The Florence Indian Mound was the heart of a largely indigenous cultural center that existed along this section of the Tennessee River Valley centuries ago. A map drawn by E. G. Squier and Edwin Davis in 1848 showed the mound as originally hexagonal in shape, with an eight- to ten-foot-high earthen embankment that partially encircled it from riverbank to riverbank. Archaeological investigations have found evidence that people during the Middle Woodland period originally built the mound between A.D. 100 and 500. Platform mounds dating from this time are somewhat rare, and the Florence Mound is one of the largest known mounds from this period in Alabama. About 1,000 years after the mound was originally built and used, a separate cultural group appears to have occupied its summit during the Mississippian Stage. The Woodland people who originally built the mound belonged to what has been termed the Copean Mortuary Complex, which is associated with a larger cultural group named Hopewell that dominated the Ohio Valley and surrounding regions. Their influence extended from the Appalachian Mountains to the western end of the Tennessee Valley to the Great Lakes. The Mississippian people who later reoccupied the mound were culturally influenced by the ideas and practices of people in the Mississippi Valley. This site is very important to numerous Southeastern indigenous tribes who assert an ancestral connection with those who built and occupied Alabama's ancient mounds. The earthwork landscapes and the objects and information recovered from them reveal a rich cultural tradition that still thrives today among these tribes.

Photo: Sandra Hughes Tidwell

Photo: Sandra Hughes Tidwell

Florence, Alabama · USA