bjbjVwVw When people think of pyramids and great civilizations they think of the Egyptians,
the Mayans and the Aztecs.
However, people are unaware of the great mound builders that lived and thrived in North America.
The Mississippi Indian Civilization could have rivaled any other throughout the world
during the height of their empire and it all began and ended on the Ohio and Mississippi
River Valley.
Our first stop along our quest to unveiling the secrets of this society is Angel Mounds
in present day Evansville, Indiana.
What happened to this civilization?
We think with the Angel site that they got to big for their own good.
Their crops, they were a Southern kind of a crop they were growing here.
There was a small ice age or what they call the little ice age around the year fourteen
hundred and that period so their crop would begin to fail somewhat.
There is another possibility people from IU have worked on that a massive earthquake might
have hit the site around fourteen hundred or fourteen fifty as well and that might have
been the final straw and they said let's get out of here.
Angel Mounds was the last great city of the Mississippian Mound Builders.
Once a thriving community is now nothing more than an overgrown field.
This is your main mound here uh huh Angel Mounds?
It's mound a.
How tall is this thing?
The top of the chronicle off sets about forty-five feet.
The entire length of the mound is about six hundred feet and it's about for hundred feet
wide.
So what was this mound, mound a, what was this mound used for?
Well this would have been chief residence for the, the leader of the community, the
chief.
The local family would have living on top of this mound?
Yes.
Was there any religious ceremonies taken place on here as well?
Possibly with the chronicle off sets.
Uh, the lower platform of this mound.
It's a three tiered mound.
And um this mound is it aligned itself with the, what did you say, the summer solstice.
Summer solstice, the chronicle off set lines up with the point on the temple mound.
Where's that at?
The temple mound is the one off in the distance on the other side of the tree line.
This culture worshipped the sun and nature which it was apart of.
It is ever so ironic that the thing they worshipped the most is what forced them to leave.
Before the collapse of their empire, the Mississippians flourished in this environment and they even
had a popular sport called chunky.
This is where they would play this game right here in front of the large mound is the courtyard.
Now the object to this game is that they would have a stone and it would be hollow in the
center and they would role this stone and they would try to take their spear and throw
it directly into the center of the rolling stone.
This game wasn t about brute strength, it was about pure accuracy.
Opposing tribes were always a concern for the Mississippians.
One of their most impressive structures was their greatest defense.
If you were an opposing force trying to attack Angel Mounds you would had to go through three
lines of defense.
The first line of defense is this swamp area which surrounded an entire village.
Once past the swamp they would have encountered a brigade of sharpened sticks throughout this
entire section to help slow the attacking force down.
Once past this section they would have encountered a fifteen foot solid wall that would have
surrounded an entire village.
Not much is know about the original wall, the entire thing surrounded a village and
it was about fifteen feet high so at points they might of needed to have port holes something
like this to be able to see out.
Angel Mounds had a great influence on surrounding civilizations.
Other tribes mimicked the Mississippians who tried to live up among the gods.
In Vincennes, Indiana at Sugar Loaf Mound was yet another civilization who tried to
elevate themselves.
However, unlike the mound builders these people did not create this mound.
Sugar Loaf Mound is a natural formation uh produced by wind picking up sand along the
river bottoms and coming up the side of the bluff that it stands on and then depositing
it so it s like a large sand dune that s been stabilized.
What else is interesting is what they found is bones about nine feet deep and not just
one but several.
This is a huge burial mound of the uh Woodland Indians and this was ranging about nine hundred
a d.
So this entire area of what we are standing on is one big burial mound.
As I peer off into the horizon I m curious where this magnificent civilization derived
from and how their influence stretched so far.
To answer this question I had to travel to Southwest Illinois to Cahokia Mounds located
on the Mississippi River.
These are very similar mounds or pyramids that we see in Mexico or other places around
the world actually.
This site had over one hundred twenty mounds stretching over an area of six square miles,
the greatest civilization in North America.
At its peek there were around forty thousand people living in this city.
At its time Cahokia Mounds was larger than London, England.
Alright this mound that I am climbing right now is actually a burial mound and it is steep
and it s tall.
You can tell how the Woodlands started mimicking the Mississippians by Sugar Loaf Mound this
resembles a lot uh just like Sugar Loaf Mound and it s about the same size and the same
shape used for burials and the uh mound behind me was where they would prepare the body on
the flat top mound then once it was prepared to be buried they could come over here and
bury it within the mound.
Man this is steep.
Wow!
Man.
So the center of this mound they found evidence they took core samples here as well hundreds
of different skeletons throughout this whole entire burial mound.
Very similar to Sugar Loaf.
And in the center of this city lies the largest man made mound North of Mexico.
Behind me you can see a series of mounds uh leading up to the biggest mound which is called
Monk s Mound and that was the not only the largest mound here but it s the largest prehistoric
earth work in the Americas the largest earth and mound built in either North or South America.
Monk s Mound is over ten stories tall and covers fourteen acres making it the largest
pyramid per square feet in the entire world.
From this view the chief would have been able to look out and see his empire stretching
from miles in each direction.
The fourth and final terrace of Monk s Mound was strictly prohibited by everybody expect
for the chief and his family.
This is where is would have ruled his forces, this is where he would have governed his people.
One can only imagine how the chief would have felt what laid ahead with his empire.
Over a thousand years ago you had tens of thousand of Mississippian Indiana living in
this Ohio River Valley.
All of a sudden they vanished without a trace.
Due to poor crop production, global climate change, over population, some of these obstacles
cause them to pick up and leave never to return.
This is what they left us with, this is their record, this is their story.
Until next time I m Travis James.
Thanks for joining us with Indiana Outdoors.
Man look at that view.
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