by Jessica Pope
Georgia’s oldest temple mound can be found on the grounds of the Kolomoki Mounds State Historic Park in Blakely. An unusual park covering approximately 300 acres, it’s both an important archaeological site and a scenic recreational area.
Kolomoki Mounds State Historic Park consists of eight earthen mounds, including two burial mounds and four ceremonial mounds, built between 250 A.D. and 950 A.D. by the Swift Creek and Weeden Island Indians. Located on Kolomoki Creek, which flows into the Chattahoochee River about 10 miles to the west, archaeologists have determined that the area was occupied at various periods in history by Lamar, Weeden Island and Kolomoki Indians.
With its surrounding villages, burial mounds and ceremonial plaza, the temple mound of Kolomoki Mounds State Historic Park was once a center of population and activity in North America. It was constructed over 700 years ago, stands 56 feet high and measures 325 feet by 200 feet at the base. It is believed that it took over 2 million basket loads of earth to build this mound, which likely served as the area’s religious center.
The museum on the grounds of Kolomoki Mounds State Historic Park houses artifacts and exhibits that explain daily life in adjacent Kolomoki. Part of the facility is constructed over a burial mound of the Weeden Island Tribe, the first of the mounds in the Kolomoki group to have been scientifically excavated and examined. Four people were buried inside the mound along with 54 complete pottery items to be used in the afterlife. Radiocarbon dating in 1956 put the building of this mound 2,120 years before the present around 170 B.C., plus or minus 300 years. The museum contains the excavated mound just as the archaeologists left it. Plastic model replicas have been placed where the bodies of those memorialized were found.
Kolomoki Mounds State Historic Park also offers visitors the opportunity to do a little fishing, boating, swimming, hiking and camping or play miniature golf. Pedal boats and canoes are available for rent and use on one of the park’s two lakes.
