Etowah Mounds

Above left: Stone artifacts from Etowah

Above center and right of center: Gorget interpreted to indicate Etowah and Moundville were not friendly to each otehr, showing the Etowah deity, Morning Star, slaying the Moundville deity. The gorget found at Etowah, is now in the Smithsonian. Photo by David Dye, courtesy of Art Institure of Chicago.

Above left: Etowah Cat Man Effigy.

South Appalachian Mississippian Culture, built and inhabited in three phases from 1000 C.E. to 1550 C.E., located south of Cartersville, Georgia, on the north shore of the Etowah River. Consisting of three main platform mounds; 63 foot tall Mound A is in the center of the site plaza, with 25 foot tall Mound B, and 10 foot tall Mound C to its south. The site was protected on three sides by a curved wooden palisade and moat and on the south by the river. The people of Etowah may have battled with the people of Moundville (see page……) for control over the Alabama River basin.

Elevation is c. 224 (735 feet) above sea level.

Materials: earthen mounds and pole and thatch residential lodges.

Data for CG model:
1. Morgan, William N., 1980. Prehistoric Architecture in the Eastern United States, MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, England.
2. Moorehead, Warren King, ed., 2000; Exploration of the Etowah Site in Georgia, University Press of Florida