From 1000 to 1550 A.D., about one thousand Native Americans lived in the area along the Etowah River in Bartow County, Georgia and left plenty of artifacts as reminders of their lives. Etowah Indian Mounds is a 54-acre archeological site that protects a village site where they once lived, six earthen mounds, a plaza, a defensive ditch, and borrow pits. The mounds were created and occupied by prehistoric people of the South Appalachian Mississippian culture, the ancestors of the Muscogee or Creek people.

Visitors can stroll along a nature trail on the banks of the Etowah River to see fish traps the natives used for fishing. Only a small part of the site has been excavated, but we know already that people who lived there had created a complex society with rich rituals. In the museum located on the site, visitors can learn about the natives' way of body decorating with paint, shell beads, intricate hairdos, copper, and feathers earrings. There are also stone effigies weighing 125 pounds and artifacts made of wood, seashells, and stone.

813 Indian Mounds Road SW, Cartersville, Georgia 30120, Phone: 770-387-3747

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