16 Facts About Spiro Mounds

Spiro Mounds is an archaeological site located in present-day eastern Oklahoma that remains from an indigenous Indian culture that was part of the major northern Caddoan Mississippian culture.

Spiro Mounds was a major western outpost of Mississippian culture, which dominated the Mississippi Valley and its tributaries for centuries.

Since the late twentieth century, the Spiro Mounds site has been protected by the Oklahoma Historical Society and it is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Residential construction at Spiro Mounds decreased dramatically around 1250, and the people resettled in nearby villages, such as the Choates-Holt Site to the north.

Spiro Mounds continued to be used as a ceremonial and mortuary center through 1450.

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Archaeological research has shown that Mississippian settlements such as Cahokia and Spiro Mounds took part in a vast trading network that covered the eastern half of what is the US and parts of what is the western US as well.

Spiro Mounds has been the site of human activity for at least 8,000 years.

Spiro Mounds continued to be used as a regional ceremonial center and burial ground until about 1450.

Spiro Mounds people participated in what cultural anthropologists and archaeologists call the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex, a network of ceremonial centers sharing the Mississippian culture and similar spiritual beliefs, cosmology, ritual practices, and cult objects.

Later, archaeologists recognized that the ritual artifacts at Spiro Mounds were similar to comparable objects excavated at other powerful Mississippian towns that participated in the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex.

In economic terms, Spiro Mounds seems to have been a gateway town that funneled valuable resources from the Great Plains and other western regions to the main Mississippian ceremonial centers farther east.

Mineralogical analysis of some of the most beautiful stone effigy pipes found at Spiro Mounds, including the famous "Grizzly Man" or "Kneeling Rattler" pipe, have shown they came from Cahokia, based on the material from which they were made.

Archaeologists have determined that Spiro Mounds was at the peak of its cultural importance in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.

One of the most prominent symbols at Spiro Mounds is the "Birdman", a winged human figure representing a warrior or chunkey player.

The fact that the Great Mortuary at Spiro Mounds was built with cedar posts suggests that the burial chamber was meant to be a point of departure from one spiritual domain to another, as cedar was a sacred wood.

Spiro Mounds are located within the Spiro Mounds Archaeological Center complex in Fort Coffee, Oklahoma.