Sat, 08 Mar 2003

Lost and Found

What's lost is found again: 'Virtually' rebuilding Native American monuments [Science Blog]

Over here in Central Indiana we have several Hopewell and Adena sites, and down south (by Evansville on the Ohio) there is quite an extensive series of Mississippian mounds known as the Angel Mounds (now a state park).

Mound-building has always fascinated me - it seems to be about as close to a "primal religious drive" in humanity as we can get. There are very, very few societies that have never gone thru a mound building phase.

If I ever make it to Scandinavia you can bet that one of the first things to see on my agenda will be the Norse mounds at Gamla Uppsala in Sweden. These were used as a temple in Viking times.

If you're ever in Chillicothe the museum is a nice visit. So is Mounds State Park in Anderson, IN - another Hopewell/Adena site.

But America's "best kept secret cultural site" has got to be Cahokia Mounds just east of St. Louis. Interstate 70 runs right past it, and I'm sure that millions have driven by it without even knowning it exists. If you want to get an education about pre-Columbian Native American culture, this site represents the pinnacle (Mississippian) of that cultural epoch here.

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