temples, ceremonial structures, and burials of a complex society’s civic and religious leaders.”
There’s more about Emerald Mound (and a great aerial pic) here.
I started a group on Flickr of Indian Mounds a couple of weeks ago – so far there are almost 175 pics that people have posted!