Toltec Mounds Archeological State Park
Encyclopedia
Toltec Mounds Archeological State Park (3 LN 42), also known as Knapp Mounds, Toltec Mounds Site or Toltec Mounds, is an archaeological site from the Late Woodland period
in Arkansas
that protects an 18-mound complex with the tallest surviving prehistoric mounds in Arkansas
. The site is on the banks of Mound Lake, an oxbow lake
of the Arkansas River
. It was occupied by its original inhabitants from 600 to 1050 CE. The site is designated as a National Historic Landmark
.
of Mexico
was a 19th-century mistake. Mrs. Gilbert Knapp, owner of the land from 1857 to 1900, thought the Toltecs had built the mounds. Investigations at the site by archaeologist Edward Palmer from the Smithsonian Institution
s Bureau of American Ethnology
in 1883 helped prove that the ancestors of Native Americans had built these mounds and all other mounds within the present-day United States, and were part of a mound building tradition that stretched from the Late Archaic period to the Protohistoric period.
, after a local waterway. Plum Bayou sites are found throughout the White River
and Arkansas River
floodplains of central and eastern Arkansas
, but are also found as far west as the eastern Ozark Mountains. Toltec is the largest site of the Plum Bayou culture. Their relationships with neighboring cultures such as the Coles Creek culture
to the south and Fourche Maline culture
to the southwest are still under investigation. The people lived in permanent villages and hamlets throughout the countryside. They built sturdy houses, farmed, gathered wild plants, fished, and hunted.
Mound groups, such as this one, were religious and social centers for people living in the surrounding countryside. The Toltec Mounds site had a small population, made up primarily of political and religious leaders of the community and their families. This center was occupied from about 600 to 1050 CE.
Located on the banks of an oxbow lake, the archaeological site once had an 8–10 ft (2.4–3 m) and 5298 feet (1,614.8 m) earthen embankment and ditch on three sides. The other side was the lake. Eighteen mounds
were built inside the embankment, and two were originally 38 and 49 ft (11.6 and 14.9 ) high, respectively. Mounds were placed along the edges of two open areas (plaza
s) which were used for political, religious, and social activities attended by people from the vicinity. Mound locations seem to have been planned using principles based on the alignment with important solar positions and standardized units of measurement. Most of the mounds were flat-topped platform mound
s with buildings on them. Other Native Americans lived on the site in the 15th century, but they did not build the mounds.
The site was declared a National Historic Landmark
in 1978.,
Table taken from "Emerging Patterns of Plum Bayou Culture:Preliminary Investigations of the Toltec Mounds Research Project", by Martha Ann Rolingson, 1982.
Woodland period
The Woodland period of North American pre-Columbian cultures was from roughly 1000 BCE to 1000 CE in the eastern part of North America. The term "Woodland Period" was introduced in the 1930s as a generic header for prehistoric sites falling between the Archaic hunter-gatherers and the...
in Arkansas
Arkansas
Arkansas is a state located in the southern region of the United States. Its name is an Algonquian name of the Quapaw Indians. Arkansas shares borders with six states , and its eastern border is largely defined by the Mississippi River...
that protects an 18-mound complex with the tallest surviving prehistoric mounds in Arkansas
Arkansas
Arkansas is a state located in the southern region of the United States. Its name is an Algonquian name of the Quapaw Indians. Arkansas shares borders with six states , and its eastern border is largely defined by the Mississippi River...
. The site is on the banks of Mound Lake, an oxbow lake
Oxbow lake
An oxbow lake is a U-shaped body of water formed when a wide meander from the main stem of a river is cut off to create a lake. This landform is called an oxbow lake for the distinctive curved shape, named after part of a yoke for oxen. In Australia, an oxbow lake is called a billabong, derived...
of the Arkansas River
Arkansas River
The Arkansas River is a major tributary of the Mississippi River. The Arkansas generally flows to the east and southeast as it traverses the U.S. states of Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas. The river's initial basin starts in the Western United States in Colorado, specifically the Arkansas...
. It was occupied by its original inhabitants from 600 to 1050 CE. The site is designated as a National Historic Landmark
National Historic Landmark
A National Historic Landmark is a building, site, structure, object, or district, that is officially recognized by the United States government for its historical significance...
.
Name
The identification of the site with the ToltecToltec
The Toltec culture is an archaeological Mesoamerican culture that dominated a state centered in Tula, Hidalgo in the early post-classic period of Mesoamerican chronology...
of Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
was a 19th-century mistake. Mrs. Gilbert Knapp, owner of the land from 1857 to 1900, thought the Toltecs had built the mounds. Investigations at the site by archaeologist Edward Palmer from the Smithsonian Institution
Smithsonian Institution
The Smithsonian Institution is an educational and research institute and associated museum complex, administered and funded by the government of the United States and by funds from its endowment, contributions, and profits from its retail operations, concessions, licensing activities, and magazines...
s Bureau of American Ethnology
Bureau of American Ethnology
The Bureau of American Ethnology was established in 1879 by an act of Congress for the purpose of transferring archives, records and materials relating to the Indians of North America from the Interior Department to the Smithsonian Institution...
in 1883 helped prove that the ancestors of Native Americans had built these mounds and all other mounds within the present-day United States, and were part of a mound building tradition that stretched from the Late Archaic period to the Protohistoric period.
Plum Bayou Culture
The people who built the mounds at the Toltec site had a culture distinct from other contemporary Native American groups in the Mississippi Valley. Archaeologists named theirs the Plum Bayou culturePlum Bayou culture
Plum Bayou culture is a Pre-Columbian Native American culture that lived in what is now east-central Arkansas from 650—1050 CE, a time known as the Late Woodland Period...
, after a local waterway. Plum Bayou sites are found throughout the White River
White River (Arkansas)
The White River is a 722-mile long river that flows through the U.S. states of Arkansas and Missouri.-Course:The source of the White River is in the Boston Mountains of northwest Arkansas, in the Ozark-St. Francis National Forest southeast of Fayetteville...
and Arkansas River
Arkansas River
The Arkansas River is a major tributary of the Mississippi River. The Arkansas generally flows to the east and southeast as it traverses the U.S. states of Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas. The river's initial basin starts in the Western United States in Colorado, specifically the Arkansas...
floodplains of central and eastern Arkansas
Arkansas
Arkansas is a state located in the southern region of the United States. Its name is an Algonquian name of the Quapaw Indians. Arkansas shares borders with six states , and its eastern border is largely defined by the Mississippi River...
, but are also found as far west as the eastern Ozark Mountains. Toltec is the largest site of the Plum Bayou culture. Their relationships with neighboring cultures such as the Coles Creek culture
Coles Creek culture
Coles Creek culture is a Late Woodland archaeological culture in the Lower Mississippi valley in the southern United States. It followed the Troyville culture. The period marks a significant change in the cultural history of the area...
to the south and Fourche Maline culture
Fourche Maline culture
The Fourche Maline culture was a Woodland Period Native American culture that existed from 300 BCE to 800 CE, in southeastern Oklahoma, southwestern Arkansas, northwestern Louisiana, and northeastern Texas. They are considered to be one of the main ancestral groups of the Caddoan Mississippian...
to the southwest are still under investigation. The people lived in permanent villages and hamlets throughout the countryside. They built sturdy houses, farmed, gathered wild plants, fished, and hunted.
Toltec Site
Located on the banks of an oxbow lake, the archaeological site once had an 8–10 ft (2.4–3 m) and 5298 feet (1,614.8 m) earthen embankment and ditch on three sides. The other side was the lake. Eighteen mounds
Platform mound
A platform mound is any earthwork or mound intended to support a structure or activity.-Eastern North America:The indigenous peoples of North America built substructure mounds for well over a thousand years starting in the Archaic period and continuing through the Woodland period...
were built inside the embankment, and two were originally 38 and 49 ft (11.6 and 14.9 ) high, respectively. Mounds were placed along the edges of two open areas (plaza
Plaza
Plaza is a Spanish word related to "field" which describes an open urban public space, such as a city square. All through Spanish America, the plaza mayor of each center of administration held three closely related institutions: the cathedral, the cabildo or administrative center, which might be...
s) which were used for political, religious, and social activities attended by people from the vicinity. Mound locations seem to have been planned using principles based on the alignment with important solar positions and standardized units of measurement. Most of the mounds were flat-topped platform mound
Platform mound
A platform mound is any earthwork or mound intended to support a structure or activity.-Eastern North America:The indigenous peoples of North America built substructure mounds for well over a thousand years starting in the Archaic period and continuing through the Woodland period...
s with buildings on them. Other Native Americans lived on the site in the 15th century, but they did not build the mounds.
The site was declared a National Historic Landmark
National Historic Landmark
A National Historic Landmark is a building, site, structure, object, or district, that is officially recognized by the United States government for its historical significance...
in 1978.,
Culture, phase and chronological table for the Toltec Mound Site
| Period | Lower Yazoo Phase | Dates | Tensas/Natchez Phase | Toltec Phase | Dates |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Historic | Russell | 1650 - 1750 CE | Tensas Taensa The Taensa were a people of northeastern Louisiana. They lived on Lake Saint Joseph west of the Mississippi River, between the Yazoo River and Saint Catherine Creek... /Natchez Natchez people The Natchez are a Native American people who originally lived in the Natchez Bluffs area, near the present-day city of Natchez, Mississippi. They spoke a language isolate that has no known close relatives, although it may be very distantly related to the Muskogean languages of the Creek... |
Quapaw Quapaw The Quapaw people are a tribe of Native Americans who historically resided on the west side of the Mississippi River in what is now the state of Arkansas.They are federally recognized as the Quapaw Tribe of Indians.-Government:... ? |
1673 Jacques Marquette Father Jacques Marquette S.J. , sometimes known as Père Marquette, was a French Jesuit missionary who founded Michigan's first European settlement, Sault Ste. Marie, and later founded St. Ignace, Michigan... |
| Plaquemine Plaquemine culture The Plaquemine culture was an archaeological culture in the lower Mississippi River Valley in western Mississippi and eastern Louisiana. Good examples of this culture are the Medora Site in West Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana, and the Anna, Emerald Mound, Winterville and Holly Bluff sites located... /Mississippian culture Mississippian culture The Mississippian culture was a mound-building Native American culture that flourished in what is now the Midwestern, Eastern, and Southeastern United States from approximately 800 CE to 1500 CE, varying regionally.... Late Plaquemine/Mississippian Middle Plaquemine/Mississippian Early Plaquemine/Mississippian |
Wasp Lake | 1400 - 1650 CE | Translyvania/Emerald Emerald Mound Site The Emerald Mound Site , also known as the Selzertown site, is a Plaquemine culture Mississippian period archaeological site located on the Natchez Trace Parkway near Stanton, Mississippi, United States. The site dates from the period between 1200 and 1730 CE... |
Quapaw ? | 1650 |
| Lake George Holly Bluff Site The Holly Bluff Site , sometimes known as the Lake George Site, and locally as “The Mound Place,”) is an archaeological site that is a type site for the Lake George phase of the prehistoric Plaquemine culture period of the area... |
1300 - 1400 CE | Fitzhugh/Foster | - | - | |
| Winterville Winterville Site The Winterville Site is an archaeological site consisting of platform substructure mounds and plazas that is the type site for the Winterville Phase of the Lower Yazoo Basin region... |
1200 - 1300 CE | Routh/Anna Anna Site The Anna Site is a prehistoric Plaquemine culture archaeological site located in Adams County, Mississippi north of Natchez. It is the type site for the Anna Phase of the Natchez Bluffs Plaquemine culture chronology... |
- | - | |
| Transitional Coles Creek | Crippen Point Crippen Point site The Crippen Point site is a Coles Creek culture archaeological site located in Sharkey County, Mississippi. It is the archaeological type site of the Crippen Point phase for Late Coles Creek culture in the Lower Mississippi valley. The phase marks a significant change in the cultural history of the... |
1050 - 1200 CE | Preston/Gordon | - | - |
| Coles Creek culture Coles Creek culture Coles Creek culture is a Late Woodland archaeological culture in the Lower Mississippi valley in the southern United States. It followed the Troyville culture. The period marks a significant change in the cultural history of the area... Late Coles Creek Middle Coles Creek Early Coles Creek |
Kings Crossing Kings Crossing Site Kings Crossing Site is an archaeological site that is a type site for the Kings Crossing Phase of the Lower Yazoo Basin Coles Creek chronology.-Location:... |
950 - 1050 CE | Balmoral | - | - |
| Aden Aden Site The Aden Site is an archaeological site that is the type site for the Aden Phase of Lower Yazoo Basin Coles Creek culture chronology... |
800 - 950 CE | Ballina | Steele Bend | 750 - 900 CE | |
| Bayland | 600 - 800 CE | Sundown | Dortch Bend | 600 - 750 CE | |
| Baytown culture Baytown culture The Baytown culture was a Pre-Columbian Native American culture that existed from 300 to 700 CE in the lower Mississippi River Valley, consisting of sites in eastern Arkansas, western Tennessee, Louisiana, and western Mississippi. The Baytown Site on the White River in Monroe County, Arkansas is... Baytown 2 Baytown 1 |
Deasonville | 500 - 600 CE | Marsden | Dooley Bend | 400 - 600 CE |
| Little Sunflower | 400 - 500 CE | Indian Bayou | - | - | |
| Marksville culture Marksville culture The Marksville culture was an archaeological culture in the lower Lower Mississippi valley, Yazoo valley, and Tensas valley areas of Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Arkansas and extended eastward along the Gulf Coast to the Mobile Bay area, from 100 BCE to 400 CE. This culture takes its name... Late Marksville Early Marksville |
Issaquena | 200 - 400 CE | Issaquena | - | - |
| Anderson Landing | 0 - 200 CE | Point Lake/Grand Gulf | - | - | |
| Tchefuncte culture | Tuscola | 400 BCE - 0 CE | Panther Lake | - | - |
Table taken from "Emerging Patterns of Plum Bayou Culture:Preliminary Investigations of the Toltec Mounds Research Project", by Martha Ann Rolingson, 1982.