View source for Platform mound

{{short description|Earthwork or mound intended to support a structure or activity}}
[[File:Chromesun kincaid site 01.jpg|thumb|right|300px|The [[Kincaid Mounds State Historic Site|Kincaid site]] in Massac County, Illinois, showing platform mounds. Illustration by artist [[Herb Roe]].]]

A '''platform mound''' is any [[earthworks (archaeology)|earthwork]] or [[mound]] intended to support a structure or activity. It typically refers to a flat-topped mound, whose sides may be pyramidal. 

==In Eastern North America==
[[File:Mississippian culture mound components HRoe 2011.jpg|thumb|right|300px|A diagram showing the various components of Eastern North American indigenous ceremonial substructure mounds]]
[[File:15 30 186 ocamulgee.jpg|thumb|right|300px|Temple Mound at [[Ocmulgee National Monument]]]]

The [[Native Americans in the United States|indigenous peoples of North America]] built substructure mounds for well over a thousand years, starting in the [[Archaic period in the Americas|Archaic period]] and continuing through the [[Woodland period]]. Many different archaeological cultures ([[Poverty Point culture]], [[Troyville culture]], [[Coles Creek culture]], [[Plaquemine culture]] and [[Mississippian culture]]) of North Americas Eastern Woodlands are specifically well known for using platform mounds as a central aspect of their overarching [[religious]] practices and beliefs. 

These platform mounds are usually four-sided [[Frustum|truncated pyramids]], steeply sided, with steps built of wooden logs ascending one side of the [[Earthwork (archaeology)|earthwork]]s. When Europeans first arrived in North America, the peoples of the Mississippian culture were still using and building platform mounds. Documented uses for Mississippian platform mounds include semi-public [[Tribal chief|chief]]'s house platforms, public [[temple]] platforms, [[mortuary]] platforms, [[charnel house]] platforms, [[earth lodge]]/town house platforms, residence platforms, square ground and rotunda platforms, and dance platforms.<ref name="PLATFORM">{{cite journal|author1 = Owen Lindauer|author2 = John H. Blitz|url = http://anthropology.ua.edu/reprints/18.pdf|access-date = 2011-11-02|journal = Journal of Archaeological Research|volume = 5|number = 2|year = 1997|title = Higher Ground: The Archaeology of North American Platform Mounds}}</ref>

Many of the mounds were the result of multiple episodes of mound construction, with the mound becoming larger with each event. The site of a mound was usually a site with special significance, either a pre-existing mortuary site or civic structure. This site was covered with a layer of basket-transported soil and [[clay]] known as mound fill, and a new structure constructed on its summit. At periodic intervals, averaged about twenty years, these structures would be removed, possibly ritually destroyed as part of renewal ceremonies,<ref name=HANDBOOK/> and a new layer of fill added, along with a new structure on the now higher summit. Sometimes the surface of the mounds would get a several inches thick coat of brightly colored clay.<ref name=HANDBOOK>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3JH-TPFjLk4C&q=construction+of+platform+mounds&pg=PA741|title=Handbook of North American Indians : Southeast |author=Raymond Fogelson|publisher=Smithsonian Institution|date=September 20, 2004|isbn=978-0-16-072300-1|page=741}}</ref><ref name=FLORIDAANTHRO>{{cite journal|journal=Florida Anthropologist|title=The Etowah Site, Mound C :Barlow County, Georgia|author1=Henry van der Schalie|author2=Paul W. Parmalee|volume=8|date=September 1960|pages=37–39|url=http://ufdc.ufl.edu/UF00027829/00135/1j}}</ref> These layers also incorporated layers of different kinds of clay, soil and sod, an elaborate engineering technique to forestall slumping of the mounds and to ensure their steep sides did not collapse. This pattern could be repeated many times during the life of a site.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://projectpast.org/gvogel/Cavanaugh/mounds.htm|title=Cavanaugh : A Late Prehistoric Platform Mound in Western Arkansas|author=Gregory Vogel|access-date=2011-10-26|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120415174449/http://projectpast.org/gvogel/Cavanaugh/mounds.htm|archive-date=2012-04-15}}</ref> The large amounts of fill needed for the mounds left large holes in the landscape now known by archaeologists as "[[borrow pit]]s". These pits were sometimes left to fill with water and stocked with fish.<ref>{{cite web|title=Alabama Archaeology: Prehistoric Alabama|url=http://bama.ua.edu/~alaarch/prehistoricalabama/mississippian.htm|access-date=2011-10-26|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111223214303/http://bama.ua.edu/~alaarch/prehistoricalabama/mississippian.htm|archive-date=2011-12-23}}</ref>

Some mounds were developed with separate levels (or terraces) and aprons, such as [[Emerald Mound]], which is one large terrace with two smaller mounds on its summit; or [[Monks Mound]], which has four separate levels and stands close to {{convert|100|ft|m}} in height. Monks Mound had at least ten separate periods of mound construction over a 200-year period. Some of the terraces and aprons on the mound seem to have been added to stop slumping of the enormous mound.<ref>{{cite journal|author = Skele, Mike|url = https://archive.org/details/greatknobinterpr0000skel/page/102|title = The Great Knob|journal = Studies in Illinois Archaeology|number = 4|location = Springfield, Illinois|publisher = Illinois Historic Preservation Agency|year = 1988|isbn = 978-0-942579-03-1|pages = [https://archive.org/details/greatknobinterpr0000skel/page/102 102–103]}}</ref>

Although the mounds were primarily meant as substructure mounds for buildings or activities, sometimes burials did occur there. Intrusive burials occurred when a grave was dug into a mound and the body or a bundle of defleshed, disarticulated bones was deposited into it. Mound C at [[Etowah Mounds|Etowah]] has been found to have more than 100 intrusive burials into the final layer of the mound, with many grave goods added, such as [[Mississippian copper plates]] ([[Etowah plates]]), monolithic stone axes, [[Mississippian culture pottery|ceremonial pottery]] and carved whelk [[shell gorgets#Mississippian|shell gorgets]]. Also interred in this mound was a paired set of white marble [[Mississippian stone statuary#Etowah|Mississippian stone statues]].<ref name=FLORIDAANTHRO/>

===Interpretations===
A long-standing interpretation of Mississippian mounds comes from [[Vernon James Knight]], who stated that the Mississippian platform mounds were one of the three "sacra", or objects of sacred display, of the Mississippian religion – also see [[Earth/fertility cult]] and [[Southeastern Ceremonial Complex]]. He based his theory on [[analogy]] to [[ethnographic]] and [[historic]] data on related [[Native Americans in the United States|Native American]] [[tribe|tribal]] groups in the Southeastern United States.

Knight suggests a microcosmic ritual organization based around a "native earth" [[autochthon (person)|autochthon]]y, agriculture, fertility, and purification scheme, in which mounds and the site layout replicate [[cosmology]]. Mound rebuilding episodes are construed as rituals of burial and renewal, while the four-sided construction acts to replicate the flat earth and the four quarters of the earth.<ref>{{cite thesis |author= Knight, Vernon J. Jr. | year=1981| title =Mississippian Ritual |degree=Ph.D. |publisher= University of Florida }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |author=Knight, Vernon J. Jr. |year=1986 |title=The Institutional Organization of Mississippian Religion| journal= [[American Antiquity]]| volume=51|issue=4 | pages=675–687 | doi=10.2307/280859|jstor=280859 |s2cid=126495746 }}</ref>

==In other cultures==
The use of platform mounds is documented elsewhere in the world, including: 
*in [[Mesoamerica]], the [[Olmec]] and other groups  - see [[Mesoamerican pyramids]]
*the [[Norte Chico civilization|Norte Chico]]
*the [[Hohokam]]
*in periods of [[History of China#Ancient China|Ancient China]]  - see [[Chinese pyramids]]

==See also==
* [[Artificial dwelling hill]]

==References==
{{reflist}}

==External links==
* {{cite journal|url=http://www.penn.museum/documents/publications/expedition/PDFs/35-1/Rice.pdf| title=Platform mounds in the Arizona Desert| journal= Expedition| publisher= [[University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology]] |volume=35 |number=1 |year= 1993 |author1= Rice, Glenn| author2= Redman, Charles}}
* {{cite thesis | author= Pursell, Corin | format=Masters | publisher= [[Southern Illinois University Carbondale]] |year= 2004 |url = https://siu.academia.edu/CorinPursell/Papers/502312/Geographic_distribution_and_symbolism_of_colored_mound_architecture_in_the_Mississippian_Southeast |title=Geographic distribution and symbolism of colored mound architecture in the Mississippian Southeast}}
* {{cite thesis|url=http://ufdcimages.uflib.ufl.edu/UF/00/09/73/79/00001/mississippiancap00paynrich.pdf|title=Mississippian capitals : an archaeological investigation of Precolumbian political structure|author=Payne, Claudine|degree=Doctoral|publisher=University of Florida|date=1994}}
* {{cite journal|url=http://anthropology.ua.edu/reprints/13.pdf|author1=John H. Blitz|journal=American Antiquity|title=Sociopolitical implications of Mississippian mound volume|author2=Patrick Livingood}}
* {{cite thesis|title= Raised ground, Razed structure :Ceramic chronology, occupation and chiefly authority on Mound P at Moundville|author=Steven Porth|url=http://rla.unc.edu/Mdvlfiles/ma/Porth%202011%20MA.pdf| format=Masters| pages=11–12}}
* {{cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/cahokiamirrorofc0000chap/page/51 |author1=Kitt Chappell |author2=Sally A. |title=Cahokia : Mirror of the Cosmos |year=2002 |isbn=978-0-226-10136-1 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/cahokiamirrorofc0000chap/page/51 51–65] |url-access=registration }}

{{Coles Creek and Plum Bayou cultures}}
{{Mississippian and related cultures}}
{{Pre-Columbian North America}}
{{Pre-Columbian}}
{{Native american styles}}

[[Category:Mounds| ]]
[[Category:Mounds in the United States| ]]
[[Category:Mississippian culture]]
[[Category:Native American architecture]]
[[Category:Religious places of the Indigenous peoples of North America]]
[[Category:Archaeological features]]
[[Category:Types of monuments and memorials]]
[[Category:Mound Builders]]
[[Category:Indigenous architecture]]
[[Category:Earth structures]]