Mound Construction Chronology at Angel Mounds Episodic Mound Construction and Ceremonial Events

Mound F was the second-largest platform mound at Angel Mounds (12Vg1), a Mississippian town in southwestern Indiana. It consisted of a simple truncated pyramid shape, but excavations in 1939–1942 and 1964–1965 revealed at least two platforms that once contained buildings buried within it. Each of these mounds and buildings were successively larger than the preceding. The first platform mound (informally known as the inner mound) was <1 m high and include at least two buildings. Thatch from one building yielded a 14C age of 900 B.P. Other 14C ages indicated that the inner mound was buried ca. 750 B.P. when a second ca. 2 m high platform (informally known as the primary mound) was built. Features and structural elements from a large, multichambered building on this surface yield 14C ages between 680 and 530 B.P. A final ca. 3–4 m mound (informally known as the secondary mound) was built over the Primary Mound soon after 530 B.P. No building was found on the secondary mound’s upper platform.Compared to other earthworks at Angel Mounds, the building on the inner mound platform is among the earliest recorded. It also corresponds with the initial construction of Mound A, which implies that earthwork construction was among the first community tasks undertaken after the site was founded. Unlike Mound A, the vast majority of which was constructed during one episode, Mound F indicates multiple construction and use phases. Each of these probably reflected a significant ceremonial or community event, the final of which may have been part of a “ceremonial closing” of the site.