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Thanks. The pimple mounds are much, much smaller, by orders of magnitude, than the mounds at Cahokia. I took a quick glance at Lidar at Standard, IL, but nothing obvious jumped up. (There are two huge piles of mine tailings there, however.

Thanks. If you have further interest, there is a longer version on RUclips and a paper I wrote on the subject at: www.researchgate.net/publication/378461308_Lidar_and_the_Mystery_of_the_Mounds

Thanks. Lots of pimple mounds surround Cross Lake and this was an area occupied by the Caddo. Not conclusive evidence that they were manmade, but an interesting juxtaposition.

That makes a lot or sense actually

Followed by Sink holes

Thanks for the info. I took a quick look. An interesting landscape that looks quite similar to Powderhorn Ranch to the northeast. It appears that many of the mounds are the remnants of a higher surface that exhibits vegetation patterning. However, some smaller isolated mounds could be the mottes you refer to. Are specific sites occupied by prairie gophers?

@@FADowdy I'm not sure if the pocket gophers are in a specific area. I doubt it but it's a coastal NWR, with alligators, and off trail access isn't is something I've attempted lol I visit the NWR as often as I can but it's 120-ish miles away so not that often. If I can remember to ask I will ask them on the next visit. Their website may have contact info.

@@MichaelLloyd Thanks.

Thanks. If manmade, they might represent some kind of raised beds for agriculture, but unlike terra preta, the soil in the mounds is usually indistinguishable from the surrounding soil. Perhaps better drainage, or the mounds were built up over years by adding more soil to replenish nutrients. A challenge is that individual mounds would be relatively small for agriculture.

@@FADowdy There would be a difference between terra preta and the soils of these mounds, of course. And if for no other reason than the differences in climate. The so-called Paleo diet is a trend now. Perhaps you've heard of it? Grains are not as prominent or are completely eliminated. I would suggest that if these mounds were used for growing food crops, this would illustrate an intermediate step toward 'modern' agriculture. Consider Poverty Point. Not the various and much larger mounds, but the amphitheather-like structure close to a river. Seems to me this could easily be evidence of geo-engineering (is that the correct term?) for the purpose of growing food crops, perhaps grains, as well as for ceremonial purposes after harvest. I suppose we'll never know for sure. Nonetheless, I'm very pleased to know that we have advancements in scientific technology. We know a LOT more than we used to about North America prior to the Holocene Epoch. Perhaps your findings are part of that.

@@pttpforever Thanks. Yes, if the mounds were created for agriculture, they could represent a transition between hunter-gatherers and more extensive maize agriculture that characterized the Mississippian civilization. I believe the terraces at Poverty Point have been identified as locations for huts. You don't generally see pimple mounds on the Mississippi bottomlands, but any that did exist would have been buried by aggradation, sediments produced by widespread agriculture following European settlement of the basin. There are faint hints, however, of pimple mounds a few miles west of Poverty Point.

Squash, cucumber, pumpkins all in mounds so whether agricultural, tree roots or burial👉It’s all about them ROOTS!

Thanks for the comment. I have not done any on the ground investigation of mounds in SE Texas, but there appear to be differences in the types of mounds found there. Some, in the Big Thicket area and along the coast near Matagorda Bay appear to have a natural origin, tied to vegetation patterning. Others contain pottery and other artifacts. The mounds that have been excavated further north, in Arkansas, are not particularly sandy and resemble the surrounding soil.

I'm glad you mentioned the flood. I recently came across a video, and realized myself and so many others never truly grasped the actual scale and extreme catastrophe it would have been like. Just imagine it wouldn't have been every pocket on land it would have been in the oceans, major earthquakes as well creating unimaginable monster tsunamis. If it did happen I'm just glad I didn't have to experience such an event 🤯

Thanks. Welcome any insights. I've included more information (poorer visuals) in a pre-print paper posted on ResearchGate here: DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.23667.50728

Thanks for the comment. Some of the earlier investigations were into mounds in eastern Missouri. Some mounds yielded no artifacts, others had fire-baked "hearths" and one researcher found postholes in the ground beneath a mound. Are there particular areas where you've found artifacts?

@@FADowdy Yes along the Big River, Huzzah, and Courtois creek. Where hiway 8 crosses the Big River, between Leadwood and Potosi.

@@BigGreazyPorkSamich Thanks for the information. I took a quick look on lidar. There is not high resolution imagery for Huzzah Creek, and no sign of mounds on Courtois Creek or Big River. It looks like most of the bottomland has been leveled by cultivation over the years. However, it is intersting to know that you've found some sign of mounds with artifacts in this area. Lidar does show mounds about 10 miles south, near Iron Mountain, on the headwaters of the St. Francois River, so it seems reasonable that they would also have been found at the locations you cite. Appreciate your insights on the subject.

Sorry, I'm not familiar with the ancient trees.

Thanks.

​​@@FADowdy Those low relief mounds appear to be set up like today's 'neighborhoods', or arranged according to clan establishments or clusters. Very easy to imagine the gently raised mounds as dwelling foundations, most likely with a nice, level platform floor. These mound platforms became eroded over the eons and assumed a more 'rounded' appearance. The fact that these neighborhoods (or clusters) appear adjacent to known archeological sites makes perfect sense. This is the first I've heard about 'pimple mounds' and they are fascinating! Thank you so much for this presentation ☆

@@houseofsolomon2440 Thanks. I agree. The spacing of some of the clusters seems similar to what you might find in a village and a location next to a known archeological site certainly supports the idea that these were house mounds. However the mounds are higher than one would need just to keep the hut out of the mud, suggesting that height may have been related to status, or possibly that the mounds were ritually added to after the period of occupation. An interesting mystery, in any case.

Thanks.

Farm ponds.

Most of them would have been midden's for trash, or the footprints of their dwellings. They would pile their trash in heaps, or build mud huts and burn them down when they became old and wore out. After several generations the mounds would increase in size. Not all were burial mounds. They also had a habit of burying their dead beneath the floors of their huts. I suspect this is how most of the burial mounds began.

A few commenters have suggested mushroom colonies. I don't know enough about them to offer an opinion. If someone knows a location where they've created mounds, it would be worthwhile to check it out.

If the mounds were created for agriculture, they might have contained that famous crop group. But the "three sisters" to my knowledge consisted of small "hills" (maybe 2-3 feet across) with a few stalks of corn, spaced maybe 5-8 feet apart, with beans growing up the stalks and squash covering the ground between hills. No particular relation to circular mounds, in my view.

Thanks.

I have found some amazing things (on the map)...I am going this weekend to an area I discovered using the techniques you explained... this is truly a Game changer for amateurs and professionals alike. I would not have known about this if not for your video. Thanks again

@@captainspalding6383 Thanks. Note that the lidar imagery can greatly exaggerate vertical relief, so some features that you see on the map can be quite subtle on the ground. Good luck on your search.

Impossible. Modern plate tectonics says continents cycle completely through every million or so years. Dinosaurs died out 65 million years ago. The continent would have cycled completely through too many times.

Thanks for the comment. The theory that they were the remnant of ancient trees has been proposed by a number of commenters, and was one of the theories contemplated by scholars a century ago. One problem is that the mounds are big - averaging about 65 feet in diameter in SE Arkansas, for example, and 100 ft or more in diameter in some places. One early investigator suggested that the trees would have to be the size of Sequoias or larger to generate this size mound. A second challenge is that none of the mounds that have been excavated show any sign of a root system or even evidence that a taproot had penetrated the subsoil. A third problem is that in some areas, such as the Arkansas Valley, the mounds lie on relatively thin soils, which might not be conducive to the growth of giant trees. That said, all the other theories also encounter multiple challenges. Most researchers have been reduced to finding one that seems least implausible.

Interesting. I was under the belief that some of the mounds were smaller. @@FADowdy

Interesting observation. The mounds at Humphrey Slough are on old (Pleistocene) "point bar" deposits, which should be sandier than the surrounding ground, and which may have an impact on growth. I've walked through a similar mound field a few miles north, in a plantation forest near the Felsenthal National Wildlife Headquarters, but didn't notice any significant difference between the trees on the mounds versus those between them. You can't see very far, however, even in a fairly clear pine forest.

What are the oldest supposed ages of these mounds?

@@user-xi8hs8dv6m There are very few reports of mound ages - difficult to carbon date because there are typically no chunks of carbon found in the mounds. One study, using optically stimulated luminescense (OSL) calculated dates for four mounds in Arkansas. Most samples dated between 300 BC and AD 1300, with one sample dating to about 4700 BC.

To access lidar imagery, you can take the following steps: 1. Go to the USGS “National Map” website for the “viewer”: apps.nationalmap.gov/viewer/ 2. When it opens, you will see the USGS basemap: “National Map” 3. Zoom in to your area of interest, either using the +/- tab in the upper left hand corner or the scroll on your mouse. 4. There will be a number of boxes along the green ribbon at the top of the page which will self-identify if you hover the mouse over them. 5. Open the box titled “layer list” which is normally third from the left. This contains about 30 different layers you can view. About 8 of these layers are titled “3DEP ___” which are the layers generated by lidar. 6. Check the box for the “3DEP Elevation - Hillshade Stretched” to visualize mounds. To see the mounds, you will normally need to go to a zoom level of 14 to 17. Notes: • This is a great tool, but the National Map is normally slower than Google maps to respond and can be pretty slow if you have a slow internet connection. On occasion, when opening the national map viewer, you will get a message that a number of the 3DEP layers "cannot be added to the map," and you won't be able to see the lidar imagery. This is temporary, and you may have to wait until the next day. • The lidar imagery is good across Arkansas, eastern Oklahoma and Texas, and parts of Louisiana and Missouri, but still low resolution in many parts of the country, where you will not be able to see mounds. • You can choose a number of great basemaps ranging from including street maps to USGS topo maps (up to a zoom level of 15). • You can also use multiple layers, including satellite imagery and other lidar tools, and use transparency to use more than one layer at a time.

@@FADowdy I am glad I found your instruction as I couldn´t figure it out myself.

You're welcome - it's a great tool@@henningerflats

I read a bunch of comments and yours makes the most sense although I would add a thought...Many old barbed wire fence lines in the West have collected tumbleweed over the years which in turn collect wind blown dust/sand to the point the fence lines almost get buried, I would suggest that shrubbery could do the same thing...cheers.

Nebkha is a type of sand dune that grows from vegetation catching blown sand and dirt. Don’t take my word for it, check it out on wiki. There is no debate among experts, they have been excavated, studied and dated, although Indians did make some similar mounds in the area. Damn shame that a vast city of mound builders didn’t make them, that would be cool.

Thanks for the comment. Several researchers over the last century have suggested that they were the remnants of dunes or nebkhas, including a relatively recent paper cited below. Critics of the theory that they are wind-blown dunes, however, focused on the fact that pimple mounds are generally circular, exhibit no evidence of crossbedding, and often consist of gumbo clay, characteristics that are not found in eolian dunes. Lidar also tends to undercut the theory - imagery of the mounds investigated in Arkansas by Seifert, et al, does not resemble imagery of nebkha fields in New Mexico. More discussion and comparative imagery is contained in my draft paper at: www.researchgate.net/publication/378461308_Lidar_and_the_Mystery_of_the_Mounds Seifert, Christopher L., Randel Tom Cox, Steven L. Forman, Tom L. Foti, Thad A. Wasklewicz, and Andrew T. McColgan. 2009. "Relict nebkas (pimple mounds) record prolonged late Holocene drought in the forested region of south-central United States." Quartenary Research 71 329-339. Accessed June 3, 2021. www.researchgate.net/publication/222155201.

Thanks for saving me a ½ of my life I could have wasted watching dumb shit

All the way to the gulf coast right? STFU

I've seen no evidence any of these mounds are created naturally and I'm not sure where the motivation to defer to natural processes over human constructions comes from.

Ah yes he points these out later in the video at 29:50 mark. Nice work :)

The main point of skepticism for anthropogenic creation are that there are simply too many and too widespread... Firstly, it's widely debated how many people lived in North America pre-European contact. Look at the very recent discoveries in the Amazon showing hundreds of thousands of platforms and structures in many different regions representing widespread civilizations rather than the traditional view that only small bands of hunter gatherers lived there with no means to organize and do civil projects. North America is likely similar. Before westward expansion and agriculture destroyed many of the larger burial mounds across the entire midwest, who knows how many there were - and some of these were massive projects requiring thousands of people working together. Not the same as the small remnant tribes that my European ancestors encountered after 90+% of the population was wiped out by diseases... it wasn't just a loss of population; they also lost their organizational capacity and basically their whole culture shifted from agricultural and sedentary to hunter gatherer and pastoral nomadic. Also, we are taught that humans only have been on this continent for a few thousand years despite growing evidence that we were here deep into the last glacial period before the Younger Dryas period. Antonio Zamora is using LIDAR to analyze the Carolina Bays, Nebraska rainwater basins, and other ovoid basins and has linked them to a catastrophe at the end of the pleistocene... very interesting stuff. Check out his youtube channel.

Give me a team of 50 guys and we could do an acre per day of these things. Maybe a few acres with modern hand tools.

Thanks for the comment. I think that some of the mounds, particularly in low-lying areas in East Texas, are created by vegetation patterning similar to the process you describe in Florida. In East Texas,some of the smaller mounds may be the remnants of cypress trees that have accumulated sediment. This seems less likely for other typologies.