Mound 6

     This is the largest of the site’s mounds. Although the original shape of Mound 6 is not easily visible today, it once had two tiers, or levels, with flat tops. The lowest level is now largely buried below the modern ground surface. Archaeologists think that this mound may also have originally had a dome-shaped mound on its top. Farmers probably removed it in the historic era so they could plant crops there. Today, the mound is 13 feet tall and 312 feet in diameter.

    This mound stands out because of how people made it. They built it using mixed soils, except for the mound’s outer layer, which is mainly yellow clay. The kind of soil people used to make the mounds clearly mattered a lot. The use of clayey dirt would have helped the mound keep its shape and resist erosion. What the different

colored soils meant is open to debate. Native Americans built this mound and Mound 2 in a line parallel to the edge of the bluff on which the site sits.

(Above) Archaeologists making a map of Mound 6.