Scott, Ark., is a slow-moving, Southern community, often overlooked, just 16 miles from downtown Little Rock. The land is flat and well-fed by the Arkansas River, flowing about four miles away.
But from that farmland jut three hills - or mounds. Scott once was the center of a thriving civilization, which built a central, cultural site on an oxbow lake, an abandoned channel of the river. Today, the site is preserved as Toltec Mounds State Archeological Park, also a National Historic Landmark.
Clear evidence of three mounds remains - at 49 feet tall (equal to five stories), 39 feet tall and 13 1/3 feet tall - as well as remains of 16 other mounds.
Remnants of a ditch and earthen embankment surround three sides of the 100-acre site. The original height of the mounds remains a mystery, said Amy Griff n, a park interpreter. Others have been destroyed by farming through the years.
The site was constructed and in use for a period of nearly 400 years - from about 650 to 1050 A.D. - but the people who built it left no written record to explain the modern question of “why,” Grift n said.
Only artifacts tell the story, and the park’s staff includes a full-time archaeologist from the Arkansas Archeological Survey for ongoing research. “I’ve been here seven years, and I always learn something new,” Grift n said.
The name “Toltec” is incorrect, however, explains an 11-minute introductory fi lm at the park. The American Indians of the Plum Bayou culture built this site - in fact, these ancestors of the Mississippian culture were the fi rst to build such sites in Arkansas. In the 1800s, when the land owners “discovered” the site, people thought that Indians of the eastern United States were not culturally advanced enough to build monumental mounds and earthworks; the Toltecs and Aztecs in Mexico were associated with civilization and monument building. Archaeologists named this culture “Plum Bayou” after a local stream, but residents always referred to the area as “Toltec.”
The Indians who used the site lived in small farming villages scattered around the area, but only about 52 people lived at the ceremonial site - probably government and religious leaders and their families, archaeologists theorize.
Archaeologists think the people used the river channels and tributaries to travel to the mound site - most probably in dugout canoes. “Twenty miles could easily be traveled in a day,” Grift n said.
The mounds were built “piling basketful after basketful of dirt in one location,” reads a guide to the park’s Plum Bayou Trail. The mounds were topped withclay and flattened, perhaps for temples or residences. They were built around two rectangular “plazas” probably used for ceremonies and other activities. Archaeologists speculate that the entire Plum Bayou culture gathered at the site several times a year.
“Imagine kids playing, women cooking and men hunting,” said Grift n, as she stood in what once was a plaza. “There was no evidence of fighting,” which also supports the thought this was a ceremonial site.
The mound builders laid out the site with a clear plan, with buildings spaced in intervals of 155.8 feet, explains a display in the park’s visitors center. And some mounds lined up with each other, helping measure positions of the sun on the horizon at sunrise and sunset on the solstices and equinoxes.
“The position of the sun on the horizon changes throughout the year,” reads information from the Arkansas Archeological Survey as provided by the park. “A person watching the sunrise or the sunset can observe these changes and use them to mark the seasons and to schedule activities such as planting crops and holding ceremonies.”
“Cultures around the world have the same thing - only not with dirt,” Griffin said, referring to the Mayan structures and England’s Stonehenge. “It’s hard to believe that here in our home state we have a culture that did that. It’s easy to think about (the site) not being as old.”
A 1960s excavation showed that Mound C - with a rounded, rather than fl at, top - stood as a burial ground. Nearby, Mound S revealed a large number of animal bones - mostly white-tailed deer and turkey - and charred nuts and seeds. Archaeologists think this mound was used for cooking during the feasts. A midden - or trash pile - was found in Mound F, withthe evidence pointing to this site being used as a residence, Grift n said.
Evidence of trade with cultures in other parts of North America shows in recovered pieces of copper, lead and shells - none found naturally in central Arkansas. “These people weren’t just stagnate,” Grift n said. “They were trading, traveling or both.” THIS IS THE FIRST STORY IN A MONTHLY SERIES ABOUT HISTORICAL SITES AROUND ARKANSAS.
Life, Pages 6 on 01/08/2014