Topic ID #11818 - posted 5/24/2011 4:35 AM
Jennifer Palmer
Webmaster
Were mounds originally built to protect Native Americans from floods?
Jennifer Palmer
Webmaster
Were mounds originally built to protect Native Americans from floods?
May 23rd, 2011 12:52 pm ET
Richard Thornton
The oldest public architecture in the Western Hemisphere can be found in northeastern Louisiana. Is it a coincidence that prior to the construction of dams, levees and drainage canals, much of northeastern Louisiana was under water during the annual spring floods?
Drive west on Interstate 40 from Memphis, Tennessee. After crossing over the Mississippi River, you will enter Arkansas’s primary rice growing region. It stretches for over a 100 miles west of Memphis. As you drive along I-40 you will notice modern houses perched atop, what appears to be Indian mounds. Many farmers have also constructed their barns and tractor sheds atop earthen mounds. These small hills are not ancient Native American structures, but piles of dirt primarily erected during the 20th century.
Eastern Arkansas experiences the same floods by the Mississippi River as eastern Louisiana. During the spring, and sometimes after winter storms, these “American” mounds become man-made islands. The apparent inconvenience of placing one’s home 30 feet above one’s farm then becomes perfect clear. Arkansas’s rice farmers benefit from the annual flooding of the Mississippi that prepares the landscape for planting rice seedlings. A natural disaster for these farmers would be a year when the Mississippi does not flood!
Read more here.
May 23rd, 2011 12:52 pm ET
Richard Thornton
The oldest public architecture in the Western Hemisphere can be found in northeastern Louisiana. Is it a coincidence that prior to the construction of dams, levees and drainage canals, much of northeastern Louisiana was under water during the annual spring floods?
Drive west on Interstate 40 from Memphis, Tennessee. After crossing over the Mississippi River, you will enter Arkansas’s primary rice growing region. It stretches for over a 100 miles west of Memphis. As you drive along I-40 you will notice modern houses perched atop, what appears to be Indian mounds. Many farmers have also constructed their barns and tractor sheds atop earthen mounds. These small hills are not ancient Native American structures, but piles of dirt primarily erected during the 20th century.
Eastern Arkansas experiences the same floods by the Mississippi River as eastern Louisiana. During the spring, and sometimes after winter storms, these “American” mounds become man-made islands. The apparent inconvenience of placing one’s home 30 feet above one’s farm then becomes perfect clear. Arkansas’s rice farmers benefit from the annual flooding of the Mississippi that prepares the landscape for planting rice seedlings. A natural disaster for these farmers would be a year when the Mississippi does not flood!
Read more here.
Post ID#18756 - replied 5/25/2011 2:47 PM
StarRider
Interesting take, but not a new one. Early settlers drove livestock up onto the mounds to avoid floods, the theory is an easy one to believe, but I don't think it fully explains these earthworks.
Watson Brake may not be the oldest of the Middle Archaic mounds in that area, there are at least a couple that are suspected to be older; they may actually have solid dates by now. In the case of Poverty Point, as I posted on another thread, there is a Middle Archaic mound that you would have to consider associated with the site in some manner, it's only a mile away, but was in place long before PP was begun. They knew it was there, they aligned some of the earthworks with it. And while the rings have been reduced considerably in height by plowing, I'm not so sure they would afford much protection in a major flood...after all, the Bayou Macon channel literally abuts the site. The berms at Watson Brake presently are not high enough to get you up out of even a minor flood, in some places they are barely noticable. The Gentry Mound is about 25 feet tall, but very small on the top, and showed very little evidence of much going on up there. I was interested in what was in the center of the complex, wondering if they were trying to protect some feature from floodwaters with a ring around it, but nothing has been found there.
Some of these Middle Archaic people are suspected to have participated in trade networks, evidenced by sites that seem to be devoted largely to bead manufacture, with specialists who spent considerable time in that activity. John Connaway notes some evidence of fairly sophisticated methods in the making of these beads from his study of the Keenan Cache. Poverty Point peoples definitely traded far and wide, much material has been found there originating from as far away as Illinois and Georgia. Surely the concept of raising earthworks to avoid flooding would have been communicated in the trading process, yet as far as I know there are no other Late Archaic earthen mounds anywhere in the region. Personally, I think those that advocate some diagramatical function to the site are on the right track, with any flood relief just an added bonus (you would definitely be out if harm's way atop Mound A).
That said, I think some of the Mississippian ceremonial mounds may have had flooding in mind when they were built. One other feature of being on top of the larger ones is that they are often in areas with very flat topography, and the elevation exposes you to a very welcome breeze, which is not only relieving on a hot summer day, but keeps the mosquitos away quite well. The thing to keep in mind is the huge expenditure of labor involved, these sites were tremendous undertakings, and in the case of Poverty Point by people that weren't agriculturalists. These earthworks were vitally important to them, for whatever reason. Fascinating subject.
Watson Brake may not be the oldest of the Middle Archaic mounds in that area, there are at least a couple that are suspected to be older; they may actually have solid dates by now. In the case of Poverty Point, as I posted on another thread, there is a Middle Archaic mound that you would have to consider associated with the site in some manner, it's only a mile away, but was in place long before PP was begun. They knew it was there, they aligned some of the earthworks with it. And while the rings have been reduced considerably in height by plowing, I'm not so sure they would afford much protection in a major flood...after all, the Bayou Macon channel literally abuts the site. The berms at Watson Brake presently are not high enough to get you up out of even a minor flood, in some places they are barely noticable. The Gentry Mound is about 25 feet tall, but very small on the top, and showed very little evidence of much going on up there. I was interested in what was in the center of the complex, wondering if they were trying to protect some feature from floodwaters with a ring around it, but nothing has been found there.
Some of these Middle Archaic people are suspected to have participated in trade networks, evidenced by sites that seem to be devoted largely to bead manufacture, with specialists who spent considerable time in that activity. John Connaway notes some evidence of fairly sophisticated methods in the making of these beads from his study of the Keenan Cache. Poverty Point peoples definitely traded far and wide, much material has been found there originating from as far away as Illinois and Georgia. Surely the concept of raising earthworks to avoid flooding would have been communicated in the trading process, yet as far as I know there are no other Late Archaic earthen mounds anywhere in the region. Personally, I think those that advocate some diagramatical function to the site are on the right track, with any flood relief just an added bonus (you would definitely be out if harm's way atop Mound A).
That said, I think some of the Mississippian ceremonial mounds may have had flooding in mind when they were built. One other feature of being on top of the larger ones is that they are often in areas with very flat topography, and the elevation exposes you to a very welcome breeze, which is not only relieving on a hot summer day, but keeps the mosquitos away quite well. The thing to keep in mind is the huge expenditure of labor involved, these sites were tremendous undertakings, and in the case of Poverty Point by people that weren't agriculturalists. These earthworks were vitally important to them, for whatever reason. Fascinating subject.
Post ID#18757 - replied 5/25/2011 2:56 PM
StarRider
Reca Jones (front center) is mentioned in the article in the link, she doesn't claim to have discovered the Watson Brake mounds, but she was instrumental in saving them from logging equipment crawling all over them. She made enough noise that the right people listened, and here we are. I won't even mention the "A" word LOL.
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