Mound Bottom is a prehistoric Native American complex in

Cheatham County, Tennessee Cheatham County ( ) is a county located in the U.S. state of Tennessee. As of the 2020 census, the population was 41,072. Its county seat is Ashland City. Cheatham County is part of the Nashville-Davidson– Murfreesboro– Franklin, T ...

, located in the Southeastern United States. The complex, which consists of earthen

platform Platform may refer to: Technology * Computing platform, a framework on which applications may be run * Platform game, a genre of video games * Car platform, a set of components shared by several vehicle models * Weapons platform, a system or ...

and

burial mounds A tumulus (plural tumuli) is a mound of Soil, earth and Rock (geology), stones raised over a grave or graves. Tumuli are also known as barrows, burial mounds or ''kurgans'', and may be found throughout much of the world. A cairn, which is a ...

, a 7-acre central

plaza A town square (or square, plaza, public square, city square, urban square, or ''piazza'') is an open public space, commonly found in the heart of a traditional town but not necessarily a true geometric square, used for community gatherings. ...

, and habitation areas, was occupied between approximately 1000 and 1300 AD,Michael C. Moore, David H. Dye, and Kevin E. Smith, "WPA Excavations at the Mound Bottom and Pack Sites in Middle Tennessee, 1936-1940." In ''New Deal Archaeology in Tennessee: Intellectual, Methodological, and Theoretical Contributions'', edited by David H. Dye, pp. 116-137. University of Alabama Press, 2016. during the Mississippian period. The Mound Bottom site is likely associated with another mound complex located just over a mile to the south known as the Pack Site, or Great Mound Division, and together they have been called the "Great Mound Group." Due to structural similarities in the mounds and ceramic chronologies, these sites are believed to have been contemporaneous.

Geographical setting

Mound Bottom is situated on a horseshoe bend of the

Harpeth River The Harpeth River, long,U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed June 8, 2011 is one of the major streams of north-central Middle Tennessee, United States, and one of the major ...

at the river's confluence with Mound Creek, which approaches the riverbank opposite the site from the east. The Mound Bottom bend is one in a series of sharp bends found along the lower Harpeth as the river twists and turns through a steep gorge en route to its confluence with the

Cumberland River The Cumberland River is a major waterway of the Southern United States. The U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, accessed June 8, 2011 river drains almost of southern Kentucky and ...

several miles to the north. The Harpeth surrounds Mound Bottom on the north, south, and east, while the entry to the bend from the west is marked by rocky uplands. Mound Bottom is today located approximately north of the point where

U.S. Route 70 U.S. Route 70 or U.S. Highway 70 (US 70) is an east–west United States highway that runs for from eastern North Carolina to east-central Arizona. It is a major east–west highway of the Southeastern United States, Southeastern, Southern Unite ...

crosses the Harpeth River, on the outskirts of

Kingston Springs Kingston Springs is a town in Cheatham County, Tennessee, United States. The population was 2,824 at the 2020 census and 2,756 at the 2010 census. Geography According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of . Climate ...

. The site is managed by the

Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation The Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation (TDEC) is a Cabinet-level agency within the government of the U.S. state of Tennessee, headed by the Tennessee Commissioner of Environment and Conservation. The Department of Conservation ...

as part of

Harpeth River State Park Harpeth River State Park is a state park in Cheatham and Davidson counties in the U.S. state of Tennessee, in the southeastern United States. The park is a linear park that was created to connect several state historic, natural, and archaeologi ...

. Site access is prohibited without accompaniment by park rangers or the Tennessee Division of Archaeology. The Pack Site is located on private property approximately southwest of Mound Bottom, just south of US-70, and is not open for visitation.

Archaeological history of Mound Bottom

Together the Mound Bottom site and Pack Site contain up to 34 earthen mounds, including between 11 and 14 at Mound Bottom and 20 at Pack. Some of these are flat-topped platform mounds that supported structures including ceremonial buildings or elite residences, while others were burial mounds.Kevin Smith,
Mound Bottom
" ''The Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture'', 2002. Retrieved: 7 December 2007. At Mound Bottom, the principal large flat-topped mound and up to 13 additional smaller mounds were arranged around a central plaza. The principal mound at Mound Bottom originally stood at least 36 feet tall and measured about 246 feet along each side of its base, and is oriented approximately 11 degrees east of north.Aaron Deter-Wolf,
30 Days of Tennessee Archaeology, Day 13: A Visit to Mound Bottom
" Tennessee Council for Professional Archaeology, posted 13 September 2014.Michael J. O’Brien and Carl Kuttruff, "Excavations at Mound Bottom, A Palisaded Mississippian Center in Cheatham County, Tennessee," ''Southeastern Archaeology,'' (2012) 31:pp. 70-86 The mound summit was originally accessed via a ramp or staircase located at the midpoint of the eastern face. According to early historical reports the Mound Bottom complex was surrounded by an earthen wall topped with a

palisade A palisade, sometimes called a stakewall or a paling, is typically a fence or defensive wall made from iron or wooden stakes, or tree trunks, and used as a defensive structure or enclosure. Palisades can form a stockade. Etymology ''Palisade' ...

of upright logs.Kevin Markuson,
Mound Bottom: Archaeological Treasures in Cheatham County
" Tennessee Archaeology Net. Originally published in ''The Advocate'' vol. 8, no. 5 (31 January 1998). Retrieved: 7 December 2007. However, any sign of the palisade had been plowed away by the early 1920s.Wiliam Edward Myer, "Archaeological Field Work in Tennessee," ''Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections'', 76-1. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution. 1924 In addition to the earthen, mounds, the site also included hundreds of houses, cemeteries, and agricultural fields. The late prehistoric Native American culture of the

Nashville Basin The Nashville Basin, also known as the Central Basin, is a term often used to describe the area surrounding Murfreesboro, Tennessee, in which Nashville is located. The Central Basin was caused by an uplifting which produced a dome known as the N ...

has been referenced in older and non-scholarly sources as being either the ''

Mound Builders A number of pre-Columbian cultures are collectively termed "Mound Builders". The term does not refer to a specific people or archaeological culture, but refers to the characteristic mound earthworks erected for an extended period of more than 5 ...

'' or the ''Stone Graves Race.'' Today archaeologists understand that Mound Bottom, Pack, and other late prehistoric mound sites in the area surrounding Nashville were constructed by a regional

Mississippian culture The Mississippian culture was a Native Americans in the United States, Native American civilization that flourished in what is now the Midwestern United States, Midwestern, Eastern United States, Eastern, and Southeastern United States from appr ...

known as ''Middle Cumberland Mississippian.''Michael C. Moore and Kevin E. Smith, ''Archaeological Expeditions of the Peabody Museum in Middle Tennessee, 1877-1884''. Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation, Division of Archaeology, Research Series 16. 2009. This regional culture was first defined in the 1970s based on distinctive mortuary offerings and the presence of stone box burials, and has since been refined using ceramic typologies A recent reassessment of the Middle Cumberland Mississippian by Moore and Smith resulted in a revised chronology and new understanding of Mound Bottom's placement in the regional cultural sequence. Both Mound Bottom and Pack appear to have been initially established early in the Mississippian period (ca. A.D. 1000) by individuals from outside the region. Based on artifact types and skeletal examinations, it appears these founders may have come from the

American Bottom The American Bottom is the flood plain of the Mississippi River in the Metro-East region of Southern Illinois, extending from Alton, Illinois, south to the Kaskaskia River. It is also sometimes called "American Bottoms". The area is about , most ...

, and possibly from the site of

Cahokia The Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site ( 11 MS 2) is the site of a pre-Columbian Native American city (which existed 1050–1350 CE) directly across the Mississippi River from modern St. Louis, Missouri. This historic park lies in south- ...

. As a result of this connection, the Middle Cumberland Culture in Tennessee was part of the larger Mississippian Ideological Interaction Sphere (previously known as the Southern Cult and

Southeastern Ceremonial Complex The Southeastern Ceremonial Complex (formerly the Southern Cult), aka S.E.C.C., is the name given to the regional stylistic similarity of artifacts, iconography, ceremonies, and mythology of the Mississippian culture. It coincided with their ado ...

), which connected late prehistoric cultures from the

Great Lakes The Great Lakes, also called the Great Lakes of North America, are a series of large interconnected freshwater lakes in the mid-east region of North America that connect to the Atlantic Ocean via the Saint Lawrence River. There are five lakes ...

Gulf Coast The Gulf Coast of the United States, also known as the Gulf South, is the coastline along the Southern United States where they meet the Gulf of Mexico. The coastal states that have a shoreline on the Gulf of Mexico are Texas, Louisiana, Mississ ...

, and the

Appalachian Mountains The Appalachian Mountains, often called the Appalachians, (french: Appalaches), are a system of mountains in eastern to northeastern North America. The Appalachians first formed roughly 480 million years ago during the Ordovician Period. They ...

.George E. Lankford, "Regional Approaches to Iconographic Art." In ''Visualizing the Sacred: Cosmic Visions, Regionalism, and the Art of the Mississippian World'', edited by George E. Lankford, F. Kent Reilly III, and James F. Garber, pp. 3-17. 2011, University of Texas Press, Austin. By A.D. 1350, Mound Bottom and Pack appear to have been abandoned as a major centers, and while mound building and repair ceased, both sites continued to be used as burial locations. This change corresponds to a period of apparent political destabilization in the region, as the centralized authority of Mound Bottom and other large early sites gave way to fortified, autonomous village centers. This is followed in turn by a gradual abandonment of the region toward the end of the fourteenth century. According to Moore and Smith (2009, page 210), by A.D. 1475, Mississippian settlement of the region ''drop well below the level of archaeological visibility.''

Mound Bottom in recorded history

Early Tennessee historian John Haywood noted Mound Bottom's importance as an aboriginal site in 1823, and early settlers reported seeing large fortifications and towers at the site. In the late 1860s, Joseph Jones of the

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded ...

investigated several prehistoric sites in Tennessee, and reported "extraordinary aboriginal works" at Mound Bottom. In 1923, William E. Myer, also working with the Smithsonian, carried out the first modern investigation of the Mound Bottom site. Myer uncovered evidence of a structure and hearth atop one of the mounds at the Pack site and evidence of 10 ancient houses at Mound Bottom. Tennessee state archaeologist P.E. Cox followed up on Myer's finds in 1926, uncovering a number of stone box

burials Burial, also known as interment or inhumation, is a method of final disposition whereby a dead body is placed into the ground, sometimes with objects. This is usually accomplished by excavating a pit or trench, placing the deceased and objec ...

and baked clay floors. Parmenio Edward Cox, Tennessee's first State Archaeologist, conducted a month of fieldwork at Mound Bottom in 1926. Cox excavated at least 70 graves and tested nine mounds No report on those excavations was published. In 1936, 1937, and 1940 the

University of Tennessee The University of Tennessee (officially The University of Tennessee, Knoxville; or UT Knoxville; UTK; or UT) is a public land-grant research university in Knoxville, Tennessee. Founded in 1794, two years before Tennessee became the 16th state, ...

conducted excavations at both Mound Bottom and the Pack Site under the auspices of the

Works Progress Administration The Works Progress Administration (WPA; renamed in 1939 as the Work Projects Administration) was an American New Deal agency that employed millions of jobseekers (mostly men who were not formally educated) to carry out public works projects, i ...

. Those excavations were directed by Charles Nash, and examined several cemeteries and a burial mound. In 1972, the State of Tennessee purchased the Mound Bottom site to preserve it as a state archaeological area. The

Tennessee Division of Archaeology The Tennessee Division of Archaeology (TDOA) is a division of the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation responsible for managing prehistoric archaeological sites on lands owned by the U.S. state of Tennessee, conducting archaeologi ...

dispatched Carl Kuttruff and Michael O'Brien to conduct excavations at Mound Bottom in 1974 and 1975. Kuttruff and O'Brien tested six mounds and 19 houses. The results of those excavations were published in 2012 in the journal ''Southeastern Archaeology''. In 2005, Mound Bottom became part of

, a "linear park" connecting several archaeological, historical, and natural areas along the lower Harpeth. The site is closed to the public, although guided tours are available by request. In 2008 an adjacent 65-acre parcel including additional site area was purchased with the assistance of

Tennessee Parks and Greenways Foundation TennGreen Land Conservancy, formerly the Tennessee Parks and Greenways Foundation, is a non-profit land trust, established in 1998 to protect natural and scenic land in Tennessee. It is accredited by the Land Trust Alliance's Land Trust Accreditati ...

. Mound Bottom and the adjacent pictograph at May's Mace Bluff were the inspiration for the 2014 Tennessee Archaeology Awareness Month poster, created by the Tennessee Council for Professional Archaeology.Tanya M. Peres,
30 Days of Tennessee Archaeology, Day 14: The 2014 Tennessee Archaeology Awareness Month Poster!
" Tennessee Council for Professional Archaeology, posted 14 September 2014.

References

External links

Mound bottom State Archaeological Area
— Includes images, video, and PDFs of research articles
Harpeth River State Park
— official site, includes map
An Example of Intentional Late Prehistoric Dental Mutilation from Middle Tennessee by William O. Autry
{{Pre-Columbian North America Middle Mississippian culture Protected areas of Cheatham County, Tennessee Archaeological sites on the National Register of Historic Places in Tennessee National Register of Historic Places in Cheatham County, Tennessee

Geographical setting

Archaeological history of Mound Bottom

Mound Bottom in recorded history

See also

References

External links