McMahan Mound

Few who visit the vacation hub of Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, realize that there is an old Indian mound alongside the busy highway. The mound, known as the McMahan Mound, gets lost among the sprawling strip malls and hotels.

The McMahan Mound sits on the bank of the west fork of the Little Pigeon River in downtown Sevierville, Tennessee. In my travels to various mound sites throughout the country, one commonality is that mounds are always situated near a good water source. This was a necessity so that the builders could wet the earth and firmly pack it down. According to a Wikipedia entry, the McMahan Indian Mound:

…consists of a 16 feet (5 m) high and 240 feet (73 m) wide platform mound, with a large associated village surrounded by a palisade. It was occupied by Dallas Phase peoples of the South Appalachian Mississippian culture between 1200 and 1500 CE. At the time when the ancient mound was first investigated scientifically in 1881 by a party associated with the Smithsonian Institution, the earthwork was located on a farm owned by the McMahan family. The mound is now named for that family.

The McMahan family was hesitant to allow the mound to be opened and examined. William H. Holmes, writing in the Third Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, said: “Mr. Palmer spent several days in trying to obtain permission to open it, and was about leaving in despair, when the owners finally yielded, not, however, without requiring a number of concessions on the part of the collector, which concessions were put in the form of a legal document.” Holmes went on to describe the excavation:

Three feet below the surface, a stratum of burnt clay, 15 feet wide by 30 long, was reached. This has probably formed part of the roof of a dwelling. Beneath this was a bed of charcoal 4 inches thick. In this bed remnants of cedar posts from 2 to 4 inches thick and 1 to 2 feet in length were found. Below this was a stratum of ashes, covering a limited area to the depth of 4 feet. Surrounding this, the earth contained fragments of numerous articles used by the inhabitants, while beneath came 4½ feet of earth, in which numerous skeletons had been deposited. The bodies had been interred without order, and the bones were so intermingled, and so far decayed, that no complete skeletons could be collected. Beneath the layer of bones came a second deposit of ashes, 2 feet thick by 2½ feet in diameter, and beneath this a mass of red clay, 18 inches in thickness. In the earth surrounding the ashes and clay, a number of skeletons were found; these were in such an advanced stage of decomposition that only a few fragments of skulls could be preserved. Three feet below the second layer of bones, the undisturbed soil was reached. Two boxes of bones were collected, the well-preserved crania numbering about twenty. A great many interesting specimens of the implements, utensils, and ornaments of the mound-builders were obtained.

Holmes also described objects recovered in the excavation made of shell, metal, clay, and stone. Of the articles made from stone, there were “numerous specimens of arrow-points, flakes, cores, and rough masses of gray and black chalcedony, obtained partly from the mound, and partly from the soil surrounding it.” A pipe carved from gray marble, glass beads, and “a large number of minute quartz pebbles, probably used in a rattle or in playing some game of chance” were among the unique artifacts. Excavators found the quartz pebbles with the skeletons in the mound.

Near the surface of the mound, excavators unearthed a large number of clay pipes. The mound also yielded a wealth of clay pottery. Said Holmes: “The collection of pottery from this mound is of much interest. There is but one entire vessel, but the fragments are so plentiful and well preserved that many interesting forms can be restored, and a very good idea of the ceramic work of this locality be formed.”

The metal objects found in the mound are quite curious. Holmes described brass pins that are puzzling to me considering brass is an alloyed metal. Brass is composed of about 66% copper and 34% zinc, and of course, the production of brass is not something that was going on circa 1200–1500 CE in eastern Tennessee. Said Holmes:

One of the most instructive finds in this mound is a pair of brass pins, of undoubted European manufacture. The collector makes the statement, with entire confidence in its correctness, that they had been encased in the earth at the time of the interment of the bodies. One was associated with the upper and the other with the lower layer of bones. In size and shape they resemble our ordinary brass toilet pin. The head is formed of a spiral coil of wire, the diameter of which is about one-half that of the shaft of the pin. It is also stated by the collector that an iron bolt was found in the lower stratum of bones. This object was unfortunately lost.

Holmes wrote that few mounds rivaled the wealth of shell ornaments found in the McMahan Mound. Of particular interest was an engraved shell gorget of two “birdmen” fighting. The birdman motif is common among the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex, also called the Southern Death Cult, a name assigned to the similarity of artifacts, iconography, ceremonies, and mythology of the Mississippian mound-building culture. Holmes also found rattlesnake gorgets common within the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex. Coincidentally, or maybe not, the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex is strikingly similar to Mesoamerican cultures, so much so, that “fringe” or “pseudo-archeologists” believe that tribes from the American Southeast originated in Mexico.

It was a cold, dreary, drizzly December day when I visited the McMahan Mound. My first thought was what a shame it was for the mound to be where it is—off a busy three-lane road with the constant noise from passing automobiles. To add insult to injury, a large hotel lays on one side of the mound and a Shoney’s restaurant sits on the other side. That said, at least the mound is preserved unlike thousands—perhaps tens of thousands—of mounds that have been plowed up or paved over.

In the third book in my Detours Into the Paranormal series, I included the story of the McMahan Mound and many others.

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