American Lives

Approximately fifty miles (eighty kilometers) to the north-west of Atlanta, Georgia, near the city of Cartersville, sit the 'Etowah Indian Mounds', a site which contains the tallest mounds of the Mississippian culture in North America.

On the north bank of the Etowah River, the mound complex spans fifty-four acres (twenty-two hectares) and contains six mounds, three being prominent earthen structures and three lesser ones.

The complex was active between AD 1000-1500 for several thousand inhabitants of the South Appalachian Mississippian culture. These people were the ancestors of the later Muscogee, who were called the Creek by settling Europeans.

They grew corn, beans, and squash, and also crafted intricate jewelry, pottery, and shell carvings. Etowah is the Anglicization of the Cherokee-altered version of the Itza Maya and Itsate Creek word, 'Etula', which means 'principal town'. It was at its peak between about 1325-1375.

Etowah was part of a series of cycling chiefdoms which sought to dominate the Coosa and Alabama river valleys in what is now north-western Georgia and north-eastern Alabama.

The mounds would have served a variety of functions, each respectively. The tallest, 'Temple Mound', or Mound A, stands at sixty-three feet high (nineteen meters). It served as the platform for the chief's residence or a temple, symbolizing both political and religious authority in the community.

Mound B stands at twenty-five feet (7.62 meters), lying adjacent to Mound A.

Archaeologists believe Mound B served primarily as a ceremonial or public mound, perhaps supporting a town council house, or another kind of ceremonial structure at which religious or civic leaders gathered. Events such as rituals, feasts, or meetings could have taken place on top of Mound B, making it a key space for community life.

In contrast to mounds A and B, the burial mound for the Etowah elite is Mound C, the only mound to have been fully excavated. Standing at ten feet in height (three meters), it was constructed roughly between 1200-1350 in varying stages, with each stage reflecting new burials and ceremonial use.

Mound C was excavated between 1883-1885, with the work being sponsored by the Smithsonian Institute Bureau of Ethnology. A later full-scale excavation was undertaken in 1925 by Warren K Moorehead which lasted four winter seasons.

Along with artifacts from other sites, these findings were instrumental in defining the 'Southeastern Ceremonial Complex'. The state of Georgia also conducted additional archaeological work in the 1950s.

Artifacts from Mound C and from other areas indicate an artistically and technically advanced culture. Embossed copper plates, ornamental breastplates, shell gorgets, ceremonial weapons, textiles with ornate patterns, and carved marble effigies are all present within collections which have been pilfered, traded, and dispersed, going back at least to the early 1800s.

In accordance with the 'Native American Graves Protection & Repatriation Act' (or NAGPRA), which was enacted in 1990, since 2023 the Georgia Department of Natural Resources has been working to return four hundred and four ancestors and over 187,000 cultural artifacts to lineal descendants and federally-recognized tribes. Over eight institutions across the country hold these artifacts, including the Smithsonian.

Etowah is connected to five Muskogean-speaking tribes: the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, Thlopthlocco Tribal Town, the Poarch Band of Creek Indians, Alabama, Quassarte Tribal Town, and Kialegee Tribal Town. The process is due to be completed in 2028.

In addition to the six earthen mounds, the Etowah complex comprised a grass plaza upon which games would be played, a village site, defensive ditches, and borrow pits.

The borrow pits were created over time by the mound-builders using straw baskets to create the mounds by hand. There are also restorations of the original fish weir structures within the Etowah River itself.

Materials from Mound C reveal Etowah's wide-ranging trade networks. Copper came from the Great Lakes, shells from the Gulf of Mexico, mica from the Appalachians, and marble from local quarries. These connections indicate Etowah's participation in a regional economy and spiritual exchange system which stretched across much of eastern North America.

Sometime around 1700 the site was permanently abandoned by people who became associated with the Creek confederacy. The Cherokee, being pushed further westwards by the arrival of Europeans, lived in the area but never specifically at the mound site.

After obtaining the land in and around Etowah Mounds in the Cherokee Lottery of 1832 and proceeding to alter the property for his agricultural uses, Colonel Tumlin was friends with the Union's General William T Sherman who spared the Tumlin residence in his march south.

Until the mid-twentieth century, Etowah Mounds were known locally as the Tumlin Mounds. In 1953 the Georgia Historical Commission purchased the property from the Tumlin family.

The site became the Etowah Indian Mounds State Park. Colonel Tumlin's great-grandson, Lewis Henry Tumlin Jr, became the park's first resident custodian. Minus the artifacts, today the park is open each day for visitors to explore.