Mounds? Mounds, Everywhere!

Reflection on Terry Tempest Williams “Effigy Mounds National Monument” (2017) essay.

In Tennessee there are four state archeological areas and one state archaeological park dedicated to protecting historical mounds within the state. The first one I was introduced to is the Mound Bottom State Archeological Area which is managed by Harpeth River State Park. A family friend of mine, Lisa Housholder, is a ranger at the Harpeth River State Park and was a prominent figure in a video discussing the park. When the video was released my dad shared it with my family to show off for Lisa and by association introduced me to the mounds. People are only allowed into the area with permission from “the Harpeth River State Park or Tennessee Division of Archaeology” to protect the mounds, but there is an option to partake in free or paid tours of the mounds throughout the year to experience the area (TN, para. 5). The other protected mound areas are Johnston State Archaeological Area in West Tennessee, Link Farms State Archaeological Area in West Tennessee, Castalian Springs Mounds State Archaeological Area in Middle Tennessee, and Pinson Mounds State Archaeological Park in West Tennessee. Because the Harpeth River is all I can talk about, I’ll be focusing my historical research on Mound Bottom.

There are twelve known mounds in the area, one of which is a burial site and the rest likely had structures built on them. The mounds take up a seven acre area in a bend of the Harpeth. Between the years of 1936-1940 the Works Progress Administration (WPA) excavated the Mound Bottom site. This was done in an effort to bring these historical discoveries closer to population centers in the state, namely Nashville which is 25 miles from Mound Bottom (Moore, Dye, and Smith, 2016). Thomas M. N. Lewis was behind this decision and was inspired by the work of Edwin Curtiss in 1878, William E. Myer in 1923, and Parmenio Edward Cox in 1924 (Moore, Dye, and Smith, 2016). Both Myer and Parmenio died before their research was published, but what was found contributed significantly to our knowledge of the mounds through the mapping conducted by members of their teams, Crawford C. Anderson and Claire Cole Fisher (Moore, Dye, and Smith, 2016). [At this point in my research I went a little off track because the source I was reading claimed that Highway 70 connected Memphis to Nashville and I didn’t believe that. I was wrong. I have lived off of Highway 70 for the past nearly 20 years and I was unaware that I could drive it to Memphis {or Knoxville}.] The WPA excavation of the mounds focussed on the graves found on site (Moore, Dye, and Smith, 2016). All of the previous studies in some part covered the graves on the site which are marked with stone-box graves, but because of the questionable ethics of this research, I feel it is best not to discuss the grave-related findings. 

This is definitely a numbers/dates-based search into history rather than some of my more emotionally/feelings-based explorations. I learned a lot from this (not all of it shared due to the nature of the research) and did find the multiple studies very interesting.

Sources

Moore, M., Dye, D., & Smith, K. (2016). WPA excavations at the mound bottom and pack sites in middle Tennessee, 1936-1940. In D. H. Dye (Ed.) New Deal archaeology in Tennessee: Intellectual, methodological, and theoretical contributions (pp. 116-137). University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa.

Mound bottom state archaeological area. Tennessee State Government – TN.gov. (n.d.). https://www.tn.gov/environment/program-areas/arch-archaeology/state-archaeological-parks-areas/mound-bottom-state-archaeological-area.h

Wild side tv. (2022, January 28). Mound bottom [Video]. Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drah2yeNsUI 

Williams, T. T. (2017). Effigy Mounds National Monument. In The hour of land: A personal topography of America’s national parks (pp. 155-167). Picador.