Mound Building Cultures
Over 2,000 years ago, a mound 62 feet high and 240 feet in diameter containing 57,000 tons of dirt was built. Why would the Native Americans build such a mound? This burial site along with thousands of smaller ones was built to be a gravesite of a great warrior, chieftain, or religious leader. Platform mounds were another type of mound was used for certain buildings. These mound builders were from various groups and areas of American Indian tribes. The size, shape, and purpose of burial mounds and platform mounds varied between the mound-building cultures.
Burial mounds were used as tombs. Native Americans started to build this type of mound around 500 B.C. These mounds are thought ...
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Mound is an excellent and well-known example of an effigy mound. This mound, in the shape of a twisting serpent, extends more than 1,300 feet long. Pottery, tools, pipes, stone sculptures, wood and shell, masks, ornaments, weapons, and jewelry made from shell, copper, mica, and other materials are buried with the dead in mounds. Some burial chambers after 5000 B.C. had a central chamber for the remains of important Native American leaders.
Platform mounds, also known as temple mounds, served as bases for public buildings, houses of tribe leaders, and temples. Platform mounds started being built by Native Americans after 800 A.D. The height of the mound is the result of basket loads of soil brought and piled by laborers within the society. These mounds were created like a platform so buildings could be easily built on them. The buildings on them mounds usually had subfloor storage pits inside of the mound. Inside the temples were carvings, paintings, and a sacred fire that ...
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"Mound Building Cultures." Essayworld.com. May 18, 2004. Accessed April 18, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Mound-Building-Cultures/8007.
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