Platform mound

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Platform mound

A platform mound is any earthwork

Earthworks (engineering)

Earthworks are engineering works created through the moving of massive quantities of soil or unformed rock . Engineers need to concern themselves with issues of geotechnical engineering and with quantity estimation to ensure that soil volumes in the Cut match those of the Fill dirt, while minimizing the distance of movement....
or mound

Mound

A mound is a general term for an artificial wikt:heaped pile of earth, gravel, sand, rock s, or debris. The most common use is in reference to natural earthen formation such as hills and mountains, particularly if they appear artificial....
intended to support a structure or activity.

ifically, the Mississippian culture

Mississippian culture

The Mississippian culture was a Mound builder Native Americans in the United States culture that flourished in what is now the Midwestern United States, Eastern United States, and Southeastern United States United States from approximately 800 Common Era to 1500 Common Era, varying regionally....
is well known for using platform mounds as a central aspect of their overarching religious beliefs. Mississippian platform mounds are usually four-sided truncated pyramids, steeply sided, with steps built of wooden logs ascending one side.

A long-standing interpretation of Mississippian mounds comes from Vernon James Knight, who stated that the Mississippian platform mounds were one of the three "sacra," or objects of sacred display, of the Mississippian religion (also see Southeastern Ceremonial Complex

Southeastern Ceremonial Complex

The Southeastern Ceremonial Complex is the name given to the regional stylistic similarity of artifact , iconography, ceremony and mythology of the Mississippian culture that coincided with their adoption of maize agriculture and chiefdom-level complex social organization from 1200 CE to 1650 CE....
).

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Encyclopedia

A platform mound is any earthwork

Earthworks (engineering)

Mound

The Mississippian Native American Platform Mound

Specifically, the Mississippian culture

Mississippian culture

Southeastern Ceremonial Complex

Logic

Logic is the study of the principles of valid demonstration and inference. Logic is a branch of philosophy, a part of the classical Trivium . The word derives from Greek language ?????? , fem....
is based on analogy

Analogy

Analogy is both the cognition process of transferring information from a particular subject to another particular subject , and a language expression corresponding to such a process....
to ethnographic and historic data on related Native American

Native Americans in the United States

Native Americans in the United States are the Indigenous peoples of the Americas from the regions of North America now encompassed by the continental United States United States, including parts of Alaska and the island state of Hawaii....
tribal

Tribe

A tribe, viewed historically or developmentally, consists of a social group existing before the development of, or outside of, states.Many anthropologists use the term to refer to societies organized largely on the basis of kinship, especially corporate descent groups ....
groups in the Southeastern United States.

Knight suggests a microcosmic ritual organization based around a “native earth” autochthony, agriculture, fertility, and purification scheme, in which mounds and the site layout replicate cosmology

Cosmology

Cosmology is study of the Universe in its totality, and by extension, humanity's place in it. Though the word cosmology is recent , study of the Universe has a long history involving science, philosophy, esotericism, and religion....
. Mounds rebuilding episodes are construed as rituals of burial and renewal, while the four-sided construction acts to replicate the flat earth and the four quarters of the earth.

Documented uses for Mississippian platform mounds include semi-public chief

Tribal chief

A traditional tribal chief is the leadership of a tribe, or the head of a tribal form of self-government.The notion of a "tribal chief" is rather vague and arbitrary; neither chief nor tribe is clearly defined, so in many cases other designations are used for the same institution, such as petty ruler or even headman ....
’s house platforms, public temple

Temple

A temple is a structure reserved for religious or spiritual activities, such as prayer and sacrifice, or analogous rites. A ??templum?? constituted a sacred precinct as defined by a priest, or augur....
platforms, mortuary platforms, charnal house platforms, earth lodge

Earth lodge

An earth lodge is a semi-subterranean building covered partially or completely with earth, best known from the Native Americans in the United States cultures of the Great Plains and Eastern Woodlands....
/town house platforms, residence platforms, square ground and rotunda platforms, and dance platforms.

Platform Mounds Around the World

The use of platform mounds is documented elsewhere in the world, including among the Olmec

Olmec

The Olmec were an ancient Pre-Columbian people living in the tropical lowlands of south-central Mexico, in what are roughly the modern-day Mexican state of Veracruz and Tabasco....
and other groups in Mesoamerica

Mesoamerica

Mesoamerica or Meso-America is a region and cultural area in the Americas, extending approximately from central Mexico to Honduras and Nicaragua, within which a number of pre-Columbian society flourished before the Spanish colonization of the Americas in the 15th and 16th centuries....
, the Hohokam

Hohokam

Hohokam is one of the four major prehistoric archeology traditions of what is now the American Southwest. Variant spellings in current, official usage include Hobokam, Huhugam and Huhukam....
, and in periods of Ancient China.