The points of interest in the area are numbered on the map (pages 26-27)
as follows:
1. MUSEUM AND ADMINISTRATION BUILDING. The museum exhibits tell the
story of Ocmulgee Old Fields by the use of pictures and models, with a
minimum of explanatory text, to supplement the archeological materials
themselves. In addition to the administrative offices of the monument,
it also houses the enormous collection obtained during the excavations,
and a small archeological and ethnological library. The design for the
colored frieze around the outer wall of the building’s rotunda is copied
from the incised decoration on a Lamar Bold Incised pottery vessel.
[Illustration: The “husk” or green corn ceremony, still practiced today,
may be as old as the Indian’s use of corn. Here the priest offers the
new fire to the Master of Breath. Museum diorama.]
2. CEREMONIAL EARTHLODGE. Situated some 200 yards southwest of the
museum building, this feature is a reconstruction of the winter temple
which lay at the northeast edge of the Master Farmer village. It shows
the original clay floor and lower parts of the building as they appeared
in use about A. D. 1000. Because the building was burned, pieces of the
original timbers were preserved on the old floor just as they had fallen
from the roof; and for this reason the reconstruction is thought to
present a very accurate picture of the original building. Because of the
need to protect these irreplaceable remains the earthlodge is kept
locked at all times, and is opened only to visitors accompanied by a
guide.
3. CORNFIELD MOUND. A short distance northwest of the earthlodge, this
mound was probably a center for religious festivals during the summer.
It was built in successive stages over the rows of a cultivated field
and thereby served to protect this evidence of early agriculture well
into modern times. In use the mound served as the base or platform for
one or more religious buildings which we might well call summer temples
of the Master Farmers.
4. PREHISTORIC TRENCHES. At the north edge of the Cornfield Mound lies a
portion of one of the two ditches or concentric series of linked pits
which seem to have surrounded the Master Farmer village. Their principal
use appears to have been defensive; but they may well have served as
borrow pits connected with mound construction.
5. GREAT AND LESSER TEMPLE MOUNDS. The Great Temple Mound was the
principal religious structure of the Master Farmers at Ocmulgee. As in
the case of the Cornfield Mound, the buildings for which it served as a
platform were doubtless used in connection with the major religious
festivals of the year, those leading up to and including the great
summer harvest ceremony. No clear indication of the appearance of these
buildings was preserved here, but we find some evidence of a rectangular
framework of small posts set at intervals. These were very likely
intertwined with cane, and the whole building plastered with clay and
roofed with sod or thatch. Like almost all temple mounds, this one
achieved its great size through successive additions to an original
structure of rather modest size.
The relation of the Lesser Temple Mound to the Great Temple Mound is not
known. Its closeness to the latter suggests either that it was an
auxiliary structure; or that the two were built at different periods as
the demands of the religious cycle for periodic renewal of the temples
and enlargement of their bases caused changes in the original plan of
the area. The base of the mound lies at the level of the top of the bank
above the parking area. This is the old plateau level, while the present
park road at this point occupies the bed of an old railroad cut.
6. TRADING POST. The area around the Trading Post stockade and generally
west of it was the site of a Creek village situated here from about 1690
to 1717. The burials are those of Creek Indians interred in the village
area; and the ornaments and other articles placed with the body indicate
that they had been obtained by trade with the English.
The Trading Post itself was probably an active center of Carolina’s
trade with the Indians from shortly after 1690 to its destruction
incident to the Yamassee War around 1715. The five-sided enclosure with
two gates in its broad base side was fenced with a wall of posts
possibly 12 to 20 feet in height. The ditch around four of the sides may
have been to improve drainage within the compound or to provide
additional protection as a sort of moat.
The Trading Path, marked at the north corner of the stockade, ran from
Augusta to the Lower Creek towns along the Ocmulgee. English traders
from Charleston used this old Indian trail as a highway to the Indian
country. Traces of the path were found at intervals during the
excavation, leading from the northeast toward the palisaded enclosure
and thence toward the river.
7. FUNERAL MOUND. Important civil or religious leaders of the Master
Farmer village were buried here. At the base of the mound, log tombs
contained the bodies of several persons, possibly wives and retainers of
the leader. Like the temple mounds, the original mound covering these
graves was built over and enlarged six successive times. More burials
were made in each new stage, and the flat top of each supported a
building which may have been used in preparing the dead for burial. The
present height of the mound approximates that of the third building
stage.
OTHER MOUNDS. The Southeast, Dunlap, and McDougal Mounds, like others
which are known to have been destroyed in the building of East Macon,
lay outside the enclosed area of the Master Farmer village. They were
doubtless the platforms for relatively minor religious structures and
are not included in the interpretative scheme of the monument.