Photograph of Mound B, a 38 ft high mound at the Toltec site in Scott, Arkansas. (University of Arkansas Website)

     The Toltec Mounds is a group of earthworks, in the lower Mississippi Valley, constructed by the Indians that lived in the region durring the Middle Ages. Identification of the site with the Toltecs is a mistake made by Mrs. Gilbert Knapp. She was the owner of the Toltec Mounds State Park from 1857 to 1900, and thought the mounds had been built by the Toltecs of Mexico. The people that created the mounds were actualy the ancestors of the North American Indians. They erected hundreds, or perhaps thousands of mounds throught the Mississippi Delta, which stand as monuments to their civilization.
 
  
 
    The mounds were built over a period of decades. Each time a building was destroyed, the mound was given a new foundation and a new building was constructed on top. It still remains a mystery as to what function the mounds served. Perhaps they were for some religious or cerimonial purpose. (University of Arkansas Website)
 
    The Mississippian Indians, as they are called by archaeologists, developed a highly advanced social structure. Their culture, called Plum Bayou, was very different from the cultures of other civilizations that lived in the Mississippi Valley durring this time. Their people lived in permanent villages and hamlets. Early in their culture they farmed, gathered, fished, and hunted. One of their major agricultrual acomplishments was combining the domesticated plants of the eastern agricultural complex of North America with corn and beans from Mexico. Because of this their way of life became based solidly on agriculture, rather than on gathering wild plant foods. This greatly expanded their population, and from 900 A.D. on, more places like Toltec began to appear in the Mississippi Valley. By about 1200 to 1500 A.D., their culture had peaked.

 

    This hoe was one of the Mississippian Indians most important uarding tools. It has a smooth polish from long
use in sandy soil. (University of Arkansas Website)

      The Mississippians' villages  were built in a fairly standard pattern. Ceremonial buildings on large four sided flat-topped mounds faced a plaza. The villagers gathered in the plaza for important events and ceremonies. Archeologists do not know exactly what purpose these buildings fulfilled. The most widely accepted ideas are that they were either religious structures, or the homes of chiefs or other important families. They would have functioned as   temple and town hall where religious ceremonies and political meetings were held. As the Mississippians flourished, the mounds evolved into large urban centers. Sometimes one large flat-topped mound dominated a village or ceremonial center. More often, several mounds were arranged around a rectangular plaza, with the village at its edges. The mounds were built over a period of years. They may have began as a slight rise with an important building on it. After a time, perhaps its grass roof caught fire or the people burned it down as part of a cleansing ceremony. Whatever the cause, the builders brought basketful after basketful of dirt to start a new foundation. Many Mississippians, each hauling 60-pound baskets of soil, worked to complete each stage. When it was ready, they built a new building on top. This process was repeated many times to the same mound, and each time it would grow larger. Crews of workers labored over generations, sometimes a century or more, before an earthwork reached its final dimensions.
 
 
A replica of the type of basket
the mound builders used to
carryl soil to a mound beging
given a new foundation.
 

Painting representing a ritual cerimony taking place in a plaza.
(Lousiana Division of Archeology)

    During the later period of the Mississippian, culture about 1250 through 1550, warfare began to increase between the Mississippian societies. This was probably because of competetion over farmland, which was becoming less abundant duc to the growing populations. Skeletons with imbedded arrowheads have been uncovered at many mound sites. The Mississippian Indians had bows and arrows which could pierce through the chain mail armor of the Spanish conquistadors. There are numerous portrayals of scalping and beheading as well as severed trophy heads in Mississippian artwork. In the mid 1500's, when the Spanish conquistadors arrived in the Southeast, the the Mid-South region was largely abandoned. It was formerly believed that the desertion of the Mississippian centers had been the result of a population loss due to the introduction of European diseases. However, radiocarbon dating has shown that the decline in population began more than a century before Europeans arrived in the region. The decline of the Mississippian Indians' population is still a mystery.
 

Some of the types of arrow heads
made by the Mississippian Indians.
(University of Arkansas Website)
 
 

  Home / Pictures / Mound Configuration / Exploration