Yesterday’s forecast? Extreme heat, full humidity, perfect mound exploring weather.
The Letchworth-Love site near Tallahassee is home to Florida’s tallest earthen mound, built more than 1,000 years ago by the Weeden Island peoples. It’s an impressive site, but today it’s heavily overgrown, and the boardwalk to view it is closed for repairs. You can still get a sense of its size, but the site needs a little love. Tiny me included for scale!
Lake Jackson Mounds, just north of Tallahassee, are in better condition. You can still climb one of the smaller mounds, even though the main boardwalk is also in disrepair. These mounds were once the heart of a powerful ceremonial center. Burials here revealed elaborately embossed copper breastplates, badges, and ceremonial axes—some depicting ritual figures and falcon imagery tied to the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex (or what archaeologists sometimes call the “Southern Cult”).
This complex connected cultures from the Mississippi Valley down through the Southeast, and Lake Jackson was one of its major nodes. These people were spiritual leaders, artists, engineers, and ancestors to the Apalachee and other Southeastern tribes.
I’ve illustrated many of these copper artifacts for my book, “Forgotten Florida: The Art of its Ancient Peoples,” so it was very moving to finally stand on the ground where they were found.
These mounds are so much more than piles of dirt. They hold centuries of ceremony and memory. That power still hums beneath the surface, if we’re willing to listen.
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