Leake Mounds

Leake Mounds (9BR2) is an important archaeological site in Bartow County, Georgia built and used by peoples of the Swift Creek Culture. The site is 2 miles (3.2 km) west of Etowah Mounds on the Etowah River, although it predates that site by hundreds of years. Excavation of nearly 50,000 square feet (4,600 m²) on the site showed that Leake Mounds was one of the most important Middle Woodland period site in this area from around 300 BCE to 650 CE, a center with ties throughout the Southeast and Midwest. It was abandoned about 650 CE and not occupied again until by different peoples near the end of the Mississippian culture period, about 1500.[1]

Leake Mounds
(9 BR 2)

Leake Mounds site in 2015
Location within Georgia today
Location	Cartersville, Georgia, Bartow County, Georgia,  USA
Region	Bartow County, Georgia
Coordinates	34°8′21.55″N 84°50′46.03″W
History
Founded	300 BCE
Abandoned	1500 CE
Periods	Middle Woodland, Lamar Phase
Cultures	Swift Creek Culture, South Appalachian Mississippian culture
Architecture
Architectural details	Number of temples: 3

The site includes at least three major mounds and a large semi-circular moat/ditch. While much of the mounds were razed to be used as road fill for the expansion of the Georgia State Route 113 and Georgia State Route 61 in the 1940s, significant portions of the site remain. Several sites on nearby Ladds Mountain were integrally associated with Leake, including Shaw Mound, a stone burial mound; Indian Fort, a stone wall enclosure; and Ladds Cave, a large cave.

Examples of a type of pottery decoration consisting of a diamond-shaped checks found at Leake Mounds are also known from Hopewell sites in Ohio (such as Seip, Rockhold, Harness, and Turner), the Mann Site in southern Indiana, as well as other sites in the South such as the Miner's Creek site, 9HY98, and Mandeville Site in Georgia, and the Yearwood site in southern Tennessee.[2]