Trip Report - Ocmulgee National Monument, Georgia

August 2, 2003

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

Some of the largest Indian Mounds in the state of Georgia, the Ocmulgee Mounds on the Macon Plateau are a significant part of our Georgia history. Built during the Early Mississippian Period, the mounds were the centerpiece of a culture known as the Moundbuilders. Moundbuilder history Archaic Moundbuilders may have developed in Louisiana, spreading north to inhabit the rich valleys of the Mississippi and its tributaries, and following other coastal rivers inland. Around 1000 BC the first mounds appeared in the present-day state of Georgia. These mounds, some of which were located on the Macon Plateau, were similar in many ways to mounds built in other places throughout the Eastern United States. Near the Ohio River two distinct cultures of Moundbuilders arose, first the Adena (400? BC) and then the Hopewell (100 BC). By 500 AD, the Hopewell appear to have been in decline. From the west came the Mississippians, in about 900 AD. Some Georgia mounds, especially Kolomoki, exhibit traits of both civilizations.

The Mississippians Built on a complex socio-political structure with advanced agricultural techniques, including perhaps crop rotation, the Mississippian culture spread throughout much of the Eastern United States. They used waterways as a major form of transportation, and had an extensive trading network. Moundbuilders at Ocmulgee Between 900 and 950 AD the mounds at Ocmulgee were constructed. Over the next 300 years the Moundbuilders inhabited this site, considered to be the largest village in the Southeast. During this time period the Great Temple Mound was constructed, along with the other lesser mounds and earth lodges nearby. By the end of the Early Mississipian Era (1200 AD) the mounds at Ocmulgee were in decline, while the Etowah Indian Mounds were flourishing. Then, sometime after 1300AD a second culture, known as the Lamar culture, began to flourish near the Ocmulgee mounds. This site, not far from the Ocmulgee Mounds and within the same National Park area features a unique "spiral" mound, funeral mound, and other small mounds.

The Lamar Culture spread throughout the Southeast and had contact with non-Moundbuilder tribes such as the Cherokee. Major Characteristics The Mississippian was not a socio-political monolith governed by rulers with absolute power. Instead, it was a culture differentally shared and participated in by hundreds of local societies large and small, each adapted to a multiplicity of diverse resource bases, and each varying widely in their dependence on a mixture of maize-beans-squash horticulture with gathering of wild plant foods, fishing, and hunting. What brought some degree of cultural uniformity over the vast area of the Midwest &the South was long-distance trade and participation in a common religious tradition (seen in shared art styles and certain aspects of mortuary practices). A specific complex adaptation to linear, environmentally circumscribed floodplain habitat zones Pottery tempered with crushed mussel shell - an important innovation since it allowed potters to enhance the qualities of their clays and thus build more durable and larger vessels in a wider range of forms.

Village-based maize horticulture - beans [Phaseolus vulgaris] were also cultivated after A.D. 900 - 1000 and provided important proteins for people Construction of large flat-topped mounds, commonly situated near the town plaza Stratified social organization embodying permanent (and probably hereditary) offices - evidence of great variation in social complexity from hundreds of small, local centers and minor chiefdoms to major urban centers presided over (ruled by?) powerful hereditary chiefs. Monumental Architecture One of the most visible traits of the Mississippian tradition are their immense, flat-topped "pyramids, " or earthen platform mounds. Some were terraced, or had graded roadways leading to their summits where the society's temples and the houses of their rulers once stood. Some of these mounds are truly gigantic. For example, Monk's Mound at Cahokia rises in four terraces to a height of 100 feet, its base covers 16 acres, and it contains an estimated 22 million cubic feet of earth, making it the largest earthwork ever constructed in the Americas -- perhaps in the world.

Some Mississippian cities were surrounded by extensive wooden palisades. For example, at Cahokia the downtown area was surrounded by a palisade that stood 12 - 15 feet high, required 15,000 logs, and was more than 2 miles long. Settlement Patterns The Mississippian adaptation developed in river valleys (large and small), often expanding up small tributaries of major waterways. The people lived in extremely complex and highly diversified environments and developed very flexible adaptations to take advantage of all the resources provided by their riverine valley and adjacent hinterland territories. Agricultural fields were generally restricted to the floodplains because of the ease with which the rich alluvial soils could be cultivated as well as the abundance and concentration of aquatic, game, and vegetable resources. Subsistence The Mississippian tradition was based, in part, on the introduction of new strains of maize (perhaps from Mexico, although some researchers have suggested maize may have diffused eastward from the agricultural Anasazi of New Mexico), perhaps as early as A.D. 800.

Mexican beans were also added into the Mississippian diets by at least A.D. 1000, providing an important protein supplement as well as releasing populations from density constraints based on the availability of wild animal proteins. However, meat was still an important, and perhaps in some regions, a necessary part of the diet. Some major characteristics of Mississippian subsistence are: Wild plant foods of vital importance, especially the rich nut harvests of fall. Fish, migratory waterfowl, terrestrial game (including deer and turkey), fruits, berriers, and seed-bearing native plants were selectively exploited. Deliberate destruction of the natural vegetation on preferred soils in order to grow maize, beans, squash, and some native plants. And it was the widespread cultivation of maize and beans that helped foster higher population densities, larger food surpluses, and more complex political and social organization so characteristic of the Mississippian communities. Horticulture was intensive with some maize fields planted twice in a single season, each crop being harvested while the maize was still soft and green, to be eaten immediately.

Other fields were planted only once, the maize allowed to ripen and dry for storage. The household was the primary production unit with each household cultivating a mosaic of several gardens situated in separate environmental zones. During lean times, people could rely on kin living in other areas for food and seeds for the next planting; or an entire community may have maintained communal granaries which stockpiled food for use during lean times It's important to note that Mississippian farmers did NOT manage water, either through irrigation or field drainage; thus their fields were limited to river floodplains. As populations rose, it was necessary to expand along the bottomlands, eventually leading to armed competition between towns for the best alluvial land. Although water management was not used for agriculture, the residents at Moundville, Alabama, constructed three ponds which were used to store live fish, a necessary part of the food supply to support the 3000+ people living at the site. Sociopolitical Organization Mississippian towns typically contained from 1 to 20 or more flat-topped mounds that served as platforms for temples as well as residences for the elite.

Society was apparently a ranked one with permanent, perhaps hereditary, offices. Smaller communities were politically (and for some things economically) satellites of larger ones. Scholars usually classify Mississippian societies as chiefdoms, although at several Mississippian centers (such as Cahokia and Moundville) their is evidence that a state organization had emerged. Some of the major features of Mississippian society are: Presence of an elite group - may have emerged as a way of mitigating risks during lean times for people. Such elites would oversee the stockpiling of food surpluses, ensured that cultivated lands were maintained in different environmental zones Presence of mechanisms of reciprocity and cooperation based upon complex local and long-distance exchange systems Most exchange took place at the household level Mississippian communites were grouped into larger political and social units, headed by local chieftains By the time European explorers, conquerors, and traders reached the heartland of the Mississippian tradition, the truly great centers, such as Cahokia and Moundville were either abandoned (Cahokia by A.D. 1500) or past their high point.

But numerous chiefdoms still existed, such as Etowah and Coosa, two important centers in Georgia, and Natchez on the Lower Mississippi, and it's from these that are best data concerning sociopolitical organization comes. For example, when the French first visited the Natchez chiefdom at the beginning of the 18th century they found a rigidly stratified society ruled over by two chieftains, a paramount chief known as the Great Son &his brother, Tattooed Serpent, who was war chief. Relatives of these two were know as Suns and served in various administrative capactities. Below them were the Nobles (or Honored Men), with commoners (known to the elites as "Stinkards") occupying the bottom stratum. The chiefdom was divided into nine districts, each controlled by a local chief, and monthly the local chiefs &their subjects presented tribute to the Great Son. Some upward social mobility was possible. All members of the elite (including the Great Sun) married commoners, with the children of such unions being Nobles. Also a commoner could achieve Noble rank through prowess in warfare.At the death of a Great Sun, his wives, realtives, and servants were strangled and buried with him.

Exchange Systems Exchange networks linked hundreds of communities large and small, mainly with local transactions. Only two commodities may have involved some degree of specialized production: chert and salt. Person-to-person bartering or gift-giving and formal redistribtion were the only means of exchange of goods and commodities Every family, every household was involved in agricultural production and food procurement Communities were relatively autonomous, exchanging and producing goods and commodoties through age-old ties of kin and reciprocal obligation More elite members may have been involved in the storage and redistribution of grain which may have taken place at formal ceremonies Urban Centers Most Mississippian communities were small with many of them perhaps grouped into a multiplicity of chiefdoms that were probably in a constant state of political flux. But there were some Mississippian centers that appear to have nurtured more complex social and political structures. The most famous are: C The Southern Cult From about A.D. 1000 to 1500 there existed over much of the Eastern

Woodlands a rather flamboyant complex of very special shared iconographic motifs, themes, and finished goods. Labelled the "Southern Cult" by archaeologists, the complex was interpreted, for many years, as evidence for a pan-Mississippian religious phenomenon composed of a highly variable set of religious mechanisms supporting the authority of local chieftains. Recently, this interpretation has been called into question because of the assumptions underlying it. Postulating a religion on the basis of similar types of burial artifacts may be an erroneous assumption. Instead, the shared elements may be the result of the Mississippian's exchange network which functioned to promote the exchange of prestige goods between hundreds of communities (large &small) with every kind of adaptive strategy imaginable. Such exchange systems functioned earlier among the Adena and Hopewell and similarly accounted for the exchange of exotic goods similar in appearance from site to site. However, no medium of exchange has been found indicating is was almost entirely a barter system of exchange.

Furthermore, the themes and motifs on these earlier objects can be shown to have general connections with the basic themes of the so-called "Southern Cult." Iconographic Elements The Ocmulgee Indian Mounds history First mention of the mounds is by a member of James Oglethorpe's Georgia Guard who saw the mounds on a trip with Oglethorpe to the Creek capital of Coweta. Naturalist William Bartram noted Ocmulgee on both his visits to the site during the 1770's, calling them the "Oakmulgee fields". The mounds remained in Creek hands well into the 19th century, and were exempted from a treaty ceding the surrounding area. The mounds, however, were finally ceded to the state and distributed to settlers (1828). Ocmulgee National Monument Again Placed on List of Endangered National Parks - Highway route threatens the Old Fields Washington, D.C. - Inadequate funding and the threat of road development have placed Georgia's Ocmulgee National Monument on the 2003 America's Ten Most Endangered National Parks List, distributed annually since 1999 by the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA),

the nation's leading park advocacy organization. "The number of visitors to Ocmulgee National Monument nearly mirrors the population of Macon itself," said Jill Stephens, program coordinator for NPCA's Southeast Regional Office. "Despite the economic benefits parks bring to local communities, parks often struggle to preserve resources while operating on a shoe-string budget." Underfunding plagues the park. Although Ocmulgee is home to one of the largest archeological collections in the park system, no curator is on staff to monitor the collection. Educational opportunities and visitor experiences in the park suffer as well. The park lacks staff for guided tours of the earthen mounds, and seminars that once introduced local children to the cultural history of the park have been canceled. The Lamar Mounds, in a separate unit of the monument, is inaccessible to the public at this time. The park lacks funds to maintain the area. However, funding is not the only threat to the park's future. The archtypical developer is attempting to gain access to the land with no regard to anything other than profit.

More than a decade ago, the Georgia Department of Transportation began to plan the Fall Line Freeway, a four-lane highway running from Augusta to Columbus. The preferred route through Macon, the Eisenhower Parkway Extension, would bisect relatively undeveloped floodplains adjacent to the monument. In 1999, this land became the first traditional cultural property east of the Mississippi River, placing it on the National Register of Historic Places. Known as the Ocmulgee Old Fields, the traditional cultural property preserves the site where ancestors of the Muscogee Creek first established an agrarian lifestyle centuries ago. Culturally significant for several federally recognized tribes, more than two dozen have expressed concerns for the road project through formal resolutions. Even though the tribes are joined by a number of organizations, the road has been nominated for a fast-track process that would rush through the environmental review. "The Department of Transportation is selecting the first projects to ever go through a fast-tracked process," said Stephens

. "Because th agency must meet strict requirements to properly consult with interested tribes and organizations, this road is not a good candidate to test a new process." Situated along the banks of the Ocmulgee River, the Old Fields include Ocmulgee National Monument, Bond Swamp National Wildlife Refuge, city parks, and privately owned lands. The present-day monument consists of 702 acres, less than half the size Congress originally envisioned It preserves artifacts dating back 12,000 years to Ice Age hunters as well as several earthen mounds including the only known mound in the United States ascended by a spiral ramp. The road project threatens to disturb the only undeveloped park boundary. The floodplains are home to a wide variety of plant and wildlife species, including black bears, alligators, bobcats, and woodstorks. "With a little foresight, this could be the classic example of a win-win situation," said Stephens. "With a new route, the citizens of Macon could easily end up with a new road that avoids and permanently protects naturally and culturally significant lands."