The Backusburg Mounds ( 15-CW-64) are an

archaeological site An archaeological site is a place (or group of physical sites) in which evidence of past activity is preserved (either prehistoric or historic or contemporary), and which has been, or may be, investigated using the discipline of archaeology a ...

in the

Jackson Purchase The Jackson Purchase, also known as the Purchase Region or simply the Purchase, is a region in the U.S. state of Kentucky bounded by the Mississippi River to the west, the Ohio River to the north, and the Tennessee River to the east. Jackson's ...

region of the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its sove ...

Kentucky Kentucky ( , ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States and one of the states of the Upper South. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north; West Virginia and Virginia ...

. Located near the tiny community of Backusburg in northwestern Calloway County, the mounds are one of the region's premier archaeological sites. Since at least the early years of the twentieth century, the mounds have been well known locally, due partially to their large size; the largest mound measures at the base. Located on a ridgeline above a fork of the

Clarks River The Clarks River, named for William Clark of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, accessed June 8, 2011 tributary of the Tennessee River in the Ja ...

, the mound bears a peculiar shape; its size and shape have caused observers to suggest that it might actually be the remnants of a series of smaller mounds placed next to each other. As late as the 1930s, this largest mound had never been plowed; it lay in dense woodland, and among the trees growing upon it were some of considerable size. Nevertheless, the mound has not been preserved entirely without damage; various parts of the mound have been dug into at various times and have yielded numerous artifacts. Such findings are not unprecedented in the area; a field close to Backusburg has long produced skeletons,

projectile point In North American archaeological terminology, a projectile point is an object that was hafted to a weapon that was capable of being thrown or projected, such as a javelin, dart, or arrow. They are thus different from weapons presumed to have ...

s, and

pottery Pottery is the process and the products of forming vessels and other objects with clay and other ceramic materials, which are fired at high temperatures to give them a hard and durable form. Major types include earthenware, stoneware and ...

when plowed, leading to its identification as a former village site. Archaeologists first learned of the site in the 1920s, but only one scholarly investigation was conducted at the site during the twentieth century; it was performed largely by a team of students from the nearby Murray State University under the leadership of archaeologist Kenneth Carstens in 1981. Although Murray State only had one day's access to the site, the team was able to produce maps of the site that enabled its boundaries to be determined accurately, and the materials they collected from the surface enabled Carstens to study the site's cultural affiliation; it has since been determined to be a work of a Mississippian people. Four years later, the mound complex was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

under its

Smithsonian trinomial A Smithsonian trinomial (formally the Smithsonian Institution Trinomial System, abbreviated SITS) is a unique identifier assigned to archaeological sites in many states in the United States. They are composed of one or two digits coding for the sta ...

designation of 15-CW-64; it is Calloway County's only National Register-listed archaeological site and one of thirteen in the Jackson Purchase with this designation. Additional work was finally conducted at Backusburg in mid-2013, as another team of Murray State archaeology students was assigned to document the site more carefully for their

field school A field school is a short term academic program consisting of mentored field research The Archaeological Conservancy The Archaeological Conservancy is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization that acquires and preserves archaeological sites in the United States. Whereas nearly every other nation protects all archaeological sites within its borders as part of its natio ...

, an organization whose raison d'être is purchasing archaeological sites in order to preserve them.Michel, Mark.
Private Property-National Legacy
, ''The SAA Archaeological Record'' 3.3 (May 2003): 4-5: 4.

References

{{National Register of Historic Places Middle Mississippian culture Archaeological sites on the National Register of Historic Places in Kentucky Mounds in Kentucky National Register of Historic Places in Calloway County, Kentucky