Nathanael Fosaaen | The Tower and The Rising Sun: Archaeology at Pinson Mounds Monumental Complex @NathanaelFosaaen | Uploaded January 2021 | Updated October 2024, 2 hours ago.
The Pinson Mounds complex in western Tennessee is one of the earliest sites in the country to feature platform mound construction. Dating to the Middle Woodland period between ~2000 and 1700 years ago, there is very little emphasis here on the burial of the dead, as is much more common with Hopewellian mound complexes. Instead, structures are oriented around visibility.

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Older content referenced in this video:

youtu.be/7X_3vCcISKs - How time periods are organized in American Archaeology

youtu.be/GhKwLuH44jE - The exotic Swift Creek pottery that was imported to Pinson Mounds

youtu.be/9I67yaJPKTA - Another extremely tall earthwork, Poverty Point, from the earlier Archaic Period.

youtu.be/kUKV-d18TGU - The Shell Mound Archaic cultures who also associated death with west-flowing rivers.


Further Reading :

Robert C. Mainfort, Jr 1988
Middle Woodland Ceremonialism at Pinson Mounds, Tennessee
American Antiquity, vol. 53(1)

Charles H. McNutt 2005
The Pinson Observatory
Southeastern Archaeology vol. 24(2)

Edward R. Henry, Alice P. Wright, Sarah C. Sherwood, Stephen B. Carmody,
Casey R. Barrier, and Christopher Van de Ven. 2020
Beyond Never-Never Land: Integrating LiDAR and Geophysical Surveys at the Johnston Site, Pinson
Mounds State Archaeological Park, Tennessee, USA