[46.03] Native American Calendric Orientation at Town Creek Indian Mound

AAS 207th Meeting, 8-12 January 2006
Session 46 History Potpourri
HAD Oral, Monday, 10:30-11:30am, January 9, 2006, Maryland C

Previous | Session 46 | Next | Author Index | Block Schedule

[46.03] Native American Calendric Orientation at Town Creek Indian Mound

V. R. Tiede (Westport, CT)

Evidence is presented for a newly discovered set of interior solar alignments - the equinox and summer solstice meridian transits - at a prehistoric Native American structure in the Southeast United States. Because North Carolina’s Town Creek Indian Mound is the only Mississippian temple-mound accurately reconstructed from overhead photo-mosaics, the site is uniquely suited for applying the techniques of astro-archaeology (G. S. Hawkins 1983). Implications of the new findings for interpreting Muskogean ethnographic literature as well as future archaeoastronomical research at other Southeastern sites (e.g., Ocmulgee National Monument Earth Lodge, Georgia) are discussed.

The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: biletine@aol.com

Previous | Session 46 | Next