[Aztlan] Ancient American mounds and the Mississippians

[michael ruggeri]

Listeros,

At the annual Southeast Archaeological Conference, Dr. Richard Krause gave a presentation on ancient stone mounds in the Southeast and across the country. He pointed out that there was a fusion between mortuary ritualism and mound building in these mounds between 2000 BCE and 1000 CE. Some mounds contain nothing. But the majority contain human remains and burial chambers. The building of stone mounds matches the distribution of food production and then social stratification. This may have been the impetus to setting off the Mississippian civilization. Community labor to grow food leads to community labor to build mounds and new artifacts are created and then offered to the dead which leads to more production of artifacts and more exchange. The areas of these mounds were made into sacralized space and are the equivalent of shrines and are 1000 years older than Christian or Buddhist or Islamic shrines and they should be treated with the same respect.

Southeasternarcheaology.com has the report here;
http://www.southeasternarchaeology.com/seac2009.html

Mike Ruggeri

Mike Ruggeri's Mississippians and Mound Builders including the Adena and Hopewell
http://tinyurl.com/276d8z

Mike Ruggeri's Mississippians/Mound Builders Art Portfolio
http://tinyurl.com/y9dlgzz