New research has determined the mounds on LSU’s campus near Tiger Stadium are the oldest known man made structures in North America. LSU Geology and Geophysics Professor Emertius Brooks Ellwood says radiocarbon dating of the layers of material indicates the mounds were built 11,000 years ago.
“And the dates that we have and we have quite a number of them and the oldest is at the base of one of the mounds…as it gets higher, it gets younger,” said Ellwood.
Ellwood says they suspect the mounds on LSU’s campus were a cremation site. He says the age estimate is based on studying sediment from the bottom of the mounds which is ash from burned reed and cane plants as well as charred mammal bone fragments.
“They used these very, very hot fires for the reed and cane and they’re about a foot thick, the ash at the base of these mounds,” said Ellwood.
The mounds on LSU’s campus are among the more than 880 man-made, hill-like mounds in Louisiana. Both mounds were completed around six-thousand years ago and are similar height. But mound A as they call it, which is the northern Mound, contains mud that is saturated with water, which liquefies when agitated. Ellwood says as a result mound A is unstable and degrading.
“It’s deformed that mound from a nice conical shape, which the B mound is because it’s built with different stuff,” said Ellwood.
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