Moundville Archaeological Park

Built between roughly 1120 and 1650 CE on the Black Warrior River, Moundville was once the second-largest Mississippian city in North America after Cahokia — a political and ceremonial center of 29 earthen mounds arranged around a central plaza, home at its peak to thousands of people. Its builders are not a vanished people: archaeologists and the Choctaw, Chickasaw, Muscogee, Alabama, and Coushatta nations trace descent from Moundville's Mississippian-era community, and designs, foods, and words that trace back to it are still carried by tribal artists, cooks, and speakers today. Visitors occasionally report the sound of a drum coming from within the park at night, along with lights seen atop one of the larger mounds — the one whose shape has drawn comparisons to a Central American pyramid.