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Unless otherwise stated, this image is the copyright of the submitter. Contact them for permission to reproduce it. |  | | Description | Stockade Reconstruction on site at Angel Mounds, Vanderburgh County, Indiana.
The Angel Mound's town was surrounded on three sides by a stockade 6300 feet long with a bastion about every 120 feet. A section of the stockade wall has been reconstructed, in place, using modern materials for longevity. The path of the wall itself can still be seen at certain times of the year by differences in the vegetation.
Photo by bat400, June 2006.
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| Posted Comments: aluta
(2006-06-23) | Who were the enemies they were keeping out? | bat400
(2006-06-24) | A really good question. The fact that they made a wall like this and even rebuilt it more than once, means there really has to have been a good reason. The building effort was terrific, and used a massive amount of timber.
Unfortunately there is no good answer. Mississippian pictorial art includes some indications of violence (e.g. the Castalian Springs gorget with a striding warrior holding a severed human head) but this type of image isn't overwhelmingly common - not like the way Aztec, Mayan, or Moche art seems to return again and again to human sacrefice, war, and execution. Not having written records makes this difficult. There is no clear evidence of a dramatically different culture in the same area at the same time - so one assumes the danger came from other Mississippian people.
There is little evidence of a pitched battle or invasion (large number of burials together at one time, indications of much burning of houses or corn cribs at one time) at Angel or at Cahokia. It appears that most Mississippian towns of major size had a stockade.
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