# question on  indian mounds?



## gin house (Oct 26, 2010)

i know where two "indian mounds" are.  What was the purpose of the mound?  one of them is in water and ive found a good bit of broken pottery where the water has eroded the mound but havent found any points or other artifacts, why so much broken pottery?  ive thought of digging in the mound but wanted to find out more about them before doing so, dont know if any kind of burial is done in them?  dont want to dig where i shouldnt.  any help would be appreciated. thanks.


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## lagrangedave (Oct 26, 2010)

Other than it being very illegal to disturb a burial place, it's very "Bad Medicine" in white man's terms to violate such a place.


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## Nicodemus (Oct 26, 2010)

Don`t dig.


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## Milkman (Oct 26, 2010)

Google is your friend.

http://www.answers.com/topic/indian-mounds


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## kevincarden (Oct 26, 2010)

Never dig a mound. Could possibly bring bad voodoo's to you and your family.


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## runswithbeer (Oct 26, 2010)

man this bad mojo


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## kmckinnie (Oct 26, 2010)

I've seen it happen! The out come was not good!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


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## Whiteeagle (Oct 26, 2010)

Not only illegal, but unethical. Would you like me to dig up your ancestors?


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## jcinpc (Oct 26, 2010)

depends on the type of mound, I have an area I dig that is a bunch of shell middens and these were made by collecting shells for food and it elevated the area from flooding. TONS of butchered animal bones and broken pottery.
Burials are a different story. I dont belive in the mojo, karma spirits thingy, but to tell you true, there really isnt a reason one would need to dig a burial mound. Most of the indians were buried with nothing at all, alot of poor people back inthose days.

The majority of mounds werent burials anyways, just an elevated place to live, cook etc.


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## CAL (Oct 26, 2010)

I understand some were burial mounds but most were cerremonial mounds.


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## jcinpc (Oct 26, 2010)

some big ones are in Ga. Ocmulgee, Kolomoki and Etowah, huge temple mounds with ramps, could you imagine carrying the dirt basket by basket to build those? Im thinking some slave labor there

C.B. Moore dug a bunc of big mounds back inthe day throughout the southeast, heres a link to some cool mound info

http://books.google.com/books?id=Jg...#v=onepage&q=c b moore georgia mounds&f=false


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## Bow Only (Oct 27, 2010)

Each culture did a little different things with mounds.  When talking Woodland peoples, their mounds were mostly burial mounds but the larger complexes like Kolomoki had temple mounds as well.  The Mississippian peoples had temple mounds and used charnel houses.  When the leader (chief) died, they were all buried.  Later in the period, they began using cemetaries.  

The temple mounds were usually flat topped with sharp corners and often had a ramp to lead to the top.  One I studied in NW FL had a Western facing ramp and the other had a spiral ramp.  Very unusual to see a spiraling ramp.


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## jcinpc (Oct 27, 2010)

how about the JAckson mound? it was bulldozed and trucked away as fill dirt, people that bought the fill dirt were finding things like copper ornaments and celts and shells beads. Most of the great mounds were destroyed in the name of Archeaology


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## runswithbeer (Oct 27, 2010)

some mounds around my areas have had burial goods.   Celts,vessels, other ceremonial pieces have been found.  I think that disturbing a burial is just plain bad mojo.  Now the area surrounding the mounds could be fair game i guess.  I wonder how that would be looked at?


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## jcinpc (Oct 27, 2010)

look at the Crystal River mound complex, alot of the burial good were outside of the mounds

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystal_River_Archaeological_State_Park


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## runswithbeer (Oct 27, 2010)

yeah i've heard of ceremonial goods being found seperate from mounds themselves.


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## gin house (Oct 27, 2010)

Whiteeagle said:


> Not only illegal, but unethical. Would you like me to dig up your ancestors?



  not at all what i was lookin for   one mound is on public land, ive found pottery on the ground where water has eroded the mound, not possible to dig, probably wouldnt be good to be found walkin around it.  the other is on private land, its not a proven fact that its a mound but the one i stated above is on the web, the private one is bigger and  looks creepy.  my neighbor told me about thirty years ago he worked for the owner of the property, they were in the feild working when an indian man pulled up and walked out to them and asked if the owner would take $100,000  to allow him to make a gravel road to the mound,  dont know exactly what for but my neighbor is in his eighties and tells the truth,  im sure its an indian mound.  im not into the bad medicine, dont believe in it but i asked these questions for help.  i wouldnt want to dig into a grave for respect first off and i would probably be scarred morally.   from what ive read the burial areas are all around the mound, not in them.  im just confused as to where i should and shouldnt be lookin.


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## Bow Only (Oct 27, 2010)

runswithbeer said:


> some mounds around my areas have had burial goods.   Celts,vessels, other ceremonial pieces have been found.  I think that disturbing a burial is just plain bad mojo.  Now the area surrounding the mounds could be fair game i guess.  I wonder how that would be looked at?


Many mounds have a plaza close by, nothing will be found there.  There won't be much around the mound, it's a ceremonial or sacred place so nothing will be "lost" close by.


jcinpc said:


> look at the Crystal River mound complex, alot of the burial good were outside of the mounds
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystal_River_Archaeological_State_Park


Crystal River is a bad example, it's not a typical site.  I still don't know if they've figured that one out yet.  IMO, it was ruled by a Meso-American.  

I did a science project in high school on a truncated temple mound.  At the time, it was the northern most truncated temple mound of Ft. Walton origin. (Mississipian) When I first encountered the mound, it had sharp corners and was impressive.  The Western side ramp had been destroyed by cultivation.  The owner of the property then harrowed the sides of the mound (the top was covered with trees) and he cut out several interesting artifacts.  I found a whole whelk shell (Busycon), a canine or deer pelvis(the only inland example of an animal internment at that time), a broken celt, a clay elbow pipe, and many shell fragments.  The harrow had literally ripped a burial apart.  No telling what was in that mound, it was huge.  There aren't many 25 footers.


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## ancienttrails (Oct 27, 2010)

C.B.MOORE dug or had people dig hundreds from virginia around coast up every navigable waterway around and through fla.to miss.to ark.and tenn.and more sent it all up north to a yankee school there are books with maps and dates,so many destroyed in fla. by state and contractors ,area around mounds for hundreds of yards are best places to look with permission ,leave the dead buried if you look long enough you will see not all were in mounds.but thats fla..some stuff from field 100 yards from mounds.


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## swims-with-stripers (Oct 28, 2010)

you ll find way more points  around the mound with less digging from my experience. either way it is illegal to dig artifacts mound or not so be carefull any where u dig


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## HALOJmpr (Oct 31, 2010)

Bow Only said:


> I did a science project in high school on a truncated temple mound.  At the time, it was the northern most truncated temple mound of Ft. Walton origin. (Mississipian) When I first encountered the mound, it had sharp corners and was impressive.  The Western side ramp had been destroyed by cultivation.  The owner of the property then harrowed the sides of the mound (the top was covered with trees) and he cut out several interesting artifacts.  I found a whole whelk shell (Busycon), a canine or deer pelvis(the only inland example of an animal internment at that time), a broken celt, a clay elbow pipe, and many shell fragments.  The harrow had literally ripped a burial apart.  No telling what was in that mound, it was huge.  There aren't many 25 footers.



There's a very large mound right near me in NW FL.  It's called the Letchworth-Love Mounds.  It has a massive ceremonial mound with a ring of outer mounds for living etc.  Trees have overtaken the mound now but they have actually begun to slowly remove the cover to bring the mound back to it's former state.  It stands at 46 feet so it's one of the largest they've identified.  Pretty cool to go see!


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## Bow Only (Oct 31, 2010)

HALOJmpr said:


> There's a very large mound right near me in NW FL.  It's called the Letchworth-Love Mounds.  It has a massive ceremonial mound with a ring of outer mounds for living etc.  Trees have overtaken the mound now but they have actually begun to slowly remove the cover to bring the mound back to it's former state.  It stands at 46 feet so it's one of the largest they've identified.  Pretty cool to go see!



Where are they located?


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## HALOJmpr (Oct 31, 2010)

It's west of Tallahassee, on Highway 90.  It's almost halfway between Tallahassee and Monticello.  Let me know when you want to come visit ....  we'll hit the country store for lunch and then go try to dig some rock in the river if you want   I need some more knapping material to practice with.  I think there is a web site for it too.


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## robert carter (Nov 7, 2010)

I think its no different than digging in town at the first Baptist Church. should`nt be done. I have a lot of artifacts found on top of the ground. Good enough for me.RC


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