Etowah Indian Mounds Historic Site | Cartersville, Georgia
813 Indian Mounds Rd SWJavascript must be enabled to view this map.
Visit the fortified aboriginal center that was the home to several thousand people more than 400 years ago. Walk among the mounds, the largest standing 63 feet tall and covering 3 acres. Tour the museum where artifacts and exhibits interpret daily life in this once self-sufficient Native American community.
The Etowah Indian Mounds symbolize a society rich in ritual. Towering over the community, these flat-topped earthen knolls were used between 1000 and 1550 A.D. as platforms for temples, mortuaries and homes of the village’s priest-chiefs. In some mounds, nobility was buried in elaborate costumes and accompanied by items they would need in their afterlives. Although the Etowah people left no written records, artifacts help explain their lives and culture. Many artifacts at the museum show that the natives of this political and religious center decorated themselves with shell beads, tattoos, paint, complicated hairdos, feathers and copper ear ornaments. Well-preserved stone effigies and objects made of wood, seashells, stone and copper are also displayed.
Etowah Mounds was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1964.
Tagged with: State Parks in Georgia Museums in Georgia Native American Sites
Photo Gallery
Georgia Native American Sites
EMILY GÓMEZ, an assistant professor of art and photography at Georgia College and State University in Milledgeville, toured the South photographing the sites of former Native American villages, defensive fortifications and burial mounds. Here are some of her images of the Georgia locations.
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