Visitors to Ingomar Mounds enjoyed perfect weather Saturday

Bright sunshine and fall temperatures hovering near 60 degree made Saturday a perfect day for the annual Ingomar Mounds event.
Sponsored annually by the Union County Heritage Museum, Ingomar Mounds Day gives visitors the opportunity to visit one of the oldest documented places of human habitation in America.

Located on County Road 96 in southern Union County, the 63-acre Ingomar Mounds site is owned by the Archaeological Conservancy, a national non-profit organization, which protects important archaeological sites.

Visitors Saturday had the opportunity to visit with William David Harris, an archeologist with the Mississippi State University’s Cobb Institute of Archaeology. Harris displayed pottery and other artifacts similar to those found at Ingomar. He handed out an information sheet with information about the site. (The document written by Harris is linked below as a PDF.)

Donald Watts of Keownville showed children and others how to use an ancient spear-throwing weapon called the atlatl.

Jewelry-making was one of the crafts available for young visitors to try.

Children and other visitors had the opportunity to practice using an ancient weapon called the atlatl, a spear-throwing device that pre-dates the bow and arrow by several thousand years.

At the Ingomar site, 14 mounds were built by Native American hunter-gatherers about 2,200 years ago. Most of the mounds were burial sites. The largest mound and the one still clearly visible today is referred to by archaeologists as Mound 14. It is 25 to 30 feet tall, approximately 150 long and 100 feet wide.

The purpose of Mound 14 is not known but it may have been built for ceremonial or defensive purposes.

The Ingomar Mounds were first partially excavated during the 1880 and many of the pieces of pottery and other items found then are in the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D. C.

For more details about the 2200-year-old Ingomar Mounds site: Ingomar Mounds History by William D. Harris