Bynum Mounds

Natchez Trace: A Road Through the Wilderness.

"Today on our journey up the Natchez Trace Parkway we'll visit BYNUM MOUNDS just north of Houston, Mississippi.

"We are now in Chickasaw Territory, and while the Chickasaw did settle here, the Bynum Mounds date form the Woodland Indian Period. This site dates back over 1500 years. There's a recording there that tells of Indian village life, of their living from the land gathering berries, nuts and fruit from the wild. They also fished, hunted wild game and farmed.

In the summers the Woodland Indians lived in lean to shelters and in the winter they lived in more permanent circular houses built from timbers, interwoven with reeds and willow and plastered on the outside with mud.

"Special houses were built where in a small pit the bodies of the dead were cremated. After the site had been used for some time, the entire house was burned and the remains of the cremations along with bodies that had not been cremated were laid around the edge of the burned house. After tools and ornaments had been placed with the burials the entire site was covered high with earth, creating the mounds we see there today.

"Join us next time when we'll hear the myth of Witch Dance on the southern border of the Tombigbee National Forest. I'm Frank Thomas, your guide along the Natchez Trace, a road through the wilderness."

For more about Natchez Trace: A Road Through the Wilderness, visit eddieandfrank.com