The McClung Museum of Natural History and Culture is a museum located on the campus of the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. Built in 1963, exhibits focus on natural history, archaeology, anthropology, decorative arts, and local history.
Etowah Indian Mounds (9BR1) are a 54-acre (220,000 m2) archaeological site in Bartow County, Georgia south of Cartersville, in the United States. Built and occupied in three phases, from 1000–1550 AD, the prehistoric site is located on the north shore of the Etowah River. Etowah Indian Mounds Historic Site is a designated National Historic Landmark, managed by the Georgia Department of Natural Resources. It is the most intact Mississippian culture site in the Southeastern United States.
The Pinson Mounds comprise a prehistoric Native American complex located in Madison County, Tennessee, in the region that is known as the Eastern Woodlands. The complex, which includes 17 mounds, an earthen geometric enclosure, and numerous habitation areas, was most likely built during the Middle Woodland period. The complex is the largest group of Middle Woodland mounds in the United States. Sauls' Mound, at 72 feet (22 m), is the second-highest surviving mound in the United States.
The Mississippian culture was a mound-building Native American civilization that flourished in what is now the Midwestern, Eastern, and Southeastern United States from approximately 800 CE to 1600 CE, varying regionally. It was composed of a series of urban settlements and satellite villages (suburbs) linked together by loose trading networks. The largest city was Cahokia, believed to be a major religious center.
Spiro Mounds is a major Northern Caddoan Mississippian archaeological site located in present-day Eastern Oklahoma. The 80-acre site lies near the Arkansas River, seven miles north of the town of Spiro.
Mound Bottom is a prehistoric Native American complex in Cheatham County, Tennessee, located in the Southeastern United States. The complex, which consists of earthen platform and burial mounds, a 7-acre central plaza, and habitation areas, was occupied between approximately 1000 and 1300 AD, during the Mississippian period.
Toqua was a prehistoric and historic Native American site in Monroe County, Tennessee, located in the Southeastern Woodlands. Along with the Overhill Cherokee village for which the site was named, Toqua was home to a substantial pre-Cherokee town that thrived during the Mississippian period (1000-1600). One of the Toqua site's most outstanding features was a 25-foot (7.6 m) platform mound built by the town's Mississippian inhabitants. The site's Mississippian occupation may have been the village of Tali, which was visited by the Hernando de Soto expedition in 1540.
Sellars Farm Site (40WI1), also known as the Sellars Farm State Archaeological Area and Sellars Indian Mound, is a Mississippian culture archaeological site located in Wilson County, Tennessee near Lebanon. The platform mound was the site of a settlement from about 1000 to 1300 CE. Today, the site is a satellite unit of Long Hunter State Park. The non-profit Friends of the Sellars Farm State Archaeological Area organization conducts tours and upkeep of the site. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on December 11, 1972.
Old Town is an archaeological site in Williamson County, Tennessee near Franklin. The site includes the remnants of a Native American village and mound complex of the Mississippian culture, and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) as Old Town Archaeological Site (40WM2).
The Mississippian stone statuary are artifacts of polished stone in the shape of human figurines made by members of the Mississippian culture and found in archaeological sites in the American Midwest and Southeast. Two distinct styles exist; the first is a style of carved flint clay found over a wide geographical area but believed to be from the American Bottom area and manufactured at the Cahokia site specifically; the second is a variety of carved and polished locally available stone primarily found in the Tennessee-Cumberland region and northern Georgia. Early European explorers reported seeing stone and wooden statues in native temples, but the first documented modern discovery was made in 1790 in Kentucky, and given as a gift to Thomas Jefferson.
Obion Mounds, also known as the Work Farm Site, is an archaeological site of the Mississippian culture located north of Paris, Henry County, Tennessee, on the north fork of the Obion River. The site is the largest Mississippian site in western Tennessee and was probably inhabited by 1000 to 1100 CE. and abandoned by 1300. It consists of seven platform mounds surrounding a plaza measuring 200 feet (61 m) by 900 feet (270 m). The largest mound at the site was 500 feet (150 m) wide by 30 feet (9.1 m) tall with a ramp leading to its summit. At one point the mounds and plaza were surrounded with a wooden palisade. The site also has 2 depressions thought to be borrow pits from which the soil to construct the mounds was taken. In 1845 the owner of the site, Solomon Hartsfield, was digging in one of the borrow pits when he discovered a stone statue. The statue was later damaged in a house fire during the late 19th century and only its head now remains. It is the only Mississippian site in western Tennessee to have produced such a statue. Similar statues have been found at the Angel Mounds site near Evansville, Indiana and the Ware Mounds site in Union County, Illinois.
The Castalian Springs Mound State Historic Site (40SU14) is a Mississippian culture archaeological site located near the small unincorporated community of Castalian Springs in Sumner County, Tennessee. The site was first excavated in the 1890s and again as recently as the 2005 to 2011 archaeological field school led by Dr. Kevin E. Smith. A number of important finds have been associated with the site, most particularly several examples of Mississippian stone statuary and the Castalian Springs shell gorget held by the National Museum of the American Indian. The site is owned by the State of Tennessee and is a State Historic Site managed by the Bledsoe's Lick Association for the Tennessee Historical Commission. The site is not currently open to the public.
The Beasley Mounds Site (40SM43) is a Mississippian culture archaeological site located at the confluence of Dixon Creek and the Cumberland River near the unincorporated community of Dixon Springs in Smith County, Tennessee. The site was first excavated by amateur archaeologists in the 1890s. More examples of Mississippian stone statuary have been found at the site than any other in the Middle Tennessee area. The site was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2010.
The Brick Church Mound and Village Site (40DV39) is a Mississippian culture archaeological site located in Nashville in Davidson County, Tennessee. It was excavated in the late nineteenth century by Frederic Ward Putnam. During excavations in the early 1970s the site produced a unique cache of ceramic figurines very similar in style to Mississippian stone statuary which are now on display at the Frank H. McClung Museum. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) on May 7, 1973 as NRIS number 73001759 although this did not save the site from being almost totally destroyed by residential development.
Stone box graves were a method of burial employed by Native Americans of the Mississippian culture in the American Midwest and Southeast. Their construction was especially common in the Cumberland River Basin around Nashville, Tennessee
The Swallow Bluff Island Mounds (40HR16) comprise a Mississippian culture archaeological site located near Saltillo on Swallow Bluff Island in the Tennessee River in Hardin County, Tennessee.
The Brentwood Library Site (40WM210), also known as the Jarman Farm Site, is a Mississippian culture archaeological site located in the city of Brentwood, in Williamson County, Tennessee. It was occupied during Regional Period IV of the local Mississippian chronology, and artifacts from the site have been radiocarbon dated to between 1298 to 1465 CE.
Mound 34 is a small platform mound located roughly 400 metres (1,300 ft) to the east of Monks Mound at Cahokia Mounds near Collinsville, Illinois. Excavations near Mound 34 from 2002–2010 revealed the remains of a copper workshop, although the one of a kind discovery had been previously found in the late 1950s by archaeologist Gregory Perino, but lost for 60 years. It is so far the only remains of a copper workshop found at a Mississippian culture archaeological site.
The Duck River Cache was the archaeological discovery of 46 Mississippian culture artifacts by a worker on at the Link Farm Site in Middle Tennessee in December 1894.
