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<< Image Pages >> Watson Brake - Artificial Mound in United States in The South

Submitted by bat400 on Saturday, 28 May 2011  Page Views: 16469

Pre-ColumbianSite Name: Watson Brake Alternative Name: Ouachita Mounds, Watson's Brake
Country: United States
NOTE: This site is 15.773 km away from the location you searched for.
Region: The South Type: Artificial Mound
Nearest Town: Monroe
Latitude: 32.369222N  Longitude: 92.130278W
Condition:
5Perfect
4Almost Perfect
3Reasonable but with some damage
2Ruined but still recognisable as an ancient site
1Pretty much destroyed, possibly visible as crop marks
0No data.
-1Completely destroyed
 no data Ambience:
5Superb
4Good
3Ordinary
2Not Good
1Awful
0No data.
 no data Access:
5Can be driven to, probably with disabled access
4Short walk on a footpath
3Requiring a bit more of a walk
2A long walk
1In the middle of nowhere, a nightmare to find
0No data.
 no data Accuracy:
5co-ordinates taken by GPS or official recorded co-ordinates
4co-ordinates scaled from a detailed map
3co-ordinates scaled from a bad map
2co-ordinates of the nearest village
1co-ordinates of the nearest town
0no data
 4
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Watson Brake
Watson Brake submitted by Andy B : Map of the Watson Brake archaeological site, Creative Commons, based on Joe W. Saunders, Rolfe D. Mandel, et al.: Watson Brake, a Middle Archaic Mound Complex in Northeast Louisiana. In: American Antiquity, Vol. 70, No. 4 (Oktober 2005), pages 631-668 [634] (Vote or comment on this photo)
Artificial Mound in Ouachita Parish, Louisiana. The circular ring of earthen mounds at Watson Brake is the oldest known mound building site in North America. Their pattern and relative complexity make the case for these being the oldest examples of "public" architecture in what is now the United States.

The eleven oval and circular mounds were built on a hill overlooking the Ouachita River. The tallest of the group was over 20 feet tall originally.

The mounds date back to 3400 BC, older than the mounds at Poverty Point. With no burials, and few artifacts, or even signs of use after their initial building, the mounds are assumed to have had some ceremonial use, even if it were only a unique exercise in marking group identity or a singular instance of focused coercion.

The people who created the Watson Brake mounds did not live on the site. Evidence of habitation from the same period in Louisiana indicates the people had not yet developed agriculture in any focused way, and led lives of seasonal settlement.

The location given is for the watercourse of Watson Break and not the site itself, which is located on properties owned by the Archaeology Conservancy and a private owner. Currently several of the mounds are covered by trees and other vegitation. The site us not accessible to the public at this time.
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Watson Brake
Watson Brake submitted by AKFisher : Archaeological reconstruction of the Watson Brake Mound Complex near Monroe, Louisiana. The site was found by locals in the early 80s and brought it to the attention of archaeologists. Over 100 carbon tests date the site to 3200 BC. It is the oldest known mound & earthwork site known (so far) in the USA. Photo courtesy Dr Greg Little, author of the Illustrated Encyclopedia of Native American... (Vote or comment on this photo)

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"Watson Brake" | Login/Create an Account | 6 News and Comments
  
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Re: Watson Brake by Anonymous on Tuesday, 17 November 2020
The site is actually in Ouachita Parish, certainly not Lincoln. The closest town is West Monroe, La.
[ Reply to This ]
    Re: Watson Brake by Andy B on Wednesday, 18 November 2020
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    Thanks, I've updated that. Are you in the local area and could you get some photos of this site for us? Even if just from the closest public path or road.
    [ Reply to This ]

Re: Watson's Brake by archaeo on Monday, 24 August 2015
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Gentry (North) Mound is 32.36923, -92.13029 [Updated, thanks]
[ Reply to This ]

Were mounds originally built to protect Native Americans from floods? by Andy B on Saturday, 28 May 2011
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An article by Richard Thornton in The Examiner

The oldest public architecture in the Western Hemisphere can be found in northeastern Louisiana. Is it a coincidence that prior to the construction of dams, levees and drainage canals, much of northeastern Louisiana was under water during the annual spring floods?

Drive west on Interstate 40 from Memphis, Tennessee. After crossing over the Mississippi River, you will enter Arkansas’s primary rice growing region. It stretches for over a 100 miles west of Memphis. As you drive along I-40 you will notice modern houses perched atop, what appears to be Indian mounds. Many farmers have also constructed their barns and tractor sheds atop earthen mounds. These small hills are not ancient Native American structures, but piles of dirt primarily erected during the 20th century.

Eastern Arkansas experiences the same floods by the Mississippi River as eastern Louisiana. During the spring, and sometimes after winter storms, these “American” mounds become man-made islands. The apparent inconvenience of placing one’s home 30 feet above one’s farm then becomes perfect clear. Arkansas’s rice farmers benefit from the annual flooding of the Mississippi that prepares the landscape for planting rice seedlings. A natural disaster for these farmers would be a year when the Mississippi does not flood!

The mounds of the Southeastern Indians were generally associated with major rivers. All of these rivers at least occasionally flooded. Could it be that mounds were originally built to provide a safe haven for villages during a flood, and later were constructed to keep the temples and elite’s houses above water during floods? Over time the association between mounds and the elite would have become an architectural tradition within itself, regardless of the potential threat of flooding.

Watson Brake is the oldest known public architecture in the Western Hemisphere. It was discovered by Reca Bambourg Jones in 1981 in the flood plain of the Ouachita River near Monroe, Louisiana. The archaeological zone consists of 11 mounds arranged in an oval, varying in height today between 3 feet and 25 feet. (See the site plan in my slide show.) The oval has a major axis of about 900 feet and a minor axis of about 834 feet. The site is still owned by the Gentry family, and not open to the public.

More, with images at
http://www.examiner.com/architecture-design-in-national/were-mounds-originally-built-to-protect-native-americans-from-floods
[ Reply to This ]
    Re: Were mounds originally built to protect Native Americans from floods? by bat400 on Wednesday, 01 June 2011
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    If some pre-contact mounds were built to protect buildings and people from floods, one would think one would find would be evidence of the "building" being protected on the mound itself. Since Watson Brake mounds have no evidence of occupation, the connection between this particular mound group and flood protection seems weak.
    [ Reply to This ]

Watson's Brake by Anonymous on Friday, 09 October 2009
How could these mounds be correlated with other ceremonial type structures elsewhere in the world. Note that Poverty Point (previously reckoned as the oldest mound structures in the U.S.) are just a few miles East of Watson's Brake. The Poverty Point structures are 2000 years younger than Watson's Brake structures.
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