Searching for “missing” mounds: investigating the landscape of the 1730 battlefield at the Grand Village of the Natchez Indians

We describe investigations at the Fatherland site (22Ad501) in Natchez, Mississippi, conducted to better understand an important battle that took place there between the Natchez and the French in 1730. Eighteenth-century documents indicate that two “missing” mounds – that is, ones no longer visible today – figured prominently in this battle. Both mounds were relocated through fieldwork that used a combination of remote sensing, coring, and excavating. Knowing the locations of these mounds allows us to correct previous reconstructions of the battlefield and shows that the history of the Grand Village was much more complicated than previously thought.