NATIVE AMERICAN CULTURES IN THE REGION OF THE GREAT LAKES, THE OHIO RIVER VALLEY, AND THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER VALLEY, CONSTRUCTED LARGE CHARACTERISTIC MOUND EARTHWORKS OVER A PERIOD OF MORE THAN 5,000 YEARS IN THE UNITED STATES.
19th century academics theorised that the Native Americans were too primitive to be associated with the mounds, instead, implying that they belonged to a lost culture that disappeared before the arrival of Columbus in 1492.
One of the earliest theories suggested that the mound builders were Norse in origin, who settled in the Americas and migrated south to become the Toltecs in Tula, Mexico. Later theories have connected them with descendants of the Israelites, the Ancient Egyptians, Welsh, Irish, Polynesians, Greeks, Chinese, Phoenicians, and even crossing into the realm of pseudo-science by implying an association with the lost continent of Atlantis.
Proper academic studies have shown that the mounds were built by Native American cultures over a period that spanned from around 3500 BC to the 16th century AD, that includes part of the Archaic Period (8000 to 1000 BC), Woodland Period (1000 BC to AD 1000) and the Mississippian Period (800 AD to 1600 AD).
One of the earliest mound complexes was built at Watson Brake in Louisiana around 3500 BC during the Archaic Period. The site was developed over centuries by a pre-agricultural, pre-ceramic, hunter-gatherer society, who occupied the site on a seasonal basis. The builders constructed an arrangement of eleven earthwork mounds around 7.6 metres in height, connected by ridges to form an oval shaped complex. READ MORE...
