OCMULGEE NATIONAL MONUMENTUM

Present Day

Today, some Ocmulgee fields are preserved by The National Park Service. These Ocmulgee fields are called Ocmulgee National Monument. In addition, this park is one of the most famous sightseeing places around Macon in Georgia.

At the park, an annual festival takes place on September 18 and 19. Called the Ocmulgee Indian Celebration. In this festival, visitors can see the Indian’s traditional dance.

There is a museum in the park Visitor Center. A lot of things which are related to the Ocmulgee fields are displayed, such as hundreds of axes, beads, clay pipes, knives, swords, bullets, flints, pistols, muskets, and burial pits. These things help visitors learn about what happened in Ocmulgee.

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History

The history of Ocmulgee is not only the history of the several cultures that lived there but also the way that this place became the Ocmulgee National Monument. First of all, Ocmulgee was inhabited by several cultures. In spite of the fact that most of the people remember this place as the place of the Mississippians and the Creek Indians, evidence found by archeologist in Ocmulgee shows that this place was habited by other cultures included nomadic hunters, archaic cultures, and Woodlands.

The first people that lived in Ocmulegee were nomadic hunters of large mammals, called Paleo-Indians, who lived 11.500 years ago. The next culture who lived in Ocmulgee was the Archaic culture. This culture was characterized by highly specialized stone tools and woven baskets. This culture, also, was hunters and gatherers. The Archaic people lived in Ocmulgee 9000 to 1000 years ago.

Then another culture, called Woodland, appeared in Ocmulgee. This culture used to lived in villages; moreover, they cultivated crops of squash and other fruit. Not only did they cultivate, but they also made objects with baked clay and decorated them with stamping. When the Mississippians arrived, they displaced the Woodland people although the Woodland people continued living in the area.

The Mississippians were a culture which began before AD 750 in the Midwest. This culture was characterized by intensive maize agriculture; in addition, they are known as mound builders. The Mississippians build the Ocmulgee mounds by carrying the soil basket by basket, and this culture used them in different ways for things such as temples, public houses, and houses of their leaders.

After the number of Mississippians decreased, another culture, called Lamar, suddenly appeared. This new culture combined elements of the Mississippians and the Woodlands. Pottery improved since the Lamar not only stamped the objects but also incised them. Lamar people built villages at Ocmulgee surrounded by a fence built with pointed sticks, and two temple mounds with a spiral ramp to the top. These were the villa constructions that Hernando de Soto found in 1540.

After that, between 1690 and 1715 Ocmulgee was inhabited by Creek Indians. In fact, their real name is Muskogee, but the English give them the name Creek, which came from Ocheese Creek or Ocmulgee River. This Native American culture built a village at Ocmulgee to take advantage of commerce with the British; however, the Creeks abandoned the village after they lost the Yamassee War.

During the American Independence War, the Creek people supported the British until the Creek people signed a peace treaty in 1790 with the United States. In 1813, the British convinced the Creeks to fight against the United States again. However, after a bloody campaign, the Creeks had to surrender more than the 50% their territory to the Americans. In fact, in 1828, most Creek had to move beyond the Mississippi River. The remains of the Creeks established the Creek Nation East of the Mississippi which has system of government similar to the system of the United States.

The second part of the history of Ocmulgee, the way that this place became a National Monument, began in 1933, when a big part of McDouglas Mound was removed to use as fill dirt for Main Street. At the same time, some citizens organize archeological excavations on the Macon Plateu. Three years later, Ocmulgee is proclaimed a National Monument by president Franklin D. Roosevelt. In addition, in 1933 2,000 acres started being protected by National Park Service, and the park became 702 acres. Twenty-seven years later, in 1960’s, while workers were excavating to build an interstate highway, when evidence of Muscogee ( Creeks ) and settlement was found.

Ocmulgee’s 50^th anniversary was celebrated in 1986. During this year, Ocmulgee National Park receives two awards for giving good education. After that, in 1992, 300 acres were donated to the National Park Service and, five years later, Ocmulgee was recognized as very significant to the Muscogee (Creeks) people and their legacy. Nowadays, many groups of people take care of the National Park so today’s and future generations can enjoy and learn about Native American Indians.

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Cultures

<Woodland> 1000BC-AD900

After the Paleo-Indian and archaic age, people made villages and began to live there. They grew corn, beans, squash and other plants. This age’s pottery has complex designs. Woodland people decorated their pottery with stamps, which were made of wood and carved with complex designs.

<Mississippian> AD900-1100

Around AD 900, the Mississippian people came and made a big town near the Ocmulgee River. Although no evidence of conflict has been found, almost all the Woodland people disappeared. The Mississippian people constructed the mounds to have both the ceremonies of religious and political ceremonies. The social unit consisting of several towns was called a “chiefdom.” There was a chief in each town.

People were also ranked into social classes. The people who were closely related to the chief could belong to the higher class.

For food, they grew corn, beans, squash, pumpkins, sunflowers and tobacco. They also hunted raccoon, turkey, rabbit, beaver, squirrel, turtles, and deer.

Mississippian pottery was simple, and there were many sizes and shapes. The pottery was used for eating and drinking. Some pottery was formed of people or animals. People used shell gorgets, tattooing, paint, elaborate hairdos, and feathers. People also played the game “chunkey” and “stickball,” which was very similar to lacrosse.

<The Lamar> AD1300-1650

In this age, a new way of life, which was called Lamar, appeared. Woodland and Mississippian cultures were mixed in Lamar culture. The Lamar people were farmers, skilled hunters and mound builders. Designs of both Woodland and Mississippian were also mingled in Lamar pottery. The most typical Lamar pottery was the large bowl, which has flaring sides and a broad inward-sloping edge curved with bold lines.

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Structures and Mounds

The Mississippians at Ocmulgee built a compact town consisted of numerous huts on the bluff overlooking the river. More than a thousand people living there at one time. For their ceremonies, they leveled an area near the river and began constructing a series of earth mounds that were important in their religion and politics.

Earthlodge

The earthlodge was the main structure of the Mississippians at Ocmulgee. There were several earthlodges at Ocmulgee. The best-preserved one of them, which is 42-feet in diameter, was reconstructed in the 1930's. This ceremonial building was located on the north side of the Mississippian village. The original clay floor is about a thousand years old. There is a clay platform, shaped like a large raptorial bird with a "forked eyes", opposite the entrance. This symbol is one of the earliest known examples of the elaborate motifs typical of the Mississippian Period's. There are three seats on the platform and 47 on the bench around the wall. In the center of the lodge is a fire pit. The building was probably the meeting place for the political and religious leaders.

Cornfield Mound

The Cornfield Mound was originally about 8 feet high. Under the Cornfield Mound, archeologists found the well-preserved signs of a cultivated field, which is something of a puzzle because Mississippian agricultural fields usually lay in bottomlands. The mound itself was probably the platform for the ceremonial building.

Prehistoric trenches

Two lines of prehistoric trenches, which are visible behind the Cornfield Mound, have been traced around the east side of the village. These ditches may have been defensive or they may have been borrow pits, sources of fill for constructing mounds.

Great and Lesser Temple Mounds

The Great Temple Mound is the largest Mississippian mound on the Macon Plateau. It is located on a portion of the so-called Macon Plateau that was artificially terraced and enlarged. The mound is 50' high on the side facing the ancient town; the opposite side drops 90' to the river floodplain. Relatively little is known about this mound except that it was topped by rectangular wooden structures and that it was probably used for important ceremonies. The Lesser Temple Mound was partially destroyed by railroad construction in the 1840s.

Funeral Mound

The mound on the town’s west side was probably a place for burials. Like the temple mounds, the Funeral Mound was flat-topped and equipped with steps leading up the side to some kind of mortuary building. Most of the Funeral Mounds were destroyed by railroad construction in 1874. During the excavations in the 1930s, over 100 burials were found at here. Many of these burials contained shell and copper ornaments indicating this mound was probably reserved for village leaders. Like the temple mounds, this mound was built in successive stages - at least seven. The structures that stood on top at each stage may have been used in preparing the dead for burial.

Black Lake at Lamar Village

After the big town on the Macon Plateau declined, a new village appeared about 2 miles away on a high area in the river swamps. This palisaded town, which archeologists called Lamar after the property owners, was the site of two mounds. Its artifacts are a blend of Mississippian elements and those identified with the earlier Woodland Period people of the area. One of these mounds is ascended by the spiral ramp - the only one of its kind still known to exist in this country. In 1540, Spaniard Hernando DeSoto's expedition encountered many towns inhabited by people of the Lamar culture, which was named for this site.

British Trading Post Site (Foreground)

A large Muscogee (Creek) town, one of the several knowns to have existed near the Fall Line area of the Ocmulgee River, arose amid the ancient Early Mississippian mounds on the Macon Plateau. English traders from Charleston were eager to do business with the Creeks and constructed a Trading Post at Ocmulgee around 1690. They traded firearms, cloth, and trinkets for deerskins and furs. Excavations have turned up all sorts of goods, including axes, clay pipes, beads, knives, swords, bullets, flints and pistols and muskets. The stockade wall of the trading post is outlined by concrete "bumpers."

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Festival

In 1990, The Ocmulgee National Monument staff, with support from the Keep Bibb Beautiful Commission, the Bibb County Board of Education, and Ocmulgee Fields, Inc., incorporated the annual National Public Lands into a new, expanded event called the Ocmulgee Indian Celebration. The celebration gave all Bibb County, and the visiting public, an opportunity to directly experience the arts/crafts, music, dance, technology, foods, storytelling, and history of southeastern Native Americans, especially the Muskogee (Creeks) who once inhabited Middle Georgia.

Every year in September, the Ocmulgee Indians have their celebration at Ocmulgee National Monument in Macon, Georgia.

The Ocmulgee Indian celebration honors the heritage of the Southeast's indigenous people, especially the Muskogee (Creeks), and salutes local public service agencies.

This year the Festival was on September 18^th and 19^th between 10 am to 6 p.m. For attractions they had:

1 - Creek Dancers

2 - Choctaw Social Dancers

3 - Cherokee Dancers

4 - Eula Dookeen - Tulsa/Tulesa, etc.

In addition they had a lot of tents with workmanship made by Indians' hand, tents where they sell typical food like "Buffalo Hamburgers" and "Special Corn.”

They wore their costume, which was very colorful, with ball-bells at the bottom of their clothes.

People had to pay U$ 3.00 fee to get into the Festival area.

On School Day, personnel, equipment and displays promoting the efforts and contributions of Middle Georgia heritage-related organizations, Macon's recycling program, law enforcement, fire fighting and emergency response teams are also included in the celebration. A growing number of federal, state and local agencies, organizations, and individuals provide equipment and volunteer assistance.

This Festival is very interesting for everybody. People can learn about American Indian history and enjoy doing different things.

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