Leaving my family in Amory, Mississippi and beginning my trip north towards home. I had heard about the Natchez Trace but wasn’t familiar with what it was so I started there to learn more. My first stop along that route was at Bynum Mounds.
The Natchez Trace Parkway is a scenic highway that follows along the historic Natchez Trace, a 440 mile woodland trail used by Native Americans for centuries. Bynum Mounds is the oldest mound site along the Natchez Trace and dates back to 100 BCE-100 CE. A sign details how descendants of the mound builders, including the Chickasaw, still observe the spiritual and heritage connections to the site.
A small interpretive shelter houses several educational signs and a view across the site and the mounds. For those unaware, these mounds are burial mounds that exist as part of Indigenous peoples spiritual culture. If you visit one of these sites, please be respectful and only observe from a distance and do not walk on or disturb the site.
One of the signs details how the various cultures from the Woodland era traded goods across vast distances, including the Trempeleau Hopewell from my home state in the Great Lakes region 1,000 miles away.
Another sign detailed aspects of Woodland culture in the Bynum village including gardening, mound building, pottery, and semi-permanent villages.
An artist’s depiction of what life may have looked like at the Bynum village. There is a button on the display that I think is supposed to play audio but not sure it was working on my visit.
Directly past the artwork is a small grassy clearing and the mounds at the far end of the park.
A small paved trail runs in a loop through the park and allows for closer views of the mounds. The mounds range in height from 5 to 14 feet tall.
Some small signs along the walking path detail how shelters changed through the seasons from lean-tos in summer and then timber and thatch houses in winter.
Another view of the mounds as we return closer to the parking area. I was the only person here this morning through my entire visit. Although it is a small site, I enjoyed the solitude on a quiet and crisp autumn morning.
I decided from here to follow the parkway as far north as I could or at least until I found something that pulled me off in a different direction. Not a bad way to start my first real exploration of a state new to me!
Lat = 33.8976364 , Long = -88.9477234 -- Show at Google Maps