An Archaeoastronomic Assessment of Angel Mounds, Indiana, with Commentary on Moundville, Alabama, and Cahokia, Illinois

Abstract

The Angel Mounds site was a large, fortified Mississippian village located in southwestern Indiana. The site flourished from circa AD 1100 to AD 1450 and represents one of the largest recorded Mississippian settlements in the Ohio River valley. In this article, we use astronomic data, lidar imagery, ethnohistoric data, and computer planetarium simulations to identify solar, stellar, and lunar alignments at the site. Of special interest are new findings showing how mound axes are oriented to the Milky Way on the night of the summer solstice. In traditional Eastern Woodlands belief, the Milky Way was the path that souls of the dead traveled on their journey to the Land of the Dead. Supportive of the findings for Angel are similar Milky Way alignments at Moundville, Alabama, and Cahokia, Illinois.