Ancient American Mounds and the Mississippians

[mike ruggeri]

Listeros,

At the annual Southeast Archaeological Conference, Dr. Richard Krause
gave a presentation on ancient stone mounds in the Southeast and
across the country. He pointed out that there was a fusion between
mortuary ritualism and mound building in these mounds between 2000 BCE
and 1000 CE. Some mounds contain nothing. But the majority contain
human remains and burial chambers. The building of stone mounds
matches the distribution of food production and then social
stratification. This may have been the impetus to setting off the
Mississippian civilization. Community labor to grow food leads to
community labor to build mounds and new artifacts are created and then
offered to the dead which leads to more production of artifacts and
more exchange. The areas of these mounds were made into sacralized
space and are the equivalent of shrines and are 1000 years older than
Christian or Buddhist or Islamic shrines and they should be treated
with the same respect.

Southeasternarcheaology.com has the report here;
http://www.southeasternarchaeology.com/seac2009.html

Mike Ruggeri

Mike Ruggeri's Mississippians and Mound Builders including the Adena
and Hopewell
http://tinyurl.com/276d8z

Mike Ruggeri's Mississippians/Mound Builders Art Portfolio
http://tinyurl.com/y9dlgzz