2019 May - Alabama Moundville Archeological Park.

Our second night on the way to Georgia, John found a cool place to stay in Alabama at Moundville Archeological Park.  They don’t take campground reservations but they said the campground was mostly empty so that worked for us!

The site was occupied by Native Americans who archaeologists refer to as the “Mississippians” culture. They lived here on/around "mounds" from around 1000 AD to 1450 AD.  It’s believed at one time around 10,000 Mississippians lived on this 300+ acre site with ~28 mounds by the Black Warrior River

It’s thought that the tribal chieftains lived on top of some of the mounds, having two houses built on them - one for winter (clay/mud) and one for hot summers ( straw) , others were used for special/public buildings.  

There has been 1000’s of pieces of amazing pottery and stone carving uncovered at this location.

Incredible piece to have been made so many years ago!

The staff on site told a story that the people/clans played “stickball” to settle any disputes and whoever won, won the dispute in their favor - and it could get brutal/bloody.  They also played “stickball” for fun/social and the women joined in those games, however while the women could hit the men in the game and pick up the ball with their hands, the men could not hit the women nor touch the ball... so the women had the advantage in those games!  Not sure how they can figure this stuff out without any written history...

It was a fun stop, nice small campground, we road our bikes around the park/mounds, hiked a couple short trails they have, and climbed 2 of the mounds,  including the largest/tallest one, the others were off limits to preserve them.   

Steps up to one of the tallest mounds

They have a museum onsite 
where you get to see a lot of the pieces found here.  

John took some drone video too.

This spot had lots of Martins flying around - they didn't like the drone at all!

Where2Next?  Stone Mountain, GA