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There is one glaring omission in this assumption, however, as Euro-centric logic ignores
the assertions of modern Native nations who originated in this region. People of the Muscogee
(Creek) Nation of Oklahoma leave no uncertainty when tracing their history at the Ocmulgee
Plateau, firmly stating that their ancestors had solid connections with the region for centuries.2
The academic community constructed an artificial divide between modern Native American
nations and prehistoric cultures, often excluding Indigenous input in matters concerning
archaeological finds at pre-Columbian sites. At Ocmulgee National Monument, NAGPRA
legislation has allowed the Creek Nation to exert some level of control over an ancestrally
important site which had long been stolen from them, both literally and culturally. However, the
fate of the majority of the sacred objects and ancestral remains removed from Ocmulgee
continues to rest in the hands of non-Indigenous entities.

When Europeans began exploring and eventually colonizing the Southeast, they marveled
at monumental earthen mounds that dotted the landscape. Unfortunately, these early chroniclers
were not concerned with understanding what these massive structures were or why they were
built.3 In the mid-1800s a burgeoning scientific field took a keen interest in these ancient
mounds. Archaeology, an emerging discipline within anthropology, sought answers to
exclusively European questions about who erected these monumental tumuli. During this era of
rapidly expanding scientific inquiry into humanity's ancient past, archaeologists and
anthropologists were only concerned with empirical evidence, often ignoring, and at times
downright discrediting, the people with the most knowledge about the mounds and the peoples
who constructed them: Native Americans themselves.

2 RaeLynn Butler, interview by author, Macon, February 2, 2018.
3 Matthew Jennings, ed., The Flower Hunter and The People (Macon, Georgia: Mercer University Press, 2014) 27-
29.

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