Etowah Indian Mounds

In the 19th century, European-American settlers mistakenly believed that the mounds had been built by the historic Cherokee, who occupied the region at the time. But many researchers now believe that the Iroquoian-speaking tribe did not reach this part of Georgia until the late 18th century and could not have built the mounds.[4]

Late 20th-century studies showed the mounds were built and occupied by prehistoric indigenous peoples of the South Appalachian Mississippian culture (a regional variation of the Mississippian culture)[5] of eastern North America. They were ancestors of the historic Muskogean language-speaking Muscogee Creek people who later emerged in this area.[6] Etowah is a Muskogee word derived from italwa meaning "town". From 1000–1550 AD, Etowah was occupied by a series of cycling chiefdoms (see Coosa confederacy) over the course of five and a half centuries.[7] In the 21st century, the federally recognized Muscogee (Creek) Nation, now based in Oklahoma, and the Poarch Band of Creek Indians of Alabama consider Etalwa to be their most important ancestral town. The Cherokee also revere it.

Chief Mound (Mound A)

Mound B, seen from Mound A

Mound C

Etowah has three main platform mounds and three lesser mounds. The Temple Mound, Mound A, is 63 feet (19 m) high, taller than a six-story building, and covers 3 acres (12,000 m²) at its base. In 2005-2008 ground mapping with magnetometers revealed new information and data, showing that the site was much more complex than had previously been believed. The study team has identified a total of 140 buildings on the site. In addition, Mound A was found to have had four major structures and a courtyard during the height of the community's power.[9] Mound B is 25 feet (7.6 m) high; Mound C, which rises 10 feet (3.0 m), is the only one to have been completely excavated. Magnetometers enabled archaeologists to determine the location of temples of log and thatch, which were originally built on top of the mounds. Adjacent to the mounds is a raised ceremonial plaza, which was used for ceremonies, stickball and chunkey games, and as a bazaar for trade goods.

When visiting the Etowah Mounds, guests can view the "borrow pits" (which archaeologists at one time thought were moats) which were dug out to create the three large mounds in the center of the park.

Older pottery found on the site suggest that there was an earlier village (ca. 200 BC–600 AD) associated with the Swift Creek culture. This earlier Middle Woodland period occupation at Etowah may have been related to the major Swift Creek center of Leake Mounds, approximately two miles downstream (west) of Etowah.

War was commonplace; many archaeologists believe the people of Etowah battled for hegemony over the Alabama river basin with those of Moundville, a Mississippian site in present-day Alabama. The town was protected by a sophisticated semicircular fortification system. An outer band formed by nut tree orchards prevented enemy armies from shooting masses of flaming arrows into the town. A 9 feet (2.7 m) to 10 feet (3.0 m) deep moat blocked direct contact by the enemy with the palisaded walls. It also functioned as a drainage system during major floods, common for centuries, from this period and into the 20th century. Workers formed the palisade by setting upright 12 feet (3.7 m) high logs into a ditch approximately 12 inches (300 mm) on center and then back-filling around the timbers to form a levee. Guard towers for archers were spaced approximately 80 feet (24 m) apart.

Artifacts

Illustration of a Rogan Plate (Catalogue No. A91117, Department of Anthropology, NMNH, Smithsonian), a repoussé copper plate falcon dancer found at Etowah, but believed to have been fabricated at Cahokia in the 13th century[10]

The artifacts discovered in burials within the Etowah site indicate that its residents developed an artistically and technically advanced culture. Numerous copper tools, weapons and ornamental copper plates accompanied the burials of members of Etowah's elite class. Where proximity to copper protected the fibers from degeneration, archaeologists also found brightly colored cloth with ornate patterns. These were the remnants of the clothing of social elites.

Numerous clay figurines and ten Mississippian stone statues have been found through the years in the vicinity of Etowah. Many are paired statues, which portray a man sitting cross-legged and a woman kneeling. The female figures wear wrap-around skirts and males are usually portrayed without visible clothing, although both usually have elaborate hairstyles. The pair are thought to represent lineage ancestors. Individual statues of young women also show them kneeling, but with additional characteristics such as visible sex organs, which are not visible on the paired statues. This female figure is thought to represent a fertility or Earth Mother goddess.[11] The birdman, hand in eye, solar cross, and other symbols associated with the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex appear in many artifacts found at Etowah.

Archaeological research on the subject is not conclusive, but the Etowah site may be the same as a village of a similar name visited by Spanish conquistador Hernando de Soto in 1540. The chroniclers of the de Soto Expedition made no mention of any large mounds in their record of visiting a town named Itaba. Itaba means "boundary" or trail crossing in the Alabama language. The English name for the mounds, Etowah, was derived from an archaic Muscogee place name, Etalwa. Etalwa probably originally referred to the solar cross symbol. In the modern Muskogee language it means "town."[15]

Until studies of the late 20th century were published, most European-American people in Georgia believed Etowah to have been built by the well-known historic Cherokee. But, the Cherokee did not arrive in this part of Georgia until the late 18th century, two to seven centuries after the mounds were constructed.[4] Most scholars believe that the mound complex was likely built by the Mississippian culture, a people who are considered ancestral to the Muscogee, long known as the Creek people.[4] Most of the peoples of the Creek Confederacy were removed to Indian Territory in the 1830s.

Since that time, their descendants have formed two federally recognized tribes: the largest is the Muscogee (Creek) Nation in Oklahoma; the Poarch Band of Creek Indians in Alabama are the only federally recognized tribe in the state. Both consider Etalwa, or Etowah, to be their most important ancestral town. The Poarch Band remains in The official title of the Creek Nation's Principal Chief is Etalwa Mikko (the Muskogee word for chief is miko). A new, large-scale model of Etalwa is on permanent display in the rotunda of the Muskogee (Creek) Capitol in Okmulgee, Oklahoma.

Marble effigies from the Etowah Mound C, ca. 1250–1375: kneeling woman on left, and man on right[16]

Etowah Archaeological Museum, located at the site

Missionary Elias Cornelius visited the site in 1817 and described it in his journal published by Bela Bates Edwards in 1833. He realized a mound must have been over two hundred years old, due to the size of trees growing on it, but had little idea of its real history.[17] Cyrus Thomas and John P. Rogan tested the site for the Smithsonian Institution in 1883.

The first well-documented archaeological inquiry at the site did not begin until the winter of 1925, conducted by Warren K. Moorehead. His excavations into Mound C at the site revealed a rich array of Mississippian culture burial goods. These artifacts, along with the collections from Cahokia, Moundville Site, Lake Jackson Mounds, and Spiro Mounds, would comprise the majority of the materials which archaeologists used to define the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex (SECC). The professional excavation of this enormous burial mound contributed major research impetus to the study of Mississippian artifacts and peoples. It greatly increased the understanding of pre-Contact Native American artwork.

In 1947, the government built the Allatoona Dam upstream for flood control. The Etowah site was designated as a National Historic Landmark in 1964.

The Etowah Indian Mounds museum displays artifacts found at the site, including Mississippian culture pottery, monolithic stone axes, Mississippian stone statuary, copper jewelry, shell gorgets, and other artifacts.

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  Model of Etowah at its height
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  Statue of Etowah chief, Georgia State Capitol, based on archaeological findings and the descriptions of early European explorers
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  Ceremonial flint blades and chunkey stones
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  Rock fishing weir constructed on the Etowah River
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  Mounds B, and C from the top of Mound A.

• Ocmulgee Mounds National Historical Park (Bibb County, Georgia)
• Kolomoki Mounds
• Leake Mounds (9BR2)
• Wilbanks Site
• Southeastern Ceremonial Complex
• List of Mississippian sites
• Funk Heritage Center
• List of National Historic Landmarks in Georgia (U.S. state)
• National Register of Historic Places listings in Bartow County, Georgia

• Squier, Ephraim George and Edwin Hamilton Davis. Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley. pp. 232–235.

• Hudson, Charles; Marvin Smith; David Hally; Richard Polhemus; Chester DePratter (1985). "Coosa: A Chiefdom in the Sixteenth-Century Southeastern United States". American Antiquity. 50 (4): 723–737. doi:10.2307/280163.
• Townsend, Richard F.; Sharp, Robert V., eds. (2004). Hero, Hawk, and Open Hand: American Indian Art of the Ancient Midwest and South. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-10601-7.
• Warren King Moorehead, ed. (1932). Explorations of the Etowah Site in Georgia: The Etowah Papers. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
• Snow, Dean (2010). "Etowah". Archaeology Of Native North America. Prentice Hall.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Etowah Indian Mounds.

• Etowah Indian Mounds Historic Site, official site
• Etowah Mounds near Cartersville, Georgia
• "Etowah: Remote sensing" , Archaeology magazine
• Etowah (Tumlin) Mounds historical marker
• Video of the site from the ground and the top of the largest mound made by a member of the Cherokee Nation from 2016