Moundville is the nation’s second largest prehistoric mound-builder site, sprawling over some 325 acres on the banks of the Black Warrior River in northwestern Alabama. It was occupied and used from about A.D. 1120 to approximately 1650. It consists of some 29 earthen mounds arranged around a great plaza, a mile-long stockade, and hundreds of dwellings for thousands of people. It was at times a heavily populated town as well as a political and religious center that lasted some 530 years.
The University of Alabama Press has released two new books that greatly expand our knowledge and appreciation of this great prehistoric complex. The first is a long overdue pocket guide to Moundville by John Blitz of the University of Alabama. Moundville is the book to read before, during, and after a visit to the site, which is managed as a park by the University of Alabama Museums. Richly illustrated with 50 color photos, maps, and figures and written for the general public, Moundville tells the story of the modern struggle to save the site from destruction, the archaeologists who have studied it, and the ancient Mississippian people who built it.
The second book, by Gregory D. Wilson of the University of California at Santa Barbara, is more scholarly in nature but still of interest to the general reader. It covers the period before A.D. 1350, when large numbers of people still lived at the site. The community was composed of numerous and separate multi-household groups, probably similar to kin groups described by the first Europeans to visit the Southeastern United States. Elite groups exercised authority through feasts, funerals, and other ceremonial events. The commoners maintained considerable economic and ritual autonomy through diversified food production activities. Wilson’s study of diverse household groups is not only revealing of Moundville’s composition, but also has much to tell us of Mississippian life in general as it unfolded across the Southeast.
Both of these new volumes enhance our understanding of Moundville and the Mississippian culture it represented for so many years.
