460 Ozier Road
Pinson, TN 38366
731-988-5614
Trails and Shelters open 7am to Sunset.
Museum and Office open 8am-4:30p Mon-Sat, 1pm-4:30p Sun.
Third weekend of September is Archaeofest, a celebration of American Indian culture and history.
Group tours and interpretive programs may be arranged by contacting the park office in advance.
Leaving Jackson and heading southeast, the drive to Pinson mounds is idyllic and serene. Entering the archaeological park, the first moment of wonder is parking your car next to the museum and realizing it is a replica of a prehistoric American Indian mound! As you walk around to enter the building from the back, suddenly it’s there in sight: the second tallest mound in the US! The height is staggering and unexpected, and you KNOW this is no ordinary site. In fact, it was probably the largest American Indian prehistoric complex in the Southeast!
If you are fascinated by American Indian history, the two-hour drive from Nashville (1 hour 40 minutes from Memphis) is so worth your time. Pinson Mounds is one of two archaeological parks in Tennessee (the other being Old Stone Fort). For many anthropologists and archaeologists Pinson Mounds are essential study and are widely considered one of the great engineering achievements of North American Indians. Much of what we will discuss regarding the mounds and the 1300 acre park is available online here, but in order to give a deeper dive we will also be looking at papers written about the important site. Let’s begin!
First of all, you will need to have on your best walking or hiking shoes and set aside a day for exploring the trails all over this state park so that you can genuinely appreciate this special place. Grab a brochure at the museum (or download here) to familiarize yourself with the trails and park land. Be sure to spend some time in the museum, either before or after your trek, so that you can learn more about Tennessee’s prehistory from the archaeological library. You’ll find examples of tools and pottery, and exhibits explaining the significance of the Pinson site. In fact, this museum is the main site of archaeological collections for the Tennessee Division of Archaeology! There is also a movie shown here that will help you understand the mounds and what makes them important.
A little background to give you context: The Middle Woodland period, which covered around 0 AD to 500 AD (some say 200 BC to 600 AD), is a period in which prehistoric Native American culture blossomed with local and inter-regional trade spanning great distances. Villages and population centers grew significantly, and ceremonial and burial mounds were created in the Southeast. Here in Western Tennessee, just ten miles south of Jackson, this area on the floodplain of the South Fork of the Forked Deer River was chosen by people from across the eastern US as a ceremonial site, a place worthy of pilgrimage and ritual. From approximately 100 AD to 350 AD, 17 known mounds were built and heavily used, some for ceremonial purposes, and some for burial. The Pinson Mounds complex is divided into three areas, approximately 1500 meters apart: the Inner section, the Eastern section and the Western Section, and all areas are linked together in their designs by the cosmology of those who worshipped here. Equinoxes, ceremonial platforms, ritualistic burials and regional gathering spaces: this site has it all!
The Inner or Central section is the first area you will come to outside of the museum, and is by far the most remarkable: Saul's Mound, a whopping 72 feet tall and 328 feet in diameter! This flat-topped, rectangular mound with an observation deck is the tallest Middle Woodland mound in the US, and one of the tallest of any period! Each of the corners of the mound align with the four cardinal directions, so it was almost certainly built for ceremonial purposes and as an observation point for solstice and equinox sunrises. After climbing stairs from the rear, you’ll be rewarded with stunning views of the land around it. I enjoyed sitting quietly, gazing out on the beautiful vista, and reflecting on the people who worshipped here. This area, called the Central Mound Group, also includes Mound 10, another platform mound, Mound 12, a small burial mound, and several other small mounds.
If you follow the trails heading south towards the river, you will find Mound 15 and the Duck’s Nest, which is a circular embankment that may have been located in the center of another mound but has now been lost to erosion. inside the depression was once a large fire pit, and ceramic traditions from all over the southeast were found here from at least 13 different Native communities across the south. Surprisingly, the ceramics themselves didn’t come from southern Georgia, etc., but rather were made locally to represent these communities! It is Archaeologist Robert C. Mainfort’s idea that all the pottery was created for a single event that was meant to unite the peoples of the Middle Woodland area symbolically. If so, what need was there to integrate the people? Were they confronted with violent outside forces and felt the need to band together, or was their intention strictly spiritual in nature?
The Eastern section, accessible either from paved trails along open fields from Saul's Mound, or from a wooded hiking trail near the Ducks Nest, will take you to another remarkable portion of the park. (If you like to hike, be sure to take the long way around with the Boardwalk. This will take you along the river and a lovely cypress forest!) First, Mound 28, northeast of Saul's Mound. At 13 ft high and 213 wide, this massive mound is almost aligned with Saul's Mound for the summer solstice sunrise. (The field across from it is also a lovely place to have a picnic.) Further south you will enter the Eastern Citadel, a massive 4900 ft geometric enclosure once assumed to be defensive, but now considered to define sacred space. Amazingly, this area is an almost perfect replica of Milford Circle in Ohio and is another example of just have far people travelled to come here. There are two mounds on the southeastern edge of this enclosure. Mound 30 is a bird-shaped mound that may be a burial mound, and recent findings consider it a true effigy mound. The other is Mound 29, rising 11 ft high and approximately 171 feet wide, another rectangular platform mound. This important mound is aligned with Saul's Mound in the direction of the equinox sunrise. I absolutely loved the energy of this mound, it felt bright and welcoming with a perfect view of the woods around it. So, in this sector alone we have two platforms for astrological events, both built 3300 feet from Sauls Mound; however, so far, no mound corresponding to the winter solstice has been found. (A mound called Mound 20 was destroyed by farming and could have been this mound.)
The Western or Ozier Section is accessible either from a trail from Saul's Mound, or you can drive there as you are leaving the park. Follow the Pinson Mound Road and when you are nearly at the park exit you will find a gravel road on your left that leads to a parking area. You do not want to miss the important and often-discussed Western Mound Group where there are at least four other mounds famous among archaeologists. Here you will find Ozier Mound, the second largest mound in the park and one of the oldest ceremonial mounds in the Eastern Woodlands region. Excavations here in 1981 proved that rectangular platform mounds, once thought to only be used during the Mississippian era (1000AD+), were also used during the Middle Woodland period. It is a flat-topped rectangular mound with seven distinct layers of sand in its construction, was found to have materials known to be used for ritualistic activity such as copper and mica, and it overlooks the most famous burial mounds in the park: The Twin Mounds.
The Twin Mounds are one of the largest, most elaborate burial tombs of the Middle Woodland Period! The northern mound is about 23 feet tall and 85 feet in diameter, and the second mound is slightly larger. At one time a flat-topped primary mound was built over these mounds, topped with flour layers of multi-colored sand and clay, and a platform encircled this mound where cremation burials were placed. in 1983, one third of the northern mound was excavated, and the results were shocking. In what is believed to be a single event likely attended by many, at least 18 people were buried below the ground floor in six log and/or matting tombs. Among the buried were eight young women wearing headdresses decorated with copper, freshwater pearls, copper ear spools and small shell beads, as well as four older men with artifacts indicating their status as leaders or shaman. They were found with a sheet of mica with a wooden back that was likely a mirror, a large shist pendant, and one man wore a pair of rattles made from human skull bones at his knees, and all likely wore copper ear spools. (See pics below of the trippy designs on the rattles!) It is very likely that many more people are entombed in the southern mound. What could have prompted such ceremonial and ritual deaths? When similar ritual burials were found in Cohokia, some archaeologists felt that the ceremonies were part of desperate measures to appeal to the spirits. Were they performed to consecrate and bless the grounds, or were they an appeal for help? I can tell you that I personally felt the energy to be very heavy here. I felt emotionally bombarded and even physically manipulated. It was overwhelming to me, and i left an offering at the site to acknowledge the pain and sacrifice of the ancestors. My friend felt a clearing near the twin mounds to be significant. i noticed that the trees tended to grow their branches in the direction of this clearing from all sides, so perhaps there is an energetic center here has well. Also nearby is Mound 31, another burial mound. Importantly, Ozier Mound overlooks all of these burial mounds, and a nearby area to the west called the Cochran area was found to have "exotic" artifacts such as mica, copper, quartz crystals and flint chert. It is here that grave or perhaps trading goods were believed to be made in a temporary mortuary camp.
One of the things that I find most remarkable about the Cochran area and the park in general is that there is no evidence that the site was occupied long term during the Middle Woodland period, only for short periods of time. Surrounding sites show that many other locations were heavily occupied during this period, yet this area was clearly set aside specifically for spiritual reasons, a true Sacred Site, that people travelled great distances to visit. But why here? What made this place so mystically important to American Indians?
According to archaeologist Robert Mainfort in his book Pinson Mounds: Middle Woodland Ceremonialism in the Midsouth, Pinson Mounds was the epicenter for pilgrimage for more than 20 generations of people from all over the southeast! He believes the construction of the Twin Mounds is tied to world renewal rites, and the various construction materials symbolically link opposites (such as Upland Sands vs. Floodplain Clays) to cosmic order (Heavens vs. the Underworld). Mainfort states that the manner in which the men and women are buried beneath the mound with the different layers of materials placed on top and around them clearly indicate rituals that are meant to renew the world and provide order here on Earth and in the cosmos. In the Earth Diver creation myth believed by various American Indian tribes, animals were tasked with diving to the bottom of a body of water so that a creator god or hero could make the world. If American Indian societies believed the world needing renewing or chaos needed to be controlled, this creation myth may have played a part. Pinson Mounds does lay alongside a river (for diving?). But climate change which decimated American Indian communities didn't occur in this area until around 1350AD. (See my posts on the Fewkes Group and Sellars Farm Mounds for a deeper dive into why prehistoric sites were abandoned.) One thing is for certain: the amount of work and engineering that went into creating this ceremonial site, the elaborate pottery and other artifacts, and the complex burial customs show that Pinson Mounds was an important destination for Middle Woodland societies with religious intentions. If you go, I'd be interested in hearing what, if any, energetic feelings you have about the place!
A little bit about the park and surrounding area: The mounds were first surveyed in 1820 after the removal of the Chickasaw peoples and are named after Joel Pinson, one of the surveyors on the crew. Between 1947 and 1972 the Tennessee Division of Forestry and the Tennessee Department of Conservation purchased the land. It became a National Historic Landmark in 1964, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974, and the museum was opened to the public in 1981. If you love the park and wish to stay, there is a lodge and four cabins that can be rented year-round. The star attractions are, of course, the mounds, but also within this area are six miles of interconnecting trails. There are paved trails for bicycles and wheelchairs as well as gravel or natural trails that lead to a cypress forest along the river, fields of hay bales, and lovely sections of beech-oak and oak-hickory woods.
There is another site nearby called the Johnston Site Johnston State Archaeological Area northwest of Pinson, also managed by the Pinson Mounds Archaeological Park, which shows that nearby areas had dense populations and may even pre-date Pinson Mounds. There have only been a few excavations there, but at least three confirmed mounds have been found, and possibly as many as ten. Unfortunately, while this site is managed by Pinson Mounds State Archaeological Park, it is not open to the public except through park officials, so if you'd like to see these mounds as well try to arrange a time for tours of both.
Friends of Pinson Mounds is celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the park in 2024. Please consider a contribution to help with maintenance of the park and future additions by clicking here.
To reach Pinson Mounds Archaeological Park from Jackson, follow US Hwy 45S to the town of Pinson. Turn left at the park sign, onto State Hwy 197 and follow signs 2.5 miles to park entrance.
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