UGA research rolls back date of first-millennium Earthen monuments of Middle Georgia

New study emphasizes the role of public architecture, community history

Snug against downtown Macon, Georgia, Ocmulgee Mounds National Historical Park includes a network of earthen mounds and a timber-built Earthlodge that date back to the first millennium. One of the most iconic cultural sites in the Southeast and a Traditional Cultural Place (TCP) of the Muscogee Nation, the park also plays an outsized role in models about the "origins" of Mississippian culture in Georgia.

New research published by University of Georgia researchers, National Park Service archaeologists, and Tribal partners suggests a new, later dating for the Earthlodge and likely continuous occupation for other areas of the site, calling into question beliefs about Ocmulgee and its place in the understanding of North American prehistory.

“Ocmulgee is a great site to reinvestigate because it's so publicly accessible — right in downtown Macon, with relatively good interpretive facilities, and pending National Monument status,” said Jennifer Birch, professor in the UGA Franklin College of Arts and Sciences department of anthropology and co-author on the study.

“The idea was that it was settled by Mississippian "migrants" from Tennessee, occupied for a short time, and then abandoned and not re-occupied until the historic period,” Birch said. “The new dating shows a much longer-term and continuous occupation, which means it was always an important place for Muscogee peoples.” 

Earlier excavation work at the site (1933–1941) revealed the network of earthen monuments and other features. Prior to the new UGA-led work, there were only two radiocarbon dates from the primary Native American occupation of Ocmulgee. Both were run in the 1960s—and only one is from the famous Earthlodge community building and contributed to a general chronological assignment of the site to AD 1015.

The new study describes program that included “wiggle-matched” radiocarbon dates from one of the timbers of this building. Wiggle matching means taking a series of dates, in this case from individual tree rings that are part of the timber, in a sequence which allows archaeologists to estimate a more precise felling date for the tree that was used in the construction of the building. Their results show that while there may have been an earlier structure in the same spot as the Earthlodge, the dates from the roof timbers indicate a later construction in the mid twelfth century. The findings suggest that this structure was in use later than expected, which places some of the developments at OMNHP in line with known Ancestral Muskogean histories (e.g., migration stories).

The results have implications for understanding not only the Muskogean-speaking people’s histories and their relationship to Traditional Cultural Places, but also how researchers can begin to conduct archaeology in a way that strengthens descendants’ connections to ancestral homelands.

According to the study, while the new dates complicate OMNHP’s history, it also underscores the importance of large collections from the site housed by the National Park Service. The methods of WPA-era archaeologists at the settlement clearly presents challenges to modern research, the archives present context for the new findings that are of interest to both archaeologists and the Muscogee Nation.

"It is important that the writing of history be a collaborative process, one rooted not only in science, but also in care for the future,” said Victor D. Thompson, UGA Distinguished Research Professor, Executive Director of Georgia Museum of Natural History, and senior author on the paper. “It is our hope that this joint effort by Tribal partners, National Park Service personnel, and university faculty underscores the enduring value of the place we call Ocmulgee. It is a special landscape that deserves to be preserved and to have its history thoughtfully and respectfully told.”

The research work is a collaborative effort that includes Muscogee Nation, academics, National Park Service archaeologists, and private citizens, funded in part by the UGA Faculty Research Grants Program. The study was published in the journal American Antiquity December 19.

Image: Reconstructed in the 1930s, the thousand-year-old Earth Lodge, preserved at Ocmulgee Mounds National Historical Park, in Macon, Georgia.