Moundville Archaeological Park

Park Director Bill Bomar at the entrance of the Moundville Museum

During the Spring 2011 Semester CASAA sponsored a field trip to the Moundville Archaeological Park in Moundville, Alabama.

Students and Faculty were given an exclusive tour of the grounds and museum by Park Director Bill Bomar.

History of the Site:
The Moundville site was occupied from around A.D. 1000 to 1450. It was a large settlement of Mississippian culture on the eastern bank of the Black Warrior River in central Alabama. At the time of Moundville’s heaviest residential population, the community took the form of a three hundred-acre village built on a bluff overlooking the river.

The largest platform mounds are located on the northern edge of the plaza and become increasingly smaller around the plaza to the south. Of the two largest mounds in the group, Mound A occupies a central position in the great plaza, and Mound B lies just to the north, which is 18 meter tall pyramidal mound.

Moundville Museum:
The museum, originally opened in 1939, recently received a major upgrade thanks to a $5 million dollar renovation completed in 2010. The museum boasts exhibits featuring the latest technology and more than 200 stunning artifacts that describe one of the most significant Native American archaeological sites in the United States.