Published On: 03.10.18 | 

By: 9316

On this day in Alabama history: Bottle Creek Indian Mounds recognized

March 10 feature

Bottle Creek is an archaeological site in South Alabama associated with the Pensacola culture, a variant of the Mississippian culture that dominated the Southeast from 1000 to 1550 AD. This artist's reconstruction of the mound complex at Bottle Creek shows the locations and sizes of the various mounds as well as features where materials have been removed for construction or other purposes. Archaeologists commonly call them "borrow pits." (From Encyclopedia of Alabama, courtesy of the Alabama Department of Archives and History)

March 10, 1995

The Bottle Creek Indian Mounds in Baldwin County became the second Native American site in Alabama recognized as a National Historic Landmark. Located on the swampy Mound Island within the Mobile-Tensaw Delta, Bottle Creek was occupied from about 1250 and served as the principal political and religious center of the people of the Pensacola culture for about three centuries. The mounds continued to be an important site for Native Americans into the 18th century, and French explorer Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville is believed to have visited the site in 1702. Excavations on the site’s more than 18 mounds began in 1991 and continue to be administered by the Alabama Historical Commission today.

Read more at Encyclopedia of Alabama.

For more on Alabama’s Bicentennial, visit Alabama 200.