[birds chirping]
Christina Smith: The mounds along
the Natchez Trace Parkway
are physical representations of a population
that once lived along the Trace.
LaDonna Brown: The mounds along the Trace
span a long, long period of time.
Ian Thompson: Archeology tells us that some of the earliest earth mounds
date back about 7,000 years. They were pretty small in size, but over time
people began to build larger and larger earth mounds.
By 2,000 years ago, the time period when many
of the earth mounds on the Natchez Trace started to be
built, some of them were tremendous in size.
The people who built the earth mounds were part of a vast network of Native American societies.
It was a diverse network, but an interconnected network.
Our earth mounds are found from what is now
Wisconsin, all the way down into Central America.
[digging sounds]
LaDonna Brown: People always ask, "why did these
early people build these mounds?”
Ian Thompson: The earth mounds on the Trace were
built for a number of reasons.
Some of them were the platforms, the bases for the houses of community leaders.
Some of them were also burial mounds.
Kristen Maxfield: They are sacred sites.
I like to think of them as something similar to a church
with a graveyard next to it. It’s a similar concept.
Ian Thompson: Creating the earth mounds required a
great deal of intelligence on the part of
ancestral Native Americans.
It required an understanding of geology.
It required an understanding of soil hydrology.
LaDonna Brown: These mounds were built one basket
load of dirt at a time.
Jay Wesley: We didn't have access to pack animals.
We didn’t have access to a lot of tools that you can see
that makes construction easy today.
Ian Thompson: They would use tools like digging sticks,
mussel shell hoes,
and their hands.
And they would load the dirt into baskets
and then carry it to where the earth mound
was going to be constructed.
LaDonna Brown: We feel like
the actual construction of the mounds is
a form of spirituality.
We feel like our ancestors really were
wanting to show that respect and that homage
to our Creator.
[birds singing]
Kristen Maxfield: Mounds like this could be found
all over the eastern United States.
But the fact that they are along the Natchez Trace
has allowed us to preserve them
so that everybody can see them.
It’s kind of the role of the National Park Service,
is to make sure we preserve history.
LaDonna Brown: As a Southeastern Indian,
and specifically as a Chickasaw person,
we look at these mounds as being very, very old, ancient architecture
that is left from our ancestors.
Jay Wesley: We want to honor and respect these
mounds, and it’s a burial.
That’s the bones of our people that are buried on these mounds.
LaDonna Brown: It is a part of our spiritual makeup,
and it is very important to us that they be respected and protected.