An LSU Professor believes the Indian Mounds at LSU’s flagship campus may be the oldest man-made structures on Earth, with parts of the structure believed to possibly be 11,300-years-old.
Geology Professor Brooks Ellwood says a scan of the mounds, followed by a test of the material indicates the mounds are likely far, far older than the Pyramids of Giza.
“They would be the oldest in the western hemisphere for sure, the oldest before this was 5,500. That one is also in Louisiana, it’s Watson Break, and that’s up in the northeastern part of the state,” says Ellwood.
Prior research indicated the mounds were only about 6,000 years old.
The structures are thought to be ceremonial burial grounds for tribes that inhabited the region millennia ago. Ellwood says the discovery was made by testing bone fragments in those graves.
“These were ash beds and not soil horizons. We started dating those and looking at those and we found burned bone in there, and we find that we can date them,” says Ellwood.
The local tribes are thought to have placed their dead on the pit and burn them, with most of the construction occurring over two stages separated by global climate events.
For decades the Mounds were a meeting place for students, but imaging showed the structures were internally collapsing due to the constant stress. Ellwood says the Mounds need more protection.
“LSU is now very, very much aware of what we have on the campus. Only recently did we know the ages of these things,” says Ellwood.
Ellwood has submitted a paper regarding the age of the structures for scientific review.
