This is another category I hope to be adding to as I seek out and visit additional areas.
Updated: July 19 2020
Ocmulgee
On the outskirts of Macon Georgia are the Ocmulgee mounds.
The mounds are built by people carrying dirt in baskets. It is theorized that the top of the mounds were used for temples and important residences.
This area used to be a thriving town built by people called the Mississippians. Mississippians lived in the area from 900-1600 CE. They successfully farmed crops and gathered shell fish. Around 2000 people lived here in thatched huts about 1000 years ago.
Evidence of human habitation has been found dating to 9600BCE. The older societies would have been hunter gatherers not Mississippian.
This mound was discovered and dated to 1015 CE there was a platform, a fire pit, and 47 bench seats. Probably for meetings or ceremony. They drank tea made from the Yaupon Holly Bush. I have never heard of this bush but the leaves are supposedly caffeinated.
The Great Temple
They don’t know much about this mounds, it probably had a wood structure on top. That is all. There is no way to know that this is a temple.
Around 100 Mississippian people were buried here. There are 7 layers with tombs varying in how large and what was contained in the tomb. The railway in the 1800s cut through the tomb so far less remains.
Cahokia- Remnants of large 1000 year old city in the middle of the United States
I was shocked when a television program revealed to me that large cities existed within the United States over 1000 years ago. I had made a point to visit archaeological finds of past American civilizations in Central and South America I had missed one in my home country. The show was on Cahokia and how much about this thriving former city remains a mystery. By many estimates Cahokia in 1300 was larger than London in the 1300s! Extensive excavations have not been preformed to determine what, if anything, is beneath the giant mounds.
I can only wonder how many mounds may be hidden in other spots of the United States.
Cahokia is in southern Illinois just outside of St. Louis. I visited when staying in St. Louis. It is also a Unesco site and is a National Historical Site and is run by the National Park Service. It takes a lot of imagination to comprehend how much was actually going on here.
Emerald Mound Similar Mounds in Mississippi
