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 an ...

in the Jackson Purchase 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 Virgini ...

. Located near the tiny community of Backusburg in northwestern

Calloway County Calloway County is a county located in the southwest part of the U.S. Commonwealth of Kentucky. As of the 2020 census, the population was 37,103. Its county seat is Murray. The county was founded in November 1822 and named for Colonel Richard ...

, 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 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 po ...

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 Murray State University (MSU) is a public university in Murray, Kentucky. In addition to the main campus in Calloway County in southwestern Kentucky, Murray State operates extended campuses offering upper level and graduate courses in Paducah, ...

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 artist ...

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. At the same, the property was in the middle of being bought by The Archaeological Conservancy, 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