Monacan Village

The Monacan Indians are a Siouan-speaking people who migrated to this region from the northwest over 1500 years ago and became sedentary, building villages and hamlets along the broad flood plains of the James River and its tributaries from present-day Richmond, Virginia, west into southwestern Virginia. Their villages were enclosed by circular defensive palisades, and they lived mainly in round and sub-rectangular lodges called ati, measuring 15 to 25 ft. in diameter and covered with sheets of bark or cattails. Their primary foods included white-tailed deer, wild turkey, box turtle, nuts, and berries. A reconstructed small Monacan village along Cedar Creek presents a living history setting based on the archaeological record of Virginia’s southwestern and Piedmont regions, showing typical activities such as hide tanning, making bone, stone, shell, and wooden tools, traditional Monacan horticulture and food preparation, ceramics, and clothing.

Virginia · United States