LSU Campus Indian Mounds By Spatms via Wikimedia Commons[/caption] 

So, we've all heard of "Poverty Point" in West Carroll Parish in North East Louisiana, but did you know there are a couple of structures on the campus of LSU that are older than that, and even pre-date the construction of the Great Pyramids in Egypt?

The "LSU Campus Mounds" or "LSU Indian Mounds" are part of a larger system of mounds across the state. They are believed to have been used for ceremonial and marking point purposes rather than for burial purposes.

The two mounds stand 20 feet high and are believed to be, get this, more than 5,000 years old. This means the "LSU Campus Mounds" are part of the oldest known mound system in North America, Mesoamerica or South America and also means they predate the building of the Great Pyramids of Egypt.

I've been on the LSU campus a handful of times, and have briefly walked by these mounds not realizing what I was looking at.

According to Wikipedia.com -

Different stories about the origin of the mounds have circulated. One widespread myth was that the mounds were made of dirt dug up for the Huey P. Long pool on the LSU campus. While archeologists do not believe they were burial mounds, another myth holds that the mounds are haunted by the ghosts of the dead.

 

Native American culture has always fascinated me, and now that I've learned about this, I'm even more blown away. Incredible, right?

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