Mysteries still swirl around some places where Native Americans of the Southeast once lived.
Flying low over parts of South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama, you can see giant, flat-topped mounds of earth, some as high as a six-story building. No one knows for sure why they were built or how they were used. Scientists do know that on the tops of these mounds stood temples or houses for chiefs. The people who made them are called the Mound Builders.
By 1492, the Mound Builders’ way of life was disappearing, but their mounds remained. New towns sprang up close to the mounds, and some of these towns belonged to the Creek people, who were descendants of the Mound Builders. Like the Iroquois, Hopi, and Mandan, the Creeks farmed and hunted.
