The Winterville Mounds museum obtained a new exhibit this summer, which staff members have been excited to share with visitors.
Historian Educator Jessica Manrriquez said the new case features perishable items mainly focused around tools Native Americans utilized.
“Everything in that case is a reproduction because the actual item the reproductions represent normally will disintegrate or deteriorate when they’re in the ground,” she said. “Everything in that case has components that were organic.”
Some of the eight featured reproduced items include the process of a fishhook being made from a carved bone, knives made with bone handles, wood samples representing what Native Americans used to make items such as canoes, a sinew and the process of how it was made as sewing thread to make clothing, attach arrowheads to shafts, bow strings and more.
“The sinew is my favorite thing to talk about with the kids because native folks didn’t have yarn or synthetic rope to make necklaces. They would use tendons that attach muscle to bones. They would take that sinew, boil it and then strip it apart like string cheese,” she said.
The new exhibit came from Winterville Mounds’ exhibits team with the Mississippi Department of Archive and History in Jackson.
This is the first new exhibit the museum has received in about four years, Manrriquez said.
“We removed a couple exhibits sometime last year and now we finally have something to replace them with. It’s always really exciting to have something new for people who have been here several times,” she said. “I think the exhibit is really, really cool because you don’t realize everything Native Americans created, everything they had, came from nature. A lot of times, this stuff could not survive so the majority of their tools were made from bones and stone. It’s a really informative and really neat exhibit.”
Visitors who have seen the new exhibit have commented on what stood out to them the most, Manrriquez said.
“People have commented how much they like it,” she said. “They like seeing what kind of trees were around here and what native folks used because these trees are still here today and a lot of people can connect the past to the present like that.”
About Winterville Mounds
Winterville Mounds is a 42-acre site near Greenville, featuring 12 prehistoric Native American mounds, two large plazas, and a museum. The Mississippi Department of Archives and History today operates the site.
Named for a nearby community, Winterville Mounds is the site of a prehistoric ceremonial center built by a Native American civilization that thrived from about A.D. 1000 to 1450. The people responsible for these great earthworks were the ancestors of the Chickasaws, Choctaws and other American Indian tribes we know today.
Most members of the society lived away from the mound center on family farms throughout the Yazoo-Mississippi River Delta basin. Only a few of the highest-ranking tribal officials lived at the mound center, which was the site of sacred structures and ceremonies.
To form the earthworks, dirt was dug and loaded into baskets, carried to the site, dumped out and stamped down. This process was repeated until the desired shape and height was reached. Mound A is among the ten tallest in the United States, roughly the same height as a five-story building. Until modern construction techniques were developed, it was the highest point between Emerald Mound in Natchez and the great mounds at Cahokia, Illinois.
In 1939, the Greenville Garden Club led a community effort to purchase the site and convey the property to the City of Greenville. Supported by the Winterville Mounds Association, the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Parks (formerly the Mississippi Park Commission) operated Winterville as a state park from 1960 until 2000, when the property was conveyed to MDAH. In 1993, Winterville Mounds was designated a National Historic Landmark.
The visitors center is open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday. The grounds of the site are open to the public daily from dawn until dusk. Admission is free.
For more information, call 662-334-4684 or email info@wintervillemounds.com.
