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Showing posts from May, 2021

Ormond Mound

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  The Ormond Mound (a burial mound that can be classified as an earthwork or conical mound and is defined as a heap of earth placed over prehistoric tombs or remains)  has been preserved as an intact burial mound in eastern Florida. It has been estimated that over 100 individual burials are in Ormond Mound, based on salvage excavations that were conducted in 1982. As more bodies were deposited into the area and were covered with sand and other minerals, the earthwork took its "distinctive mounded appearance".  Most of these remains were laid to rest during the late  St. Johns period , after A.D. 800. The remains were oftentimes buried with their most prized possessions.  Apart from human bones, items found after the site was analyzed included utensils, Indian beads, Spanish trading beads, and pottery sherds. Body of Water Located Next To Mound: Halifax River Location:  29°16′48.5″N 81°3′12.4″W Source:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ormond_Mound

Madira Bickel Mound

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  The  Madira Bickel Mound State Archaeological Site  is an  archaeological  site on  Terra Ceia Island  in northwestern  Palmetto ,  Florida ,  United States . Archaeological excavations have established that indigenous occupation reaches back 2,000 years, and across three distinct periods: Manasota, Weedon Island, and Safety Harbor cultures. The people constructed a massive earthwork temple/ceremonial mound from shells, sand and detritus. It is still 20-foot (6.1 m) high, with a base nearly 100 by 170 feet (52 m). Scholars believe that the mound site continued to be of great ceremonial importance to the historic Tocobaga Indians of the surrounding area, who coalesced as a people before European encounter in the late sixteenth century. They survived into the eighteenth century, but disappeared as a tribe due to a warfare. Body of Water Located Next To Mound: Terra Ceia Bay Location:...

Letchworth-Love Mounds

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  Letchworth Mounds Archaeological State Park  is a 188.2 acre   Florida State Park  that preserves the state's tallest  prehistoric ,  Native American  ceremonial  earthwork   mound , which is 46 feet (14 m) high. It is estimated to have been built 1100 to 1800 years ago. This is one of three major surviving mound complexes in the  Florida Panhandle . It is believed to have been built by the  Weedon Island Culture  (200-800 CE), Native Americans who lived in North Florida. The hierarchical society planned and constructed massive earthwork mounds as expression of its religious and political system. Although the mound now has trees and underbrush growing from it, when originally built, such earthwork mounds were typically clear of vegetation, with smooth prepared sides. Many workers had to bring soils by basket to build the mound. The builders used their knowledge to combine a variety of soils and shells for stability, and ...

Leake Mounds

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  Leake Mounds  is an important archaeological site in Bartow County, Georgia built and used by peoples of the Swift Creek Culture. The site is 2 miles (3.2 km) west of the well-known Etowah Mounds on the Etowah River. It predates that site by hundreds of years. Excavation of nearly 50,000 square feet (4,600 m 2 ) on the site showed that Leake Mounds was one of the most important Middle Woodland period site in this area from around 300 BCE to 650 CE. It was a center with ties throughout the Southeast and Midwest. It was abandoned about 650 CE. It was not occupied again for nearly nine hundred years, until about 1500, by different peoples near the end of the Mississippian culture period. The site includes at least three major platform and mounds large semi-circular moat/ditch. While much of the mounds were razed to be used as road fill for the expansion of the Georgia State Route 113 and G...

Kolomoki Mounds

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  The  Kolomoki Mounds  is one of the largest and earliest  Woodland period  earthwork mound complexes in the Southeastern United States  and is the largest in  Georgia . Constructed from 350CE to 600CE, the mound complex is located in southwest Georgia, in present-day  Early County  near the  Chattahoochee River . In the early millennium of the Common Era, Kolomoki, with its surrounding villages, Native American burial mounds, and ceremonial plaza, was a center of population and activity in North America. The eight visible mounds of earth in the park were built between 250-950 CE by peoples of the Swift Creek and Weeden Island cultures. These mounds include Georgia's oldest great temple mound, built on a flat platform top; two burial mounds, and four smaller ceremonial mounds. As with other mound complexes, the people sited and built the earthworks according to a complex cosmology. Researchers have noted that se...

Crystal River Indian Mounds

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  Crystal River State Archaeological Site  is a 61-acre (250,000 m 2 )  Florida State Park  located on the  Crystal River  and within the  Crystal River Preserve State Park . The park is located two miles (3 km) northwest of the city of  Crystal River. The park contains a six-mound complex, occupied from the Deptford period through Santa Rosa-Swift Creek culture and up to the Late Fort Walton period.  The copper artifacts came from the  Ohio River  area through a trade network developed by the Hopewell culture that existed at the time. Body of Water Located Next to Mound: Crystal River Location:  28° 54′ 33.3″ N, 82° 37′ 42.81″ W Source:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystal_River_Archaeological_State_Park

Lake Jackson Mounds

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  Lake Jackson Mounds Archaeological State Park  is one of the most important archaeological sites in Florida, the capital of chiefdom and ceremonial center of the Fort Walton Culture inhabited from 1050–1500. The complex originally included seven earthwork mounds, a public plaza and numerous individual village residences. One of several major mound sites in the Florida Panhandle, the park is located in northern Tallahassee, on the south shore of Lake Jackson. The site was built and occupied between 1000 and 1500 by people of the Fort Walton culture, the southernmost expression of the Mississippian culture. The scale of the site and the number and size of the mounds indicate that this was the site of a regional chiefdom, and was thus a political and religious center. After the abandonment of the Lake Jackson site the chiefdom seat was moved to Anhaica, where in 1539 it was visited by the...