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A PROUD LEGACY
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Located along Colewa Creek in northeastern Louisiana, the Bobbie Alexander site is hard to find. The two mounds—one about four feet and the other about two feet high—and sheet middens that comprise the site are shrouded in thickets of green briar and split cane. The site was first recorded in 1981 by Mitch Hillman, who noted the sheet midden contained potsherds, animal bone, and chert flakes. The pottery Hillman recovered at the site indicated it was occupied during the Late Baytown and/or Early Coles Creek Periods (A.D.600–900). The floral and faunal remains in the midden were well preserved.
Twelve years later, Louisiana’s Northeast Regional Archaeologist Joe Saunders visited the site and cored the mounds. Saunders found no evidence that indicated the mounds grew through accretion of midden materials; nonetheless, he surmised the mounds were purposeful constructions. In his report, Saunders wrote, “The Alexander Site is one of the most pristine sites observed in Northeast Louisiana in the past five years.”
The Baytown and Coles Creek peoples were mound-building cultures who inhabited the Lower Mississippi River Valley during the Late Woodland period. During this time, maize cultivation was introduced into the region. Archaeologists believe that the Coles Creek people lived in scattered hamlets where they combined horticulture with hunting and gathering for their subsistence. They also constructed elaborate, monumental mound centers, where only a few elite people lived. The general population would periodi-
Bobbie Alexander meets with Southeast Regional Director Alan Gruber after donating her Indian Mound site to the Conservancy.
cally gather at the mound centers for ceremonial or ritual purposes.
Most researchers studying the Coles Creek period have focused on the mound centers. To date, little work has been done on the hamlets, which are often destroyed by the intense agriculture in the region. “This site is truly important for understanding the subsistence culture of the Coles Creek people,” said Saunders. “It has the best preservation of Coles Creek period floral and faunal remains that I’ve seen.”
Bobbie Alexander, an educator who, having retired, recently returned home to Louisiana, says she contemplated donating the site for preservation for over a decade. “My mother had given me the idea around 12 years ago,” Alexander said. The site was located on a piece of property that she purchased near the old family farm. “We all knew about the site,” she related. “When Joe came out the first time, he reiterated that the site was important, and I knew I really wanted to make sure that it was protected. I am very happy that this site will be permanently preserved and that the research conducted there will help both archaeologists learn more about the Indians that built the mounds, and local children to learn more about the cultural heritage that exists in their own backyards.” —Alan Gruber
