The Moundbuilders Essay

The Moundbuilders The first Native American Moundbuilders had lived east of the Mississippi River in Louisiana in 3400 BC. This was four hundred years before the Egyptian pyramids were built. The largest mound found in Louisiana was twenty-five feet high. The people in this group lived closely to bodies of water such as rivers and lakes and survived mainly on shellfish and fish. The Moundbuilders created relatively large piles of dirt domes that were used for marking territory, performing ceremonies, and were even sites for trade. The trade that was passed through consisted of beads, animal figurines, small stone tools and copper. There was another Moundbuilder group found in 1000 BC in the Ohio, Kentucky, and West Virginia areas. These were called the Woodlands people because of their patterns for building mounds around wooden structures. Unlike the Moundbuilders in Louisiana, the Woodlands people used their mounds as burial sites for the elite of the village. The elite were buried with their most precious objects that included copper, mica, flint, and engraved stones. Mica comes from the Appalachian Mountains, which suggests trade. The Woodlands people were the first to begin domesticating plants. This agriculture process began with wild rice, barley, squash, and sunflower seeds. Towards the end of the Woodlands period around 1000 AD they learned to grow corn. The Woodlands people became so advanced that soon their mounds began to show certain mathematical correlations. For example, there was an octagon build that was precisely double the area of the circle. Points of the Octagon lined up with the moon following an eighteen point five year cycle. Shortly after effigy mounds were discovered. Effigy means a representation or image, like a replication. In the case of the Woodlands people these were in the shape of animals. The most famous is the serpent mound near Cincinnati Ohio. This serpent was clearly as a calendar because different areas of the mound