Mississippi Mounds
Peoples of the Mississippi basin, across a dozen millennia, have constructed thousands of mounds from the flood loam of the Mississippi River and her tributaries. These earthworks likely served several purposes, used variously as temple, effigy, fortress, and observatory. They contain burials, funerary objects and iconographic artifacts.
The mounds consist of rich humus in agricultural lowlands.
Many descendants of the Mississippian culture view the mounds as sacred, and some tribes perform ceremonies at the ancient mounds to this day. Since the founding of the United States, settlers have been destroying them in the name of "development" (often farmland or highway), while collectors + archaeologists loot their "specimens".
Five of the largest mounds—the Great Circle Earthworks, Octagon Earthworks, Serpent Mound, Alligator Mound and Cahokia Mounds—had to weather centuries of abuse to have the modicum of protection and respect they receive today.
- ↑ Sacred Land Film Project, "Mississippi Mounds" by Amy Corbin (updated: 21 April 2021) https://sacredland.org/mississippi-mounds-united-states/