Kincaid Mounds Mississippian Era Southernmost Illinois 1050-1400 AD


Kincaid village as illustrated on the Paducah KY floodwall.

Some time around 1,000 AD, Mississippian leaders and their followers arrived in what is now eastern Massac and southern Pope Counties of Illinois and established scattered farming villages and a cultural center. Their cultural center is what we call Kincaid today, named after early European owners of the site. Judging from their cultural traits, these early Kincaid people came from a Mississippian area to the southeast along either the Cumberland or Tennessee Rivers. This founding group probably split away from another village after a strong leader and his family arose and attracted a following.

The region they selected was a wide section of the floodplain of the Ohio River near the mouths of the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers now known as the Black Bottom. It was a forested area with rich alluvial soils whose fertility was replenished by almost annual overflow by the Ohio. The specific site they chose for their cultural center was a high ridge bordering the north side of Avery Lake and about a mile north of the present day Ohio River. Its high elevation reduced its frequency of flooding and made it most suitable for a ceremonial center. These people also occupied the surrounding bottomlands where they lived in many small, farming villages between present-day New Liberty and Brookport.

The average temperature of the climate at the time of the founding of Kincaid was about 5 degrees warmer than today. This was during what climatologists call the "Medieval Warm Period" which lasted from AD 800 to AD1200. Climate cooling after this time may have played a role in eventual abandonment of Kincaid shortly after AD1300.

Most of what we know about Kincaid comes from the extensive archaeological excavation of the site and its surrounding territory by the University of Chicago from 1934 through 1944. The results of this work are compiled in the volume "Kincaid, a Prehistoric Illinois Metropolis" by Fay-Cooper Cole and others published by the University of Chicago Press in 1951. When the carbon 14 method of dating organic material was developed some years later, wood samples from Kincaid were dated by this process. These samples provide a more definitive time frame for the period of occupation of Kincaid than was available to Cole.

Scientists from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale did salvage excavations in the late 1960s when the Massac County portion of the banks above Avery Lake were leveled by a farmer to create a small crop field. They also excavated several small Mississippian farming villages near Kinacid. All of these efforts have added to our knowledge of the site and its people.

Information on beliefs and social structure of the Mississippians comes mostly from the excavations and research at large Mississippian centers like Cahokia near Collinsville, Illinois and the Moundville Site at Moundville, Alabama. Early historic accounts of the Mississippian villages encountered by the De Soto expedition of 1539 to 1543 have also added to our knowledge of these people.

Whether the newly arrived Mississippians displaced the local late woodland "Lewis" Indians that previously lived at the site is unknown. They may have abandoned the site before the arrival of the corn farmers. However, some scientists believe that many local woodland peoples joined the Mississippians when they moved into a new area. Their farming economy offered the hunting and gathering woodland people an easier life and more dependable food supply. At any rate, archaeologists find the remains of a late woodland village immediately beneath the earliest remains of Kincaid.

The first Mississippian people at the Kincaid site made a low, square mound of earth and erected a building on it. This beginning of a pyramid and the structure erected on it was probably the seat of political and religious authority over the community. During the next 300 years these people added to this first structure until a total of 19 earth pyramids or mounds were constructed. These earthworks consist of 90,000 cubic meters of soil that was dug up with stone hoes and spades and carried up on the mounds or pyramids in baskets. In terms of the volume of dirt moved, Kincaid ranks about 6^th among all the prehistoric Mississippian sites. With 11 major mounds, it is 5^th in the number of these mounds.

At least eight of these pyramids survive to this day in a condition that the average observer would recognize as man made mounds (see Figure 1). Some of the smaller mounds have been farmed over for years and appear today as high points in crop fields. The most notable mounds can be viewed from the road that parallels the north side of Avery Lake per the directions at the end of this article. The Massac County part of the site is state owned and managed by the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency. At present the site is managed by no till cropping of the farmable land with the unfarmed mounds supporting trees and brush. The Pope County portion is privately owned.

The lighter brown rectangle in upper center is the Kincaid Mounds section. It extends across the thin vertical white (county) line from Massac into Pope County. The Pope County section has almost an equal number of mounds, but is more heavily wooded. Oxbow lakes and Ohio River are below. Paducah Ky. is just to the southwest.

Features easily visible today consist of the west or largest mound group in Massac County and smaller mounds extending eastward into Pope County. The larger mounds in Massac County partially encircle a large open area that served as a plaza or open public area where ceremonies were held and games were played. Low areas where dirt for mound construction was excavated are visible as are a linear ridge that marks the site of a protective wall or palisade that encircled the site. Some raised areas are visible in village areas where houses were built one on top of another for centuries, and with accumulated debris, resulted in the creation of low elevated areas.

Archaeologists have determined the chronology of construction of the earthworks and layout of the site. The site of the mound we now call Massac Mound #7 or the Beehive Mound was the site of the very first Mississippian mound constructed at Kincaid. This is the closest major mound to Avery Lake and stands on the north edge of the road today. This first mound was square and only 3 feet high and on it was constructed a house or building. Later this low platform was enlarged to a truncate or square pyramid some 15 feet in height topped by structures indicating a period of occupation. During this period the primary village occupied the area that later became the plaza to its north and east.

At this point in time a major Ohio River flood occurred that inundated the entire site except for the pyramid. Gravel and white sand was deposited by the floodwaters throughout the village and on the sides of the pyramid. This flood exceeded in height any historical floods of the Ohio.

Immediately after this flood, a dramatic change took place at Kincaid. The old village was cleared away establishing a plaza, and construction of three new pyramids bordering this plaza on the west and north was begun. Massac Mound #7 was also raised to a new higher level. We may never know what triggered this abrupt change, but similar events happened at Cahokia and Moundville. In these cases the development followed the emergence of strong central political control and the immigration of people from small farming villages to the developing seat of power. This is probably what happened at Kincaid as either new leaders arose or a new religious order or concept spread into the area. This major construction phase at Kincaid took place in what is known as Kincaid’s Middle Component and what is called elsewhere the Classic Mississippian period.

Many of the new pyramids began as low mounds that were lived on or utilized for temples and then added to over the years. But the major pyramid of Kincaid, Massac Mound #8, was the result of one continuous construction effort by a large number of people over a relatively short period of time. This 30-foot high pyramid measures 300 feet east to west by 200 feet wide and covers an area of 2 acres. It is remarkable today for its steep sides that indicate the "engineers" in charge of its construction understood how to overcome the natural tendency of earth piles to slump. The Kincaid family built a home on top of this mound in 1876. A steep narrow roadway up its north side, used by the Kincaids for access, may actually be an aboriginal ramp to the top. Only Massac Mound #10 is larger in area, and it is lower in stature. Figure 2 depicts Mounds 7, 8, and 9 as they appear today from the plaza to the east and the plaza as it appears from the top of the east end of Mound 8 is shown in Figure 3.

Massac Mound #10 is 485 feet long, 195 feet wide at the base and 20 feet high. The flat top is 100 feet wide. After completion of the mound’s construction, a 100-foot diameter circular "offset" mound was added to its southwest corner, which is the corner nearest the main pyramid. This offset rises 10 feet above the bulk of the mound and reaches the height of 30 feet above its base, the same height as Massac Mound 8. The offset is flat to cup-shaped on top because it once had a rampart around its edge. It also had a spiral series of earthen steps to its top. One can only guess that this was a site or shrine of a deity within the overall social structure of the community.

One final mound of special note is the privately owned Pope Mound #2, which lies at the extreme eastern end of the Kincaid site. It is the only wholly burial mound known at Kincaid and was excavated by the University of Chicago in 1936. Its lower levels hold burials in log tombs while those buried in the later upper level of the mound were buried in stone lined crypts. This mound has been farmed over for years and now appears just as a low rise in the ground.

Another public work of note is the palisade. During the Middle Component construction boom, the entire Kincaid site was encircled by a palisade of upright logs or posts. It began at Avery Lake and arced out around all of the mounds and some of the residence areas before reaching down to Avery Lake again. This wall may only have been 6 or 7 feet tall. It was plastered with mud and had "guard houses" at intervals. Its function is not clear. It may have been partially defensive but may also have just been to mark the boundary of the holy ceremonial site and seat of authority. Palisades also encircled some of the temples on top of the pyramids. These were almost surely privacy fences since without a source of water, one could not long survive a siege up on a mound.

One final feature that probably stood at Kincaid is a tall monument pole. Several existed at Cahokia and DeSoto describes them from Mississippian villages he visited in 1540. DeSoto says the Indians hung scalps of vanquished foes from them. At Cahokia, a garbage pit near a monument pole was found to contain several legs and arms of different people indicating that various body parts were also hung from them. They obviously served as a public display of the power of the community or its leaders. If one existed at Kincaid, it was probably at the center of the plaza. Archaeologists have not searched for a monument pole at Kincaid yet.

At its height, the intensively occupied area of Kincaid stretched for a distance of three-quarters of a mile along Avery Lake. Figure 1 shows the site layout.

The people who built and lived at Kincaid had no written language so we will probably never know what they called the site or for that matter what they called themselves. In 1540, the DeSoto expedition learned from Indians of the southeast that a place near present day Kincaid was known to them as Tacaegani, but no one knows whether this was the name the Kincaid people used for the site. It is certainly more likely to be the Indian name than Kincaid is.

Archaeological evidence tells us the Mississippian peoples had a social structure in which males dominated and this was surely true at Kincaid. The Chief, Priests, and Shamen were men. Men belonged to clans with probably all of the political leaders or Chiefs at Kincaid belonging to one clan while the Priests may have belonged to another. At Cahokia near St. Louis, the leader was a member of the Sun Clan, but at present we do not know the clans of Kincaid. A great Chief (and possible founder) of the Mississippian city we call Cahokia was buried with servants and young women who were sacrificed, apparently to serve him in an after life. No such burial has been found as yet at Kincaid, but if its founder was a great charismatic leader, such a grave may await discovery.

We can be sure that the spiritual beliefs of the Kincaid people included belief in life after death as evidenced by pots and tools that they buried with some of their dead for use in the afterlife. Mississippian spiritual belief also included the existence of an under world that is home to monsters, night, and water creatures, and an upper world that is home to man and day creatures. Even though the under world is believed to harbor fearful creatures, it is also considered mother earth and the source of food. Under world creatures at Kincaid are supernatural figures like the "dog" in Figure 4 as well as night and water creatures like owls, frogs, snakes, spiders, and turtles. The most famous of the underworld creatures was the Piasa Bird painted on the Mississippi River bluff at Alton, Illinois.

Men did the hunting and fishing and helped with the heavy work of clearing forest for farmland, building mounds, and constructing buildings. Men probably made most of the stone tools and did much of the trading with other communities. There was no standing army or police force, but in the event of warfare, the men did the fighting.

Women did the farming and plant food gathering, cooking, gathering firewood, and rearing the children. Women probably made most of the ceramics or pottery and doubtless helped with mound building and building construction. They may have done the bulk of the spinning and weaving of fabric as well. Even though women were not community leaders, they were revered by the Mississippians as fertility symbols. Five god-like figurines carved of hard clay and found near Cahokia were all females and depicted the growth and production of plant food from the under world. Some archaeologists believe these figurines were gods of a fertility cult.

It is remarkable what the Kincaid people accomplished so much with stone tools. Stone celts with a ground, sharpened edge were the main tool for cutting trees and firewood. Flaked flint adzes and chisels with sharp ground edges were used to work wood into useful objects. Flaked flint hoes, spades, and picks were used to dig and till the soil. Knives, projectile points, hide scrapers, drills and choppers were also made of flaked flint (Figure 5). Sandstone mortars and pestles were used to pulverize seed, and hammer stones were used for cracking nuts. Most projectile points were relatively small arrowheads, as the recently introduced bow and arrow was available to them.

Flint came from a variety of sources from local creek and river gravel to widely known deposits of unique flints. Flint in slabs large enough to make hoes was rare and mostly came from deposits at Mill Creek in Union County, IL and from near Dover, TN. Igneous stone used for celts and maces came from greater distances, mostly from the north.

Ceremonial objects such as pipes, maces, and human effigies were carved of stone. These artifacts were probably prestige objects owned only by the elite. Discoidals or discs of stone functioned as rolled game stones in a contest called chunky where players tried to guess where the stone would come to rest.

Bone, mostly of deer and turkey, was also an important tool-making material. Awls for puncturing hides for sewing were mostly of bone, and bone fishhooks have been found at Kincaid. Deer scapula or shoulder blades were sometimes fashioned into hoes for cultivating crops, and pieces of deer antler were fashioned into punches. Antler was also probably used in flaking flint tools. The moist, acidic nature of the soils at Kincaid make bone preservation poor. This makes bone artifacts and human skeletal remains rare at Kincaid.

Pottery and other ceramic objects were very important at Kincaid. Their potters fashioned large jars and bowls for grain and food storage, pots for cooking, bottles for storing water, plates and cups for eating, and broad shallow pans for making salt by evaporation. They even made a cylindrical object with a large opening at one end and a small opening at the other that was apparently used to extract juice or fluids from fruit or other products.

They colored some of their wares with red or black coatings and decorated some with impressed fabric and other incised designs, and with black and white and red and black surface designs. They added loop handles, lugs or protruding handles, and occasionally legs on their wares. The potters sometimes sculpted animal and human motifs to decorate their wares.

Examples are a dish with a duck head attached to the rim and a water bottle with an owl head at its opening. In the latter case, water is poured from the owl’s mouth. The Kincaid people were very aware of wildlife and include wood ducks, owls, frogs, turtles, fish, and bear in their sculpting on pottery. They also include human faces (Figure 6).

They made many other objects of ceramic as well. These include most pipes for smoking, effigy rattles (Figure 7), human effigies (Figure 8), torch holders for a ceremonial temple, and spindles for spinning thread and cord. Pottery trowels used to smooth ceramic clay prior to firing were made of fired clay as well.

Apparently local clays were used to make pottery and other ceramics. To counter the tendency of these clays to crack during firing; burned, crushed mussel shell was added to the clay. This shell tempering of the clay apparently reduced breakage and provides an easily observed marker for Mississippian ceramics. The only Kincaid people who did not use shell tempering were the people who made the very first mound. These people added crushed pottery called grog to their clay rather than shell.

Fluorite crystals, shell, and cannel coal were fashioned into ornaments such as pendants, beads, and earplugs (Figure 9). Ear plugs were worn through the pierced ear lobes of men. Religious and clan articles were also fashioned from these materials. One disc of polished coal from Kincaid is carved to depict an "under world creature", a dog-like animal with upright ears (Figure 4). A partial disc or gorget from Kincaid is of carved conch shell, whose material had come from the Gulf of Mexico. It shows a man wearing a loin cloth or apron with a "spider" motif. This could indicate that one of the clans at Kincaid was the spider clan. An effigy of a human head of highly polished cannel coal is one of the most remarkable artifacts from Kincaid (Figure 10). Effigies of owls carved from fluorite have also been found. Clans may have been named for a variety of animals including the owl.

Fibers for weaving cloth, mats, fishnets, and baskets were probably all gathered from the wild. Fibers from common nettle, some milkweeds, basswood bark, and Indian hemp (dogbane) were probably used for cloth, with the latter especially used to make rope and cordage like bowstrings. Baskets may have been made from basswood bark and mats and baskets were often woven from split cane. These materials would be used for everything from clothing to building construction materials. Cane mats were used in house wall construction and as coverings for benches and beds. One burial in mound Pope #2 was buried wearing a headdress of thin wooden fibers. Viburnum branches may have served as arrows, while the wood of choice for bows was probably red mulberry.

Cultivated crops included corn and tobacco, but other possible crops like squash and gourds can only be speculated on. They made pottery in the shape of gourds, so gourds were probably grown and used as containers and rattles. They also probably cultivated wild seed plants such as lamb’s quarters, amaranth, and sumpweed.

Their houses were rectangular in shape and ranged from 9 X 12 feet up to 25 X 35 feet. The walls were built of a series of posts placed in a trench with their tops bent over to join at the top. Horizontal poles were lashed to these to produce a lattice over which grasses and reeds were lashed to both the inside and outside of the wall. Next the grass layer was covered with mud plaster. The final stage of wall construction was covering it all with thick cane mats on the outside and thinner split cane mats on the inside. The finished walls were about one foot thick, very rigid and highly insulated for warmth in winter and coolness in summer. Grasses were lashed to the arching poles making a thatched roof that shed water well and joists were added to provide a ceiling and an attic where corn was stored. Interior furnishings included benches and beds along the walls and a central fire-basin. Some houses had interior posts and most had a central side door. Most houses and other buildings were oriented parallel to Avery Lake.

In addition to the dominant construction method, some houses and most temples had gable construction of roofs and had larger, stronger wall posts. The walls were thickened in the same manner as the other houses, and the roofs were also of thatched grasses. Braided ropes were used to lash large beams together. The temples or ceremonial buildings all stood on pyramids, and some had palisades or walls around them. These ceremonial buildings were not less than 40 feet long, and some were square rather than rectangular. A ceremonial fire basin 5 feet across was found in one temple with clay torch holders found nearby on the floor. The lack of trash in and around these larger structures indicates that they probably were not the homes of chiefs or priests but rather were sites where ceremonies were carried out. Excavations have also revealed smaller narrow buildings that may have served as corn cribs or for other unknown uses. Small circular huts with central fire pits and benches all around the outer wall are interpreted as sweat lodges or saunas.

The people who built Kincaid dressed in clothing of cloth woven from wild fibers and wore some of their hair up in a knot on top of the head or braided down the back. Women probably wore wrap around skirts that reached to just above the knee, as the Cahokia women did. Shoes were probably of deer hide, but such material is poorly preserved at Kincaid and their presence must remain speculation. The men pierced their ears and wore earplugs of fluorite, ceramic and cannel coal. Unlike most Illinois coal, cannel coal is composed of fine particle size and can be carved and polished. A few wore ear spools fashioned of cannel coal. Necklaces of beads made of rolled sheet copper, ceramic, fluorite, and shell have been found. A ring fashioned of polished bone is known, and pendants of stone and fluorite were worn around the neck. The abundance of polished stones that have apparently been used in rattles raises the possibility that Kincaid men, possibly just the elite, wore rattles at their knees or used gourd rattles in ceremonies. Ceramic effigy rattles with small clay beads and stones inside are also known.

The plaza was probably used as a game-court for chunky and other games, as a site for a pole monument to the power of Kincaid and for various ceremonies. Perhaps its most important use was for an annual "green corn ceremony" of renewal. We know of this ceremony from early historic accounts of Mississippians observed by DeSoto. During late summer as corn was ripening in the fields, much as we have agricultural fairs, the local Mississippian peoples gathered at Kincaid. Priests conducted rituals involving different colored corn kernels around the monument pole. No new crop corn could be eaten before this ceremony was completed. The assembled citizens renewed homes, temples, and even pyramids. Vermin infested or deteriorated buildings were burned and rebuilt. Pyramids might be added to and raised higher by those gathered including erecting new temples on them. Palisades might be erected or repaired as well. Perhaps the most remarkable "renewal" was the drinking of the "black drink" by the men of the community. This drink was concocted of a southern holly shrub (Ilex vomitoria) and caused the men to purge the contents of their digestive tract, thus renewing them for the year to come. This drug was probably traded for from other Mississippians of the southeast.

By the year1500, the area including Kincaid, Cahokia, and the lower reaches of the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers is empty of all significant cultural complexes. This region at this time is called the "vacant quarter" by archaeologists. Where the Kincaid people went is not known, but the depletion of timber for fuel and construction materials, the shift to a colder climate and the decline of central control may have all played a role. At any rate the Indians that had moved back into the area by the time of European arrival in the late 18^th century had no idea who made the mounds.

As much as was learned about Kincaid from past excavations, there is much more to be discovered. New technologies have developed that allow archaeologists to look beneath the soil surface without extensive excavation. A survey of this type has not been done for Kincaid but would surely disclose many significant unknown features if it were.

The Massac County part of the Kincaid site is publicly owned by the state of Illinois and is managed by the State Historic Preservation Agency. The Pope County portion is in a single private ownership, which is closed to the public. The publicly owned area is not officially open to visitors, but can be viewed from a public road that passes through it. A volunteer group centered in Metropolis is working with the State to clear the mounds of trees and brush. Their goal is to plant them to grass so they will be more visible and more appreciated by the public.

To see Kincaid Mounds, take the Unionville Road east from Route 45 at the north edge of Brookport. Go 6.25 miles (through Unionville) to the New Cut Road, then south on New Cut Road for 3.6 miles to the New Liberty Road. Drive east on the New Liberty Road for one half mile and stop. To your left is Massac Mound #8 (the main pyramid) and ahead of you on the left edge of the road is Massac Mound #7. Notice the unfilled excavation atop Mound 7, which was never completed because of the start of World War II. As you drive forward past Mound #7, the large open area to the left is the plaza. At the far north side of the plaza is Massac Mound #10 with its high turret at its left or west end. After proceeding on east you will enter the woods at the Pope County line. Keep looking on the left side of the road for additional privately owned mounds. The last large mound has an old house on it. At this point turn around and retrace your route back west on New Liberty Road. As you leave the forested area stop and look ahead to the right across the plaza and see the mounds that encircle it to the west. Massac Mound #9 is now visible between Mounds #8 and #10. Try to imagine the tremendous activity that occurred on this plaza and surrounding mounds and villages on green corn ceremony day a thousand years ago! Perhaps some day volunteers will reenact this and other ceremonies at Kincaid.

All photos are by the author who thanks the collectors who allowed him to photograph artifacts in their collections. The map of the site is also by the author.

Figure 1. The Kincaid site showing the proximity of the larger mounds to Avery Lake and other features.

Figure 2. Massac Mounds #7 (left), #8 and #9 as seen from the plaza to the east.

Figure 3. The Plaza looking northeast from the top of the east end of Massac Mound #8.

Figure 4. The Under World creature as it is depicted on a disc of coal found at Kincaid.

Figure 5. Tools of chipped flint, rattle pebbles and a burned piece of corn cob from Kincaid.

Figure 6. Pottery decoration objects including two owls at left, a frog at upper center, wood duck at bottom center, and a human face at upper right. A fragment of a carved coal disc is at lower right.

Figure 7. A male human effigy rattle of ceramic. The hollow body contained small ceramic balls and the braid of hair down the back of the head has a hole for stringing.

Figure 8. A human female effigy of ceramic, possibly depicted as pregnant.

Figure 9. Various ornaments of coal shell, fluorite, ceramic, bone and, stone. The top row includes four beads at left (upper left of fluorite, bottom right of ceramic, and the others of shell), an unidentified ornament at center and a stone pendant at right. The center row includes a fluorite pendant on left, stone pandant in center and canine tooth of bear on right. The bottom row has a fluorite ear or lip plug on left, then 3 ear plugs of coal, and a large bead or spindle of fluorite on the right.

Figure 10. A human effigy head carved of coal and polished. Note the circle of hair with a braid extending down from it. The hooked nose is a distinctive Mississippian feature of carvings.

This article was originally printed in Springhouse Magazine. Reprinted with permission of the magazine and author. Illustrations not available.

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