mounds

(noun)

Formations made of earth that were used as foundations for Mississippian culture structures.

Related Terms

Examples of mounds in the following topics:

  • Mississippian Culture

    • The construction of large, truncated earthwork pyramid mounds, or platform mounds.
    • Such mounds were usually square, rectangular, or occasionally circular.
    • The beginnings of a settlement hierarchy, in which one major center (with mounds) has clear influence or control over a number of lesser communities, which may or may not possess a smaller number of mounds.
    • Mississippian cultures, like many before them, built mounds.
    • This contributed to the myth of the Mound Builders as a people distinct from Native Americans.

  • The Sican

    • The most obvious difference in burial type based on social hierarchy was that commoners were buried in simple, shallow graves on the peripheries of the monumental mounds while the elite of Sicán society were buried in deep shaft tombs beneath monumental mounds.
    • The pyramidal monumental mounds were used as both burials sites for the elite and places of worship and ritual.
    • The Sicán ceremonies (and mounds on which they were performed) were supposed to ensure that there was an abundance of resources for the people.
    • The Sicán were able to build 26 ceremonial mounds in this new capital in that time period.
    • The last capital of the Sicán culture was located just south of the La Leche River where they built 26 new religious mounds.

  • The Maya People

    • Villages began to include central plazas and earthen mounds, occasionally enhanced by masonry.
    • For instance, the site of La Blanca featured a central mound more than seventy-five feet tall.
    • Another early statelet was probably based at the site of Chalchuapa, a town with extensive earthen mounds arranged around several plazas.

  • The Caral Civilization

    • The most impressive achievement of these civilizations were its monumental architecture, including large earthwork platform mounds and sunken circular plazas.

  • The Nazca

    • Early Nazca society was made up of local chiefdoms and regional centers of power centered around Cahuachi, a non-urban ceremonial site of earthwork mounds and plazas.

  • The Vikings

    • The Gokstad ship is a Viking ship found in a burial mound at Gokstad farm in Sandar, Sandefjord, Vestfold, Norway.