Mound State Monument, Moundville, Alabama

CONTENTS

Archaeological Museum Cover
The Prehistoric Inhabitants of Moundville 3: Their Physical Appearance 3; Their Dress and Ornamentation 4; Their Houses 4; Their Food 5; Their Implements 5; Their Religion 7; Other Activities 8; Their Burial Customs 8
Moundville Indian Pottery 8
What to See at Mound State Monument 12
How to Reach the Monument 16
Administration of the Monument 16
Map of Mound State Monument 18
Rules and Regulations 19
Erskine Ramsay Archaeological Research Center 21
Picnic Facilities 21

Milestones

1200-1400[1]	Great prehistoric city grows and thrives on banks of Warrior River, West-Central Alabama.
1500[1]	City deserted.
1897	Town of Carthage, white settlement at site of deserted city, renamed Moundville because of numerous Indian mounds within its limits.
1905-1906	First archaeological excavations made at Moundville by Clarence B. Moore of the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences.
1923	Moundville Historical Society organized to arouse interest in preservation of mounds. Mrs. Jeff Powers, Jr., President.
1929	Alabama Museum of Natural History begins archaeological investigations at Moundville after purchasing 175 acres which include most of the 40 mounds in that area.
1933	Mound State Park established with the aid of the Federal Emergency Conservation Work Agency.
1935	Temporary museum building constructed at Mound State Park.
1938-39	Alabama Museum purchases additional land, enlarging Mound State Park to 301 acres which includes all the mounds in the area.
1938	Mound State Park renamed Mound State Monument. Civilian Conservation Corps, directed by National Park Service and the Alabama Museum of Natural History, begins large-scale development of area.
1939	May 10, New Archaeological Museum dedicated.
1947	September 24, Dedication of Laboratory Unit of Erskine Ramsay Archaeological Research Center.
1949	Completion of Picnic Building: Memorial to Nelson Jones.

[1]Approximate dates.

MOUND STATE MONUMENT

• OPEN ALL YEAR •

Museum building

A blisful lyf, a paisible and a swete, Ledden the peples in the former age —Chaucer, Former Age, line 2

The Black Warrior River winds slowly among the rolling southern foothills. On the banks of this river many centuries ago there flourished a great Indian metropolis. Here dwelt a pleasant and contented people whose story is not of warring braves but of peaceful artisans. Theirs were days not of strife and treachery, but of quiet toil and worship. These people, given to pottery-making and the building of fine temples, have vanished long ago. The eloquence of their handiwork endures. Their pottery, lodged in the muddy earth, emerges as fresh proof that “a thing of beauty is a joy forever”. Their temples, decayed these many years, are yet in evidence, for the pyramidal substructures of these temples—earth mounds of imposing size and number—remain.

The mounds and the story of the people who built them, a story recorded in clay and stone and native metal, are preserved today at Mound State Monument.

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