BAMA MAMMOTHS: December 2023

WIKIPEDIA ARTICLE ON MOUND BUILDERS Mound Builders - Wikipedia

BRASFIELD MOUND or FORKLAND MOUND or LAMBERTH'S MOUND from Snedecor's 1858 map of Greene County

The Southern and Central Alabama expeditions of Clarence Bloomfield Moore - Google Books

In his introduction to Clarence Moore's book, Craig T. Sheldon states that the Brasfield Mound "long

puzzled visiting archaeologists, who leave wondering about the site of the supporting community."

No evidence of a village of Mound Builders (Mississippian culture) has ever been discovered. Was Brasfield Mound "a vacant cermonial center?" Sheldon asks, "Where are the settlements of the population necessary to construct such a large mound?...the Brasfield Mound does not give up its secrets easily."

Clarence Moore

Clarence Bloomfield Moore - Wikipedia

, the first scientist to explore Moundville, said the Brasfield Mound ,along with the Grant Mound on the St. John's River,

Mill Cove Complex - Wikipedia

were "the most impressive in appearance it has been our fortune to meet with." Certain Aboriginal Remains of the Northwest Florida Coast ... - Google Books

from CERTAIN ABORIGINAL REMAINS OF THE NORTHWEST FLORIDA COAST, Part 1 (1901)

BRASFIELD MOUND, BRASFIELD LANDING, GREENE COUNTY, AL A .
This noble mound towers above cultivated fields about
o n e- half mile in a N . E . direction from Brasfield Landing, on
property of J. Stanhope Brasfield, Esq. , of Demopolis, Al a.
This mound and the
Grant mound near the mouth of the
St. John’s river, Florida, are the most impressive in

appearance it has been our fortune to meet with . The mound, on
land high above the wash of freshets, has to-day as sharp an
outline, practically, as when it was completed . Oblong in
shape, its upward slope is at an angle of 30 degrees . Its
base has a length of 200 feet running N.W. by N . and S.E . by
East, Bluff. S. and a minor diameter of 168 feet. The summit plateau is 135 feet by 105 feet. The mound, measured at the ends, is
about 19 feet in height. At the sides it is somewhat less,
owing to an upward slope of the surrounding territory. There is no graded way
or means of access to the summit save by clambering up the sides. Certain terraces

in the neighborhood, we were told, had no connection with the mound, being
circle-ditches made in recent times to prevent the wash of rain. As domiciliary
mounds of this character sometimes have burials near the surface, trenches were
dug in the summit plateau with no other result than to show the mound to be
made of various materials— of sand, of clay and of sand and clay .
It was such mound s as this, doubtless, that De Soto’s men saw on their march,
and an extract from Pickett’s History o f Alabama, taken from Garcillasso de
la Vega, may not be out of place.
"The houses of the Chiefs, with but few exceptions, stood upon large and
elevated artificial mounds. When the Indians of 1540 resolved to build a town , the
site of which was usually selected upon low, rich land, by the side of a beautiful
stream, they were accustomed, first, to turn their attention to the erection of a
mound from twenty to fifty feet high, round on the sides, but flat on top. The
top was capable of sustaining the houses of the Chief and those of his family and
attendants ; making a little village by itself of from ten to twenty cabins, elevated
high in the air . The earth to make this mound was brought to the spot. At the
foot of this eminence a square was marked out, around which the principal men
placed their houses . The inferior classes joined these with their wigwams. Some
o f these mounds had several stairways to ascend them, made by cutting out incline
planes, fifteen o r twenty feet wide, flanking the sides with posts, and laying poles
horizontally across the earthen steps, thus forming a kind of wooden stairway.
But, generally, the lofty residence of the Chief was approached by only one flight
of steps. These mounds were perpendicular, and in accessible, except by the avenues
already mentioned, which rendered the houses upon them secure from the attack
of an Indian enemy. Besides the motive of security, a disposition to place the
Chief and his family in a commanding position ,and to raise him above his subjects,
caused the formation of these singular elevations."

https://www.ebooksread.com/authors-eng/alabama-anthropological-society/handbook-of-the-alabama-anthropological-society-1910-hci/page-4-handbook-of-the-alabama-anthropological-society-1910-hci.shtml
Described by Clarence B. Moore, in Journal Academy of Natural
Sciences of Philadelphia, 1901, vol. xi, p. 505.

Brasfield mound, about one half mile northeast from Bras-
field landing, Tombigbee River. Clarence B. Moore, who personally examined it, says:

"This mound and the Grant mound
near the North of the St. John s River, Florida, are the most
impressive in appearance it has been our fortune to meet with.
The mound, on land high above the wash of freshets, has to-day
as sharp an outline, practically, as when it was completed."

from Snedecor's Greene County Directory:

Another and more remarkable one is Lamberth’s mound, 
located upon the roadside, about three miles southeast of 
Forkland. It is rectangular in form, having regular angles, 
and sides perfectly straight. It is about forty yards square, 
the sides rising almost perpendicular about twenty feet, and 
}is flat on top. The top has for many years been stripped of 
its growth, (among which were trees, a foot or more in di- 
ameter,) and cultivated. 

It is of course a matter of speculation only as to the pro- 
bable uses of these and other mounds in the county; but 
the general opinion, and by far the best founded, is that they 
were places of burial after battles between beligerant Abo- 
rigines ; indeed in clearing off some inequalilities upon one, 
on which the late Dr. Clement formerly resided, he struck 
into a heap of bones, among which were human skulls, 

Southwest of Forkland about three miles on the bank of 
the Bigby river, are the ruins of what was evidently many 
years ago a fortification. The writer is gratified to be 
able to place before the reader here, an article descrip- 
tive of this curious place from an abler pen, kindly prepared 
for him by Maj. Wm. B. Inge, whose residence stands al- 
most within its precincts, to whom the author returns his 
thanks. 


“You desire to know something about the remains 
of an old fortification in the Fork, on the Bigby river; but 
as the history of its origin is entombed in the past, we can 
only describe the present appearances, and draw our conclusions

 as to the object and founders of it.”  

The ruins alluded to are situated a little less than three 
miles west of the village of Forkland, on the Livingston 
road, and describes a semi-circle on the river, the bluff being its diameter.

 The extent of the elevation is about one 
raile in length, symetrical in its form, and describing perfectly geometrical;

proportions being equidistant from 
any point to a common center on the river. Here (at the 
center) is a bold spring of water, which breaks out of the 
earth a few yards from the river, and discharges itself in 
the form of a cascade over the lime rock into the stream 
below. This is the only place within the enclosure where 
the river is accessible, there being a dip in the lime rock, 
made by Nature to admit this passage of water into the 
river; for immediately above and below the spring there 
is a very high and perpendicular lime stone bluff, to say, 
about eighty or one hundred feet above low water mark. 
 Near this spring are the remains of an old Fort, considerably raised

 above the surrounding earth, about a half acre 
in size, and concave on the surface, which distinguishes it 
from what are called ‘ Indian mounds.’ ”

 Every circumstance connected with this extensive relic 
of Antiquity, clearly shows the design to have been, to 
 protect those who constructed it from hostile invasion, and 
the huge oak which grows upon the top of this wall, is the 
best chronicler we have of its pristine origin. Here a besieged

party have all the means of defence, and subsistence;

while the Bigby with its insurmountable stone wall, 
defies invasion from the south, the circumvallation answers 
the same purpose,—though not so effectually,—at all other 
points of the compass. The soil too within the fortifica- 
tion, is of that rich alluvial character, best suited to the 
crude implements of Indian husbandry, and the inexhausti- 
ble fountain which occupies the middle ground furnished 
them with cool water, no where else to be had in the 
vicinity.” 

 Pickett informs us in his history of Alabama, that De 
Soto, the great Spanish adventurer, traversed this part of 
the country some three hundred years ago, en route for 
Arkansas, and encountered a formidable resistance from 
the Natives, on the Warrior river, just below Erie. Now. 
as such a thing is impracticable, from the character of the 
country at the place alluded to for a battlefield, we are 
strongly inclined to the belief that he was misled, by the 
data he wrote from, and that here we might more reasonably

conclude the fight spoken of occurred. Both points 
are equally distant from the confluence of the Warrior 
and Bigbee rivers, and situated on the east bank. Below 
Erie there are no evidences of a battle ground; here we 
‘have the ruins of extensive warlike preparations still exist- 
“ing, strongly conclusive of the fact that if De Soto fought 
a battle in Greene county on the bank of a river, this must 
be the place.”

from the June 12, 1879 EUTAW WHIG & OBSERVER

from the August 19, 1948 GREENE COUNTY DEMOCRAT

from the August 26, 1948 GREENE COUNTY DEMOCRAT

"Curiously, despite this divergence of opinion, many of these identifications have been expressed in a highly confident tone. For example, Peter Brannon and his colleagues considered Mabila and several other towns along De Soto’s route as “definitely located”—Mabila being at the Forkland Mound site in southern Greene County" from THE SEARCH FOR MABILA https://dokumen.pub/the-search-for-mabila-the-decisive-battle-between-hernando-de-soto-and-chief-tascalusa-1nbsped-9780817382421-9780817316594.html

THE SEARCH FOR MABILA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWjLHeQTtFM

https://www.thoughtco.com/mabila-battle-de-soto-chief-tascalusa-171575