I.

Introduction

Mound Builders, name given to Native Americans who built numerous earth mounds in what are now the eastern and central parts of the United States, particularly in the Ohio and Mississippi river valleys. The Mound Builders spanned several thousand years and are classified in four basic cultural traditions: Poverty Point, Adena, Hopewell, and Mississippian. Early European settlers attributed their earthworks to a hypothetical race of people who predated Native Americans, a myth that persisted for many years. Archaeological research in the 19th century clearly indicated that the people who built these mounds were ancient Native Americans.

II.

Types of Mounds

Mounds took many different forms depending on their purpose. The earliest mounds, known as middens, or midden mounds, were refuse heaps that resulted from hundreds of years of human habitation; they contained shells, bones, stones, ash from fire pits, and sometimes artifacts such as broken pottery. Mounds were also built as funerary monuments. Some burial mounds had a central chamber that contained the remains of notable people. Others were cemetery areas for less important people. Some peoples built platform mounds that served as bases for temples, buildings, and other structures. Effigy mounds were often made in the shape of animals or legendary beings. Mounds laid out in geometric shapes also served a symbolic purpose.

III.

Poverty Point Culture

The earliest evidence of mound building in North America, other than middens, comes from the Poverty Point site in northeastern Louisiana. Mounds here were constructed between about 1700 bc and 700 bc. The largest mound at Poverty Point, resembling a bird, rises some 20 m (70 ft) above the ground and is about 210 to 240 m (about 700 to 800 ft) wide at the base. Its purpose was probably ceremonial. Another part of the complex consists of six concentric rows of earthen ridges with a large plaza at their center; archaeological evidence indicates the ridges held structures. The site also contains five smaller conical mounds of unknown purpose. None of the Poverty Point mounds were for burials. Poverty Point peoples, as well as other early Southeast peoples who made similar mounds, are thought to have been nonagricultural, but they may have engaged in some primitive farming. See also Poverty Point National Monument.

IV.

Adena Culture

The Adena mound-building culture, centered in the Ohio River Valley, occupied parts of Ohio, Kentucky, West Virginia, Indiana, Pennsylvania, and New York. It lasted from about 1100 bc to ad 200. The majority of Adena earthworks were dome-shaped burial mounds, in which beautifully crafted tools and ceremonial objects were placed with human remains. The mounds rose higher over time as layers of dirt were added for new burials. Other Adena earthworks form geometric or animal shapes. The Serpent Mound, an effigy mound in southern Ohio, is in the shape of a snake 411 m (1,348 ft) long. It is believed to be Adena because of artifacts found in a burial mound nearby; its purpose is unknown. Adena peoples were primarily hunter-gatherers, but they also practiced some farming, especially the growing of tobacco for ceremonial purposes.

V.

Hopewell Culture

The Hopewell tradition, which flourished from about 200 bc to 400 ad, possessed many of the same cultural traits as the Adena culture, but on a grander scale. Compared to the Adena culture, Hopewell peoples had more abundant and larger earthworks. Burial mounds were up to 12 m (40 ft) high, and Hopewell peoples built large earthen walls to outline geometric shapes, including circles, squares, octagons, and parallel lines. Hopewell culture had richer burials, increased ceremonialism, greater refinement of art, more highly developed agriculture, larger villages, and a more organized society than the Adena tradition. Hopewell villages were distributed over a wider geographical area as well, along river valleys throughout the Midwest and East. The types of raw materials found at Hopewell sites indicate a wide-ranging trade network in regions where no Hopewell sites have been located, such as the eastern seaboard and the Rocky Mountains.

VI.

Mississippian Culture

The Mississippian culture, which flourished from about ad 800 until the mid-1500s, was initially centered in the Mississippi River Valley; it gradually radiated outward into many present-day states of the Southeast and Midwest. Mississippian peoples, perhaps influenced by contacts with Mesoamerican Indians across the Gulf of Mexico, built platform mounds, some of them enormous, in addition to the burial mounds and effigy mounds typical of Adena and Hopewell traditions. Platform mounds held temples, public buildings, and homes of political and religious leaders, and they were typically spaced around plazas forming the central portions of communities.

Mississippian peoples, also referred to as Temple Mound Builders, were master farmers, with extensive fields of corn, beans, squash, pumpkins, and tobacco. They lived in large population centers, with inhabitants organized in a rigid caste system. They crafted an extensive array of artifacts and traded over a wide region. Cahokia, near present-day East Saint Louis, Missouri, is thought to have had more than 20,000 inhabitants at its peak. The largest of its 85 mounds, Monks Mound, covered about 6.5 hectares (16 acres) and stood 30 m (100 ft) high.

VII.

What Happened to the Mound Builders?

The reasons for the decline of the various mound-building cultures are unknown; warfare, overpopulation, and drought or famine all could have played a role. Some scholars suggest that the Mound Builders were the ancestors of later Native Americans. For example, some of the Adena Indians were perhaps ancestral to Hopewell peoples. Hopewell Indians were possibly ancestors of the Algonquians who settled much of northeastern North America. Mississippian Indians are thought to be ancestral to later Southeast tribes, such as the Creek and Choctaw.

Mounds were still being built by various indigenous groups at the time of European contact with eastern North America. Early French settlers witnessed the use of mounds as platforms holding public buildings and as burial places by the Natchez. Mound building ceased shortly after European contact, as Native Americans suffered the impact of epidemics and cultural change.

See also Native Americans of North America: Early Peoples; Native American Architecture.