<< Our Photo Pages >> Moundville Archeological Park - Ancient Village or Settlement in United States in The South
Submitted by partlow on Friday, 28 July 2023 Page Views: 15386
Pre-ColumbianSite Name: Moundville Archeological ParkCountry: United States
NOTE: This site is 27.5 km away from the location you searched for.
Region: The South Type: Ancient Village or Settlement
Nearest Town: Tuscaloosa, Alabama Nearest Village: Moundville, Alabama
Latitude: 33.009200N Longitude: 87.6351W
Condition:
5 | Perfect |
4 | Almost Perfect |
3 | Reasonable but with some damage |
2 | Ruined but still recognisable as an ancient site |
1 | Pretty much destroyed, possibly visible as crop marks |
0 | No data. |
-1 | Completely destroyed |
5 | Superb |
4 | Good |
3 | Ordinary |
2 | Not Good |
1 | Awful |
0 | No data. |
5 | Can be driven to, probably with disabled access |
4 | Short walk on a footpath |
3 | Requiring a bit more of a walk |
2 | A long walk |
1 | In the middle of nowhere, a nightmare to find |
0 | No data. |
5 | co-ordinates taken by GPS or official recorded co-ordinates |
4 | co-ordinates scaled from a detailed map |
3 | co-ordinates scaled from a bad map |
2 | co-ordinates of the nearest village |
1 | co-ordinates of the nearest town |
0 | no data |
Internal Links:
External Links:
I have visited· I would like to visit
CatHerdr visited Museum has recently been upgraded and reopened. I was really disappointed by the concrete building with a tin roof that the University of Alabama has built atop the highest mound. What were they thinking???
The museum has a engraved copper gorget that is the largest piece of metal from this era & culture I have ever seen at any museum I have visited.
The staff and the information on their website seems to be very sketchy on other trading centers from this era in other states. A huge web of commerce existed along Southern US waterways.
bat400 have visited here
The museum at the site has new exhibits. Placards describe the visible remains as well as archeological evidence of original wooden structures. The University of Alabama website home for Moundville with access information, a virtual tour, and an invitation for the public to help locate artifacts stolen in the 1980's.
Moundville At Dusk: Playing With Perspectives - by partlow
Back in 1978, as I was making my way back to Birmingham Alabama on Interstate 59 from Tuscaloosa (University of Alabama), I took and unexpected detour to Moundville Archeological Park. Driving the access road through the trees, there was the clearing which came abruptly. There I found myself in the midst of numerous rectangular earth mounds set around a central plaza. In the eerie light of the last hour of sunlight, one could easily fall into the sensation of this place being in what some mystics refer to as “the space between the worlds”. As I walked to the mound topped by the “temple”, the movement of air, the scents and sounds, even the stillness of it all lent to this sensation. Ascending the temple mound, one could almost feel those ancient people, who held this place in prominence. A feeling of reverence was very easy. Atop the mound, as you walk around the temple, the vista offered a perspective of the plaza, structures, the palisade surrounding the village and the Warrior River to the West.A sensation of despair and bewilderment was also easy due to thoughts of : ‘Where are these people now', a civilization, made up of so many chiefdoms and tribes, which spanned the distance from the Gulf and Caribbean in the south to the Great Lakes in the North and from the Atlantic in the East to Oklahoma and possibly more to the West. Why did it cease? A society (if you will allow) that was so linked by a vast continental riverine system with possibly those societies out west beyond the Great Plains, and also those in Meso-America (at least), was developing at the same stage, in some repects, as was Europe (again). Could it have been contact with marauding, gold hungry conquistadors, accompanied by evangelical priests, using weapons more advanced, who also inadverdantly spread devastating diseases where-ever they went? The answer to that is only in some areas. Moundville, called Talicpacana by some aboriginies , was abandoned by 1450 (by archeological interpretation) and was a mystery to the aboriginies by their accounts to the DeSoto expedition in November of 1540. The site developed from a village (approx. 1000 A.D.) to a ceremonial/political center (approx. 1200 A.D.), to a decline while still holding some important status (approx. 1400 A.D.).
Accordingly, Moundville is the second largest Mississipian center, built on a bluff of the Warrior River and encompassing over 300 acres with 26 mounds surrounding a central plaza of roughly 100 acres. Mound A is at the center of the plaza while Mound B, to it’s north, is at the edge of the plaza. Mound B (58 ft high) has two ramps, one on the eastern side and the other on the north side descending to a large platform (V). These platform mounds were used for plastered dwellings of the aristocracy as well as for mortuary, ceremonial and utilitarian purposes. Also, there are pits, other public buildings and traces of dozens of dwellings made of timber and thatch. According to an “Archeological Sketch” of the site, the whole (roughly square) complex was enclosed by a ‘bastioned’ palisade on all sides but the Warrior River. Some of the smaller mounds contained richly furnished burials consisting of artifacts of copper and galena (a natural type of lead crystal) from the Great Lakes region, shells from the Gulf of Mexico, greenstone from the Appalachians, mica, various motifs of pottery and stone including the famous Rattlesnake Disk; which represents a motif found (by my knowledge) exclusively in that area of the Warrior River valley (consider this as a challenge if you will).
Considering this situation of burials, only a few of the mounds contain such, while at the edge of the plaza, roughly 3000 burials have been found. Also, burials are found beneath the floors of many of the dwellings on the site (from my gleaning of facts from different articles, these 3000 burials could coincide with the dwelling burials). An example of such a burial situation can be found in a closed off display wing of the museum on site.
Evidence shows that tribute to this center (approx.population of 1000) was exacted from throughout that locality of the valley (maize, other produce, labor, etc.) which supported a population of approximately ten thousand and dominated a trade network throughout the region. It is said to be second only to Cahokia in Illinois and is used as a benchmark for the study of Mississippian art. Any connection with existing historical tribes is not known due to the mystery involving decline.
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