Albany Mounds State Historic Site facts for kids
Quick facts for kids |
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Albany Mounds Site
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| Nearest city | Albany, Illinois |
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| NRHP reference No. | 74000775 |
| Added to NRHP | October 9, 1974 |
The Albany Mounds State Historic Site is a special historical place. It covers over 205 acres of land near the Mississippi River in Illinois, USA. This site became a protected historic site in 1974. The Illinois Historic Preservation Agency takes care of it. In the 1990s, people worked to make it look like it did a long time ago.
Discovering the Past
This site is super important for learning about the Hopewell people. They lived here over 2,000 years ago! It's the biggest Hopewell site in Illinois. We can find signs of people living here for over 10,000 years.
Long ago, there were 96 mounds at this site. Today, 47 mounds are still here. Eight of them are not in good shape. These mounds can be up to 12 feet tall. The Hopewell people built them as burial places for their dead.
Besides the ancient mounds, the site has fun things for visitors. You can find walking trails, a parking lot, and picnic areas. It's a great place to see wildlife like deer and eagles. There are over two miles of trails. Signs along the trails tell you about the local plants.
Ancient Builders
The Albany Mounds site is even older than the famous Cahokia site in southern Illinois. The mounds here were built during the Middle Woodland Period. This time is also called the Hopewell period. It lasted from about 200 BCE to 300 CE.
During this period, people started to farm more. They also continued to hunt. New tools and farming methods began to appear. This led to more complex societies later on. The Hopewell people who built these mounds lived here over 2,000 years ago.
We don't know much for sure about the Hopewell people. "Hopewell" is a general name for groups of people from this time. It's not the name of one specific tribe.
What We Learned from the Mounds
When archaeologists dug up the mounds, they found amazing things. They found stone and wood crypts. Inside these crypts were cool artifacts. These included detailed bead jewelry, pottery, and mica plates. These items show that the Hopewell people traded with other Native American groups.
The Hopewell people liked to build their villages near rivers. That's why the Albany Mounds are close to the Mississippi River. The river's floods brought good soil and resources. This helped their settlements grow for hundreds of years.
Many pipe stones and special pipes were found here. This suggests the site was an important place for making pipes. Around 350 CE, the Hopewell culture here started to fade. The mounds were left empty until people began to study and protect them in the 1800s.
