Etowah Indian Mounds State Historic Site

At Etowah Mounds State Historic Site visitors can behold the historic landscape that drew the Native Americans of the Mississippian Culture to this location where they developed a high level of artistry and craftsmanship, built a ceremonial complex of ritual and burial mounds, hunted, farmed, fished, and controlled trade along the Etowah River.

Home to several thousand Native Americans from 1000 A.D. to 1550 A.D., this 54-acre site protects six earthen mounds, a plaza, village site, borrow pits and defensive ditch. Etowah Mounds is the most intact Mississippian Culture site in the Southeast.

Visitors can follow a nature trail along the Etowah River where they can view a v-shaped fish trap used for catching fish. The trail also highlights how early civilizations used native trees for food and medicine.

They were a society rich in ritual. Towering over the community, the 63-foot earthen knoll was likely used as a platform for the home of the priest-chief. In another mound, nobility were buried in elaborate costumes accompanied by items they would need in their after-lives.