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 The Moundville site, occupied from around A.D. 1000 until A.D. 1450, is a large settlement of Mississippian culture on the Black Warrior River in central Alabama. At the time of Moundville’s heaviest residential population, the community took the form of a three hundred-acre village built on a bluff overlooking the river.

The plan of the town was roughly square and protected on three sides by a bastioned wooden palisade. Moundville, in size and complexity second only to the Cahokia site in Illinois, was at once a populous town, as well as a political center and a religious center.

Within the enclosure, surrounding a central plaza, were twenty-six earthen mounds, the larger ones apparently supporting noble’s residences alternating with small ones that supported buildings used for mortuary and other purposes.

Of the two largest mounds in the group, Mound A occupies the center of the great plaza, and Mound B lies just to the north on the site’s central axis. The latter is a steep pyramid with two ramps, rising to a height of fifty-eight feet. The arrangement of the mounds and plaza gives the impression of symmetry and planning. In addition, archaeologists have found evidence of borrow pits, other public buildings, and dozens of small houses constructed of pole and thatch, many of which have yielded burials beneath the floors.

Striking differences between the nobles and commoners showing a highly stratified society can be seen among the excavated burials with their grave goods. ... view more »

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