The Flickr Mississippianculture Image Generatr

Artifact displayed in Ocmulgee Mounds National Historical Park of Macon, Georgia

Ocmulgee Mounds National Historical Park of Macon, Georgia

One would never know it when passing through but on the left of this bike path and image was an ancient mound village of the Mississippian Culture, the Rowlandton Mound Site (5MCN3) of roughly 1100 to 1350 A.D. There was a large platform mound here. Right now, this ground looks like a manicured piece of suburban sprawl. However, this native town is estimated to be roughly equal in dimensions to Kentucky's sizeable Wickliffe Mounds archeological site further west on the Mississippi River, which site is a major state historical park.

Paducah, Kentucky likes to claim and celebrate the Kincaid Mounds of the Mississippian Culture, which is a considerable drive on the north side of the Ohio River in the state of Illinois. Kincaid is indeed an impressive Illinois site. However, Paducah has an actual Mississippian Culture center in its own front yard, right here in Kentucky, the Rowlandton Mound archeological site. See it?

There are two holes on top of this plate. Is this a pendant?

Two profiled figures of people in an abstract symbolic form are at the center of circles. Are they sporting a mohawk?!? I wonder if shaving one's head bald with only a mohawk strip on top was a sign to these ancient Americans of being civilized just like the ancient Romans felt a clean-shaven face without beard and mustache was a sign of being civilized.

Circles and round holes seem important in this piece from the Mississippian Culture civilization.† A few straighter lines or paths extend from each person to break the circles. Hmmm, what's that about?

There is strong symmetry.
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†I know. Archeologists don't call the Mississippian Culture a civilization. But to my layman's mind, civilization is related to the Latin civitas, which means city. i.e. Those who build cities. People of the Mississippian Culture built cosmopolitan cities as big as London of the late Middle Ages. That's why I refer to the Mississippi Culture as a civilization.

Photography note: I rarely paint the background away, after all, I'm a photographer who tries to preserve what's in the photo frame. But in this case, the lines and circles were hard to distinguish from a similar background. I felt eliminating the background helped.

These mounds of an ancient Indian city in Macon, Georgia at Ocmulgee Mounds National Historical Park were once the skyscrapers of their day. The new settlers of European ancestry liked the land where ancient city-dwellers once thrived but mysteriously left. It is a good place for a city.

There were very few visitors when I was there.

Private Collection, USA. Complete indexed photo collection at WorldHistoryPics.com.

Mound B, Etowah Indian Mounds.

[adapted from Wikipedia]
The Etowah Indian Mounds are a 54-acre archaeological site in Bartow County, Georgia, near Cartersville. It was built and occupied by prehistoric indigenous peoples of the South Appalachian Mississippian culture in three phases, from 1000–1550 CE.

Etowah Indian Mounds Historic Site is a designated National Historic Landmark. Both the historic Muscogee Creek and the Cherokee peoples, who each occupied this area at varying times, hold the site to be sacred.

Photo credit: Thomson200 / Wikimedia Commons

commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mound_B_seen_from_Mound_A...

Hello! I see a rare glimpse into what your people looked like.

This stone effigy from prehistoric Memphis moundbuilders, a city in the vast Mississippian culture network, is displayed at the Pink Palace Museum in Memphis, Tennessee.

“The Caddos produced pottery ranking with the finest and most ornately decorated of any produced by an aboriginal culture in the United States” F. Todd Smith, 1995

Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art, Oklahoma University, Norman, Oklahoma

The Caddo originated in the lower Mississippi Valley and spread west along the river systems. Sometime between 700 and 800 they settled the area between the Arkansas River and the middle reaches of the Red, Sabine, Angelina, and Neches rivers and adopted agriculture.

“The Caddos produced pottery ranking with the finest and most ornately decorated of any produced by an aboriginal culture in the United States” F. Todd Smith, 1995

The post holes were discovered and it was determined that there was a approx 400 foot circle of cedar logs (called Woodhenge for its similarity to Stonehenge or Woodhenge monuments in ancient Britain. This was built and rebuilt several times. There are post holes that mark the Spring Solstice and the equinoxes (March and October). These were sophisticated people who clearly had mathematical systems despite leaving no writing system we can find or understand. The henge's center is slightly offset to account for the site's latitude indicating that they had sophisticated astronomical monitoring programs.

What this is used for is unclear. Like Stonehenge, it has been suggested that it was a celestial calendar. Maybe it was but I think this is too simplistic. Probably they lined it up on the cardinal coordinates as delineated by the sunrise and sunset. This could be done empirically which is probably how all other early builder societies like the Egyptians did. Once the directions are set they are known everything else can be laid out according to them. I have thought that just being a calendar to mark the spring solstice is possibly an over-interpretation.These people are as smart as we are now. They didn't have our technology but they were able to think as logically and mathematically and creatively as we do now. They certainly had systems to determine the time of the year without a big calendar. I could be totally wrong but people are the same throughout time and theyi don't organize and build just because they can. It's not in human nature. It was a public works project like the mounds that had to have an urgency or power or force behind it to make it happen.

We will never know if it had a roof or walls or was decorated or was a meeting place or what. Stonehenge increasingly seems to have been a burial ground and/or funerary site. But it also seems to be a projection of power by ruling elites. A mausoleum for the most powerful people. A rallying point around which the society , like a castle or city hall. It is a mystery that perhaps archeology will decipher in part.

Just as the Cahokians were a smart sophisticated culture they also seemed to have the same intrigues and inequities that we have. Archeology will never know the endless little dramas that weave into our lives. Who likes who, who is offended by who, who is better looking, who stole something, who was giving and nice, who was a thug, who has more than me, etc...etc....

It is thought that inequity may be a major reason Cahokia ultimately fell apart. The elite class became wealthier and supported by an increasingly poor and malnourished majority underclass. A tale true in many civilizations. Eventually people left and without the power of Cahokia holding them all together (much like say Yugoslavia after WWII) old ethnic and tribal divisions re-emerged leading to fighting and further fracture of Cahokia.

The post holes were discovered and it was determined that there was a approx 400 foot circle of cedar logs (called Woodhenge for its similarity to Stonehenge or Woodhenge monuments in ancient Britain. This was built and rebuilt several times. There are post holes that mark the Spring Solstice and the equinoxes (March and October). These were sophisticated people who clearly had mathematical systems despite leaving no writing system we can find or understand. The henge's center is slightly offset to account for the site's latitude indicating that they had sophisticated astronomical monitoring programs.

What this is used for is unclear. Like Stonehenge, it has been suggested that it was a celestial calendar. Maybe it was but I think this is too simplistic. Probably they lined it up on the cardinal coordinates as delineated by the sunrise and sunset. This could be done empirically which is probably how all other early builder societies like the Egyptians did. Once the directions are set they are known everything else can be laid out according to them. I have thought that just being a calendar to mark the spring solstice is possibly an over-interpretation.These people are as smart as we are now. They didn't have our technology but they were able to think as logically and mathematically and creatively as we do now. They certainly had systems to determine the time of the year without a big calendar. I could be totally wrong but people are the same throughout time and theyi don't organize and build just because they can. It's not in human nature. It was a public works project like the mounds that had to have an urgency or power or force behind it to make it happen.

We will never know if it had a roof or walls or was decorated or was a meeting place or what. Stonehenge increasingly seems to have been a burial ground and/or funerary site. But it also seems to be a projection of power by ruling elites. A mausoleum for the most powerful people. A rallying point around which the society , like a castle or city hall. It is a mystery that perhaps archeology will decipher in part.

Just as the Cahokians were a smart sophisticated culture they also seemed to have the same intrigues and inequities that we have. Archeology will never know the endless little dramas that weave into our lives. Who likes who, who is offended by who, who is better looking, who stole something, who was giving and nice, who was a thug, who has more than me, etc...etc....

It is thought that inequity may be a major reason Cahokia ultimately fell apart. The elite class became wealthier and supported by an increasingly poor and malnourished majority underclass. A tale true in many civilizations. Eventually people left and without the power of Cahokia holding them all together (much like say Yugoslavia after WWII) old ethnic and tribal divisions re-emerged leading to fighting and further fracture of Cahokia.

The post holes were discovered and it was determined that there was a approx 400 foot circle of cedar logs (called Woodhenge for its similarity to Stonehenge or Woodhenge monuments in ancient Britain. This was built and rebuilt several times. There are post holes that mark the Spring Solstice and the equinoxes (March and October). These were sophisticated people who clearly had mathematical systems despite leaving no writing system we can find or understand. The henge's center is slightly offset to account for the site's latitude indicating that they had sophisticated astronomical monitoring programs.

What this is used for is unclear. Like Stonehenge, it has been suggested that it was a celestial calendar. Maybe it was but I think this is too simplistic. Probably they lined it up on the cardinal coordinates as delineated by the sunrise and sunset. This could be done empirically which is probably how all other early builder societies like the Egyptians did. Once the directions are set they are known everything else can be laid out according to them. I have thought that just being a calendar to mark the spring solstice is possibly an over-interpretation.These people are as smart as we are now. They didn't have our technology but they were able to think as logically and mathematically and creatively as we do now. They certainly had systems to determine the time of the year without a big calendar. I could be totally wrong but people are the same throughout time and theyi don't organize and build just because they can. It's not in human nature. It was a public works project like the mounds that had to have an urgency or power or force behind it to make it happen.

We will never know if it had a roof or walls or was decorated or was a meeting place or what. Stonehenge increasingly seems to have been a burial ground and/or funerary site. But it also seems to be a projection of power by ruling elites. A mausoleum for the most powerful people. A rallying point around which the society , like a castle or city hall. It is a mystery that perhaps archeology will decipher in part.

Just as the Cahokians were a smart sophisticated culture they also seemed to have the same intrigues and inequities that we have. Archeology will never know the endless little dramas that weave into our lives. Who likes who, who is offended by who, who is better looking, who stole something, who was giving and nice, who was a thug, who has more than me, etc...etc....

It is thought that inequity may be a major reason Cahokia ultimately fell apart. The elite class became wealthier and supported by an increasingly poor and malnourished majority underclass. A tale true in many civilizations. Eventually people left and without the power of Cahokia holding them all together (much like say Yugoslavia after WWII) old ethnic and tribal divisions re-emerged leading to fighting and further fracture of Cahokia.

The post holes were discovered and it was determined that there was a approx 400 foot circle of cedar logs (called Woodhenge for its similarity to Stonehenge or Woodhenge monuments in ancient Britain. This was built and rebuilt several times. There are post holes that mark the Spring Solstice and the equinoxes (March and October). These were sophisticated people who clearly had mathematical systems despite leaving no writing system we can find or understand. The henge's center is slightly offset to account for the site's latitude indicating that they had sophisticated astronomical monitoring programs.

What this is used for is unclear. Like Stonehenge, it has been suggested that it was a celestial calendar. Maybe it was but I think this is too simplistic. Probably they lined it up on the cardinal coordinates as delineated by the sunrise and sunset. This could be done empirically which is probably how all other early builder societies like the Egyptians did. Once the directions are set they are known everything else can be laid out according to them. I have thought that just being a calendar to mark the spring solstice is possibly an over-interpretation.These people are as smart as we are now. They didn't have our technology but they were able to think as logically and mathematically and creatively as we do now. They certainly had systems to determine the time of the year without a big calendar. I could be totally wrong but people are the same throughout time and theyi don't organize and build just because they can. It's not in human nature. It was a public works project like the mounds that had to have an urgency or power or force behind it to make it happen.

We will never know if it had a roof or walls or was decorated or was a meeting place or what. Stonehenge increasingly seems to have been a burial ground and/or funerary site. But it also seems to be a projection of power by ruling elites. A mausoleum for the most powerful people. A rallying point around which the society , like a castle or city hall. It is a mystery that perhaps archeology will decipher in part.

Just as the Cahokians were a smart sophisticated culture they also seemed to have the same intrigues and inequities that we have. Archeology will never know the endless little dramas that weave into our lives. Who likes who, who is offended by who, who is better looking, who stole something, who was giving and nice, who was a thug, who has more than me, etc...etc....

It is thought that inequity may be a major reason Cahokia ultimately fell apart. The elite class became wealthier and supported by an increasingly poor and malnourished majority underclass. A tale true in many civilizations. Eventually people left and without the power of Cahokia holding them all together (much like say Yugoslavia after WWII) old ethnic and tribal divisions re-emerged leading to fighting and further fracture of Cahokia.

The post holes were discovered and it was determined that there was a approx 400 foot circle of cedar logs (called Woodhenge for its similarity to Stonehenge or Woodhenge monuments in ancient Britain. This was built and rebuilt several times. There are post holes that mark the Spring Solstice and the equinoxes (March and October). These were sophisticated people who clearly had mathematical systems despite leaving no writing system we can find or understand. The henge's center is slightly offset to account for the site's latitude indicating that they had sophisticated astronomical monitoring programs.

What this is used for is unclear. Like Stonehenge, it has been suggested that it was a celestial calendar. Maybe it was but I think this is too simplistic. Probably they lined it up on the cardinal coordinates as delineated by the sunrise and sunset. This could be done empirically which is probably how all other early builder societies like the Egyptians did. Once the directions are set they are known everything else can be laid out according to them. I have thought that just being a calendar to mark the spring solstice is possibly an over-interpretation.These people are as smart as we are now. They didn't have our technology but they were able to think as logically and mathematically and creatively as we do now. They certainly had systems to determine the time of the year without a big calendar. I could be totally wrong but people are the same throughout time and theyi don't organize and build just because they can. It's not in human nature. It was a public works project like the mounds that had to have an urgency or power or force behind it to make it happen.

We will never know if it had a roof or walls or was decorated or was a meeting place or what. Stonehenge increasingly seems to have been a burial ground and/or funerary site. But it also seems to be a projection of power by ruling elites. A mausoleum for the most powerful people. A rallying point around which the society , like a castle or city hall. It is a mystery that perhaps archeology will decipher in part.

Just as the Cahokians were a smart sophisticated culture they also seemed to have the same intrigues and inequities that we have. Archeology will never know the endless little dramas that weave into our lives. Who likes who, who is offended by who, who is better looking, who stole something, who was giving and nice, who was a thug, who has more than me, etc...etc....

It is thought that inequity may be a major reason Cahokia ultimately fell apart. The elite class became wealthier and supported by an increasingly poor and malnourished majority underclass. A tale true in many civilizations. Eventually people left and without the power of Cahokia holding them all together (much like say Yugoslavia after WWII) old ethnic and tribal divisions re-emerged leading to fighting and further fracture of Cahokia.

The post holes were discovered and it was determined that there was a approx 400 foot circle of cedar logs (called Woodhenge for its similarity to Stonehenge or Woodhenge monuments in ancient Britain. This was built and rebuilt several times. There are post holes that mark the Spring Solstice and the equinoxes (March and October). These were sophisticated people who clearly had mathematical systems despite leaving no writing system we can find or understand. The henge's center is slightly offset to account for the site's latitude indicating that they had sophisticated astronomical monitoring programs.

What this is used for is unclear. Like Stonehenge, it has been suggested that it was a celestial calendar. Maybe it was but I think this is too simplistic. Probably they lined it up on the cardinal coordinates as delineated by the sunrise and sunset. This could be done empirically which is probably how all other early builder societies like the Egyptians did. Once the directions are set they are known everything else can be laid out according to them. I have thought that just being a calendar to mark the spring solstice is possibly an over-interpretation.These people are as smart as we are now. They didn't have our technology but they were able to think as logically and mathematically and creatively as we do now. They certainly had systems to determine the time of the year without a big calendar. I could be totally wrong but people are the same throughout time and theyi don't organize and build just because they can. It's not in human nature. It was a public works project like the mounds that had to have an urgency or power or force behind it to make it happen.

We will never know if it had a roof or walls or was decorated or was a meeting place or what. Stonehenge increasingly seems to have been a burial ground and/or funerary site. But it also seems to be a projection of power by ruling elites. A mausoleum for the most powerful people. A rallying point around which the society , like a castle or city hall. It is a mystery that perhaps archeology will decipher in part.

Just as the Cahokians were a smart sophisticated culture they also seemed to have the same intrigues and inequities that we have. Archeology will never know the endless little dramas that weave into our lives. Who likes who, who is offended by who, who is better looking, who stole something, who was giving and nice, who was a thug, who has more than me, etc...etc....

It is thought that inequity may be a major reason Cahokia ultimately fell apart. The elite class became wealthier and supported by an increasingly poor and malnourished majority underclass. A tale true in many civilizations. Eventually people left and without the power of Cahokia holding them all together (much like say Yugoslavia after WWII) old ethnic and tribal divisions re-emerged leading to fighting and further fracture of Cahokia.

The post holes were discovered and it was determined that there was a approx 400 foot circle of cedar logs (called Woodhenge for its similarity to Stonehenge or Woodhenge monuments in ancient Britain. This was built and rebuilt several times. There are post holes that mark the Spring Solstice and the equinoxes (March and October). These were sophisticated people who clearly had mathematical systems despite leaving no writing system we can find or understand. The henge's center is slightly offset to account for the site's latitude indicating that they had sophisticated astronomical monitoring programs.

What this is used for is unclear. Like Stonehenge, it has been suggested that it was a celestial calendar. Maybe it was but I think this is too simplistic. Probably they lined it up on the cardinal coordinates as delineated by the sunrise and sunset. This could be done empirically which is probably how all other early builder societies like the Egyptians did. Once the directions are set they are known everything else can be laid out according to them. I have thought that just being a calendar to mark the spring solstice is possibly an over-interpretation.These people are as smart as we are now. They didn't have our technology but they were able to think as logically and mathematically and creatively as we do now. They certainly had systems to determine the time of the year without a big calendar. I could be totally wrong but people are the same throughout time and theyi don't organize and build just because they can. It's not in human nature. It was a public works project like the mounds that had to have an urgency or power or force behind it to make it happen.

We will never know if it had a roof or walls or was decorated or was a meeting place or what. Stonehenge increasingly seems to have been a burial ground and/or funerary site. But it also seems to be a projection of power by ruling elites. A mausoleum for the most powerful people. A rallying point around which the society , like a castle or city hall. It is a mystery that perhaps archeology will decipher in part.

Just as the Cahokians were a smart sophisticated culture they also seemed to have the same intrigues and inequities that we have. Archeology will never know the endless little dramas that weave into our lives. Who likes who, who is offended by who, who is better looking, who stole something, who was giving and nice, who was a thug, who has more than me, etc...etc....

It is thought that inequity may be a major reason Cahokia ultimately fell apart. The elite class became wealthier and supported by an increasingly poor and malnourished majority underclass. A tale true in many civilizations. Eventually people left and without the power of Cahokia holding them all together (much like say Yugoslavia after WWII) old ethnic and tribal divisions re-emerged leading to fighting and further fracture of Cahokia.

The post holes were discovered and it was determined that there was a approx 400 foot circle of cedar logs (called Woodhenge for its similarity to Stonehenge or Woodhenge monuments in ancient Britain. This was built and rebuilt several times. There are post holes that mark the Spring Solstice and the equinoxes (March and October). These were sophisticated people who clearly had mathematical systems despite leaving no writing system we can find or understand. The henge's center is slightly offset to account for the site's latitude indicating that they had sophisticated astronomical monitoring programs.

What this is used for is unclear. Like Stonehenge, it has been suggested that it was a celestial calendar. Maybe it was but I think this is too simplistic. Probably they lined it up on the cardinal coordinates as delineated by the sunrise and sunset. This could be done empirically which is probably how all other early builder societies like the Egyptians did. Once the directions are set they are known everything else can be laid out according to them. I have thought that just being a calendar to mark the spring solstice is possibly an over-interpretation.These people are as smart as we are now. They didn't have our technology but they were able to think as logically and mathematically and creatively as we do now. They certainly had systems to determine the time of the year without a big calendar. I could be totally wrong but people are the same throughout time and theyi don't organize and build just because they can. It's not in human nature. It was a public works project like the mounds that had to have an urgency or power or force behind it to make it happen.

We will never know if it had a roof or walls or was decorated or was a meeting place or what. Stonehenge increasingly seems to have been a burial ground and/or funerary site. But it also seems to be a projection of power by ruling elites. A mausoleum for the most powerful people. A rallying point around which the society , like a castle or city hall. It is a mystery that perhaps archeology will decipher in part.

Just as the Cahokians were a smart sophisticated culture they also seemed to have the same intrigues and inequities that we have. Archeology will never know the endless little dramas that weave into our lives. Who likes who, who is offended by who, who is better looking, who stole something, who was giving and nice, who was a thug, who has more than me, etc...etc....

It is thought that inequity may be a major reason Cahokia ultimately fell apart. The elite class became wealthier and supported by an increasingly poor and malnourished majority underclass. A tale true in many civilizations. Eventually people left and without the power of Cahokia holding them all together (much like say Yugoslavia after WWII) old ethnic and tribal divisions re-emerged leading to fighting and further fracture of Cahokia.

The post holes were discovered and it was determined that there was a approx 400 foot circle of cedar logs (called Woodhenge for its similarity to Stonehenge or Woodhenge monuments in ancient Britain. This was built and rebuilt several times. There are post holes that mark the Spring Solstice and the equinoxes (March and October). These were sophisticated people who clearly had mathematical systems despite leaving no writing system we can find or understand. The henge's center is slightly offset to account for the site's latitude indicating that they had sophisticated astronomical monitoring programs.

What this is used for is unclear. Like Stonehenge, it has been suggested that it was a celestial calendar. Maybe it was but I think this is too simplistic. Probably they lined it up on the cardinal coordinates as delineated by the sunrise and sunset. This could be done empirically which is probably how all other early builder societies like the Egyptians did. Once the directions are set they are known everything else can be laid out according to them. I have thought that just being a calendar to mark the spring solstice is possibly an over-interpretation.These people are as smart as we are now. They didn't have our technology but they were able to think as logically and mathematically and creatively as we do now. They certainly had systems to determine the time of the year without a big calendar. I could be totally wrong but people are the same throughout time and theyi don't organize and build just because they can. It's not in human nature. It was a public works project like the mounds that had to have an urgency or power or force behind it to make it happen.

We will never know if it had a roof or walls or was decorated or was a meeting place or what. Stonehenge increasingly seems to have been a burial ground and/or funerary site. But it also seems to be a projection of power by ruling elites. A mausoleum for the most powerful people. A rallying point around which the society , like a castle or city hall. It is a mystery that perhaps archeology will decipher in part.

Just as the Cahokians were a smart sophisticated culture they also seemed to have the same intrigues and inequities that we have. Archeology will never know the endless little dramas that weave into our lives. Who likes who, who is offended by who, who is better looking, who stole something, who was giving and nice, who was a thug, who has more than me, etc...etc....

It is thought that inequity may be a major reason Cahokia ultimately fell apart. The elite class became wealthier and supported by an increasingly poor and malnourished majority underclass. A tale true in many civilizations. Eventually people left and without the power of Cahokia holding them all together (much like say Yugoslavia after WWII) old ethnic and tribal divisions re-emerged leading to fighting and further fracture of Cahokia.