Crooks Mound

Crooks Mound

Region	La Salle Parish, Louisiana

Crooks Mound (French: Monticule d'Escrocs) is a large Marksville culture mound site, located in La Salle Parish in south central Louisiana. It is a large, conical, burial mound that was part of at least six episodes of burials. It measure about 16 ft high (4.9 m) and 85 ft wide (26 m). It contains roughly 1,150 remains that were placed however they were able to fit. Sometimes body parts were removed in order to achieve that goal. Archaeologists think it was a holding house for the area that was emptied periodically in order to achieve this type of setup.

Most of the time, the people were just placed into the mound, but a few of the burials were in log-lined tombs, or even stone tombs. Only a few out of each burial were given copper tools and other items to help in the afterlife. This suggests that the area was mainly for common people to be buried in.

Description

There were two separate mounds that make up the site. In 1938-1939 the site was completely excavated under the direction of James A. Ford. The mounds were 1,200 feet (370 m) southeast of French Fork Bayou and {{convert|450|ft|m}] southwest of Cypress Bayou. Mound A was a conical mound that stood 21 feet high and 84 feet in diameter. Mound B was 2 feet (0.61 m) high and 50 feet (15 m) in diameter and located 110 feet (34 m) southwest of Mound A. Excavations revealed that Mound A had been built in three stages; Mound B was a single-stage structure. The mounds held 1,175 burials: 1,159 from Mound A, and 13 from Mound B (3 unknown). Pottery accompanied some burials; the weight of mound fill apparently crushed the vessels. The mounds were used for burials around 100 BCE to 400 CE. No evidence for domestic structures exists on or near the mounds, leading archaeologists to believe they were strictly for mortuary purposes.

Sources

• Fagan, Brian M. Ancient North America 2005. Thames and Hudson. p. 408