Mound Builders of Georgia (Part 2)

Leake Mounds, Etowah Indian Mounds

Bartow County Georgia

Kolomaki Mounds

Leake Mounds: This is an archaeological site dated to the Middle Woodland period (pre-Columbian cultures dating from 1000 BC to European contact) for the Swift Creek Culture. This Swift Creek culture is spread out among the states of Alabama, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina and Tennessee.

These mounds are dated from 300 BC to 650 AD and are considered to be the remains of a major population center. Unfortunately, these mounds were raided in the 1940's as road fill material when the state built a new highway. Pottery that is similar to the Hopewell culture (with sites in Ohio) has been found here, along with burials and other artifacts. To put these mounds in historical perspective, this time period would correlate with the reign of the Caesars in Rome.

Etowah Mounds: Date from 1000 to 1550 AD and are a National Historic Landmark from the Mississippian Culture (Creek/Muscoee Nation). There are three main mounds, with the tallest one being designated as the main or Temple mound. This main mound is 63 feet high, as tall as a six-story building, covers approximately three acres and has a giant staircase that has been built leading up to the top for visitors to climb and get a panoramic view of the site. Magnetometer data from the site indicated that there foundations from buildings on top of all the mounds. Copper tools and ornaments, weapons, bright colored cloth fragments, clay figurines including birdman figures, stone statues and burials have been found at the site. There was a meandering moat (now an 8 feet deep depression) around the main mound and canoes have been found at the site so maybe they used them in the moat.

The Creek Indians say the builders of these mounds are their ancestors. You can get into all kinds of conspiracy theories about the skeletons that have been found at these mounds. (All you have to do is watch some You tube videos.) They are said to be 'giants' and a sign at the historical center there even acknowledges that these native peoples were larger than what is considered normal for people of the time, especially compared to European people of the era. 

Odd figures unearthed at the mounds.

Some conspiracy theorists believe giants with double rows of teeth (which prevent the mouth from closing all the way) are depicted in these figurines.

Did giants build the mounds? Did giants exist in North America?

Larger than usual skeletons of humans have been found at the Etowah mounds.

Kolomaki Mounds

These mounds are located in Southwest Georgia, near the Chattahoochee river and near the state border of Georgia and Alabama and have been designated a National Historic Landmark. This mound complex is considered to be in the Woodland Period, built around 350 to 600 AD. It is one of the larger mound complexes in the USA. There are eight visible mounds. Certain mounds have astonomical significance and are specifically aligned with the sun at the spring equinox and the summer solstice, showing us that this culture had vast knowledge of the skies. Copper, iron, and earl artifacts, along with burials have been excavated at the mounds. Of note is that the burials are located along the eastern side and the skulls of the burials face in the eastern direction. This is believed to have religious significance as this is the direction of the rising sun. 

Inside an excavated mound.

Visit this site for a listing of 15 American Indians Sites and Collection sites in Georgia, with links explaining all the sites shown on the following map.

https://www1.gadnr.org/caic/Documents/sites_georgia.html

Mound Builders of Georgia (USA) part 1

Ancient Civilizations and Mound Builders of Georgia

Historical drawing of the Lower Creek Indians

  

  When I think of mound building civilizations, the state of Georgia does not usually come to mind, but it should! I have learned in the past month, there are many mounds left from ancient civilizations that can be found in the state of Georgia, in the American south. This was all spurred on by taking a few walks at a nature park near where I had been staying. The place has a distinctive name Euchee Creek, which turns out to be the name (with a revised spelling) (Yuchi, Uuchee) for one of the groups of the Creek Confederacy of native peoples who lived by the Savannah River area near Augusta, Georgia.

William Bartram was a naturalist who traveled around the southeastern area of the USA, he visited a main village of the Euchee people and wrote about it in his journals. He notes that this culture had some distinct differences and differing language from their Creek neighbors, they were aligned with them but kept to themselves and did not mix with them. Spanish missionaries in the later 1600's encountered them and tried to get them to convert to their religion. Their efforts to try to subdue these people led to the destruction of some of their towns and the Euchee wound up moving their settlements as a result.  

All this led to me reading about Stallings Island, a 16 acre National Historic Landmark, near Augusta. I wanted to visit the island but found out it is a protected site and cannot be visited. In the past much looting of historical artifacts has taken place there and in 1997 the Archeological Conservancy acquired it and it is shut off from the public, being an island it is also only accessible by boat. Presently there are some kayak trips that will let you go near the place but you are not allowed on the land. Donkeys were imported to the island to keep down the brush by eating it.

Excavations on Stallings island have been carried out by the Harvard, and University of Florida archeology teams. Skeletons, artifacts, and other such detritus of settlements have been found there, but one thing that makes it a significant site is the fact that the oldest documented pottery in North America has been found on the island. This represents a culture that has been estimated to be 4000 years old! The other amazing thing is a two acre pile of shellfish remains (over 10 feet thick in some places) from this ancient hunter-gatherer society.

A book about this ancient civilization.

Oldest documented pottery shards found at Stallings Island.

 

If you wish to delve more into this subject, here are some resources:

William H. Claflin Jr., "The Stallings Island Mound, Columbia County, Georgia," Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology Papers, no. 14 (1932).

Charles H. Fairbanks, "The Taxonomic Position of Stallings Island, Georgia," American Antiquity 7 (1942):223-31.

Kenneth E. Sassaman, Early Pottery in the Southeast: Tradition and Innovation in Cooking Technology (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1993).