Ingomar Mound event: atlatl, archery, flintknapping and more, October 28

The annual Ingomar Mound Event will be Saturday, October 28, 10 – 2, weather permitting, as part pf Mississippi Archaeology Month events. The mound site is located two miles west of Highway 15 south on CR 96.

Atlatl throwing: learning about a weapon older than the bow and arrow

Archaeologists from Mississippi State University will be on hand to identify objects that visitors bring to the event. The North Mississippi Atlatl Association will be in charge of the atlatl competition, primitive skills demonstrations and archery for children.

MSU Professor Evan Peacock demonstrates flint knapping at last year’s Ingomar event surrounded by other archaeologists and visitors. This method of manufacture is believed to have been used to make some of the earliest stone tools ever found, some of which date from over 2 million years ago.

This is Atlatl Association’s grand championship, culminating 4 from four competitions throughout the year. Competitors can register and practice at the event. The association will also have archery for children.

This is the 12^th year for the Ingomar event, sponsored by the Union County Heritage Museum celebrating the ancient culture who built the mound approximately 2200 years ago. This is possibly the oldest manmade site, which still exists, in Union County. The mound site has been carbon dated by archaeologists to have been built in the Middle Woodland period and the large platform mound is the first of the 14 mounds which once occupied the site.

The site was first studied and excavated by the Smithsonian Institution in the mid 1880s. It was first noted in a letter to the Smithsonian from Samuel Agnew of the Brices Crossroads area when he wrote to them about the large prehistoric site, asking that it be studied.

Copies of notes from the 1880 Smithsonian expedition, which took several months, are in the archives at the museum, said Jill Smith, Museum Director. Mississippi Sate University archeologist Janet Rafferty led the group who did the next research at the site 100 year later, in the mid 1980s. That is when the carbon dating was done from a core drilling on the platform mound, Smith said.

The site was purchased from the Burchfield Family by the Archaeological Conservancy about 15 years ago. The conservancy is a private non profit which allows educational use of the site and preserves it for the future. It is a National Landmark and a Mississippi Landmark.

The signage and interpretation at the site was done in 2010-11 by the Union County Heritage Museum through a partnership and grant from the Appalachian Regional Commission.