Ocmulgee National Monument

Ocmulgee National Monument preserves a large archeological landscape on a bluff above the Ocmulgee River, east of Macon, Georgia. Seven rectangular Mississippian-period mounds form its core, joined by a separate Lamar area with two later mounds. Excavations in the 1930s recovered over a million pottery and flint artifacts and revealed a sequence of six prehistoric levels of occupation. An earthlodge with a restored clay floor dates to about A.D. 1015. The site also holds the outline of a colonial trading post occupied from roughly 1690 to 1715, the 1856 Dunlap house, and an earthwork tied to the 1864 Stoneman raid on Macon. A 1938 Art Moderne visitor center, decorated with a frieze copied from Lamar pottery, serves as museum, offices and research storage. Smithsonian specialists considered the complex among the most important archeological centers east of the Appalachians, which underlies its protection.