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The Builders of the Mounds

Temple Mounds - Aztalan, Wisconsin

Temple or Platform mounds were built to be the foundation for structures, usually temples or homes for the leaders of the city they were located in. The most famous temple mound complex known in the United States as called "Cahokia" and is located near St. Louis, Missouri. Archaeologically speaking the temple mounds fit into a category of cultures referred to as "Middle Mississippian."

 

I was able to visit one of the northern most sites of this culture, called "Aztalan" in Wisconsin. Aztalan was most likely occupied between 600AD and 1300AD. It is obvious that the people who named this complex felt that this was much like those found in south and central America and created by the "Aztecs." It is not hard when you visit Aztalan to understand why they did...

  

Please take your time as you look through this page and look at the incredible images from Aztalan in the "gallery" as well as watching the short (and fast loading) videos that I took while I was there.

(click the image below to enlarge)

Major Mississippian Sites in North America

The map shown here shows all of the Mississippian sites and in three categories.

1.) Major temple towns with many mounds (Cahokia being the largest with 10,000 people or more)

2.) Cultural centers with several mounds.

 3.) Large village sites with a few mounds.

Interestingly, Fort Ancient is listed on this map (click the map to view a larger version)

Click here to watch a short video.

 

The Site of Aztalan

The village of Aztalan was roughly 21 acres, surrounded by 12 foot high log stockade which was plastered with clay. Set at intervals of about 80 feet around the 4,400 foot circumference were block houses or towers. Remains of the three stockades around the village have been located, and it is not known whether they were all standing at the same time. Portions of a few logs, partially preserved by fire, show that such woods as tamarack, pine, and oak were used in the construction of the stockades. There was a good spring that still exixts today (but needs a pump that isn't so rusty!) People lived within and outside the stockade walls, corn fields and storage pits were located in both places. Cultural remains at the site show that the residents were in close contact with their neighbors, those people who presumably occupied the area before and during the occupation of Aztalan. Whatever their relationship, evidence indicates an abrupt end to the occupation of the site. This evidence includes charred remains of houses within the stockade, signaling the destruction of the site. Click here to see a short video.

 

 

Habitation Area:

A concentration of houses were uncovered in the area marked on the map above as #2. All the houses were either circular or rectangular in shape. Although no rows of houses were found, the dense grouping of structures suggests some planning. House construction began by setting wall posts. Wall posts were either driven into individual holes or placed within a trench dug to the size and shape of the house. The walls were then covered with plaster made of grasses and clay, called wattle and daub. When a house was burned, this mixture formed a distinctive red substance referred to as Aztalan brick. Roofs were made of bark or thatch. People lived in these houses all year round and many of the houses had entrances facing south, away from the harsh winter winds.

 

Inside the houses were pole frame beds, probably covered with tamarack boughs, deer skins, and furs. Fireplaces were located in the center of the house with a hole in the roof to release the smoke. Food such as corn, nuts, and seeds were stored in woven bags and placed in large pits inside the house. Meat and other perishables were probably stored outside the house where much of the cooking was done.

 

 

 

 

 

Aztalan Main Mound: This is actually a reconstructed mound, but still impressive all the same. (notice the two people on the very left walking towards the mound.) Click here to watch a video.

 

 

Click here to read the informational poster that was about the way this mound was built.

 

 

Second Mound:

This whole complex was enclosed by huge palisaded walls, and this was the first mound that we looked at on our visit: Click here to see the video clip.

 

 

About the Stockades at Aztalan:

The stockades worked as walls and fences for the people of Aztalan. There were three different stockades here, one around the exterior, one surrounding the plaza, and one enclosing the residential areas. The external one had bastions or watchtowers at evenly spaced intervals. Entrances to the site were cleverly constructed. For example, although the walls looked solid, there was a set of overlapping walls at one entrance to the plaza near the southwest mound. The opening is screened from the view, and you enter a narrow, protected passageway.

Interestingly, Spanish Hill had overlapping walls as well.

Click here for video

 

 

About the "Aztalans":

 

 

 

 

Large construction projects such as the stockades and mounds indicate a society that was organized and fairly complex. Furthermore, evidence of some "class" social structure was interpreted from the layout of the site. Houses located at the top of a mound structure were not made for the average person, instead they were created for the elite leaders and/or shamans. From atop of any of these mounds you could see the whole region, and while some members of this groups were buried within the main mound of Aztalan, others were buried in the conical mounds which were at the northeast rim outside of the site. Click here to view a quick video.

 

Within the internal stockade was the residential zone for the majority of the inhabitants, and this is where the large plaza existed and where everyday and communal activities took place.

Note - there is a river to the southeast of the site shown clearly in the map above.


Types of Man-Made Mounds

Man-made mounds are mounds that were made from the ground up and fall into four basic shapes or categories. Conical mounds, Effigy mounds, Temple Mounds and Geometric (usually linear) mounds.

Conical Mounds - look like pyramids except that they are rounded. They, just as the great pyramids, were built in honor of some special shaman or king, and are in fact burial sites for them as well.

Effigy Mounds - are shaped like animals and or spirits, and were believed to have ceremonial, navigational and calendar-like purposes. It is known that many of these align with the stars and could have been used to predict solstices, and even eclipses.

Temple Mounds - were mounds that either were man-made or "truncated" natural hills. Structures (many times temples) were placed upon the flattened top and were considered to be "living spaces" for shamans or their leaders and their families. Geometric-Shaped Mounds - were usually circular, square, or linear in shape, and were thought to have alot of the same uses as the effigy mounds, but sometimes (like the Newark site above) were believed to be created together to build ceremonial & observatory inside large complexes.

To learn more about the people who built the mounds, use the following links: