Interior of a Campeche Maya house

The Maya houses in central and eastern Campeche are virtually identical to the traditional houses of the Chickasaw People. Traditional Creek houses were rectangular like those built by the Mayas and most indigenous peoples in Tabasco and Veracruz. Soque (Zoque) houses in southern Mexico and northeast Georgia were very large and square with four wooden columns, supporting the roof.

*I apologize for the poor photo quality, but back when I was a young man, affordable cameras and standard color slide film did not do a good job, when a flash bulb was required to photograph a dark interior.

by Richard L. Thornton, Architect & City Planner

Just like the houses, built by advanced indigenous societies in the Lower Southeast, the walls of the house were created with interwoven river cane like a basket, plastered with clay. Campeche wattle and daub walls were about four inches (10 cm) thick. Walls of houses in the much cooler climates of northern Georgia, northern Alabama, northern Mississippi, Tennessee and western North Carolina were typically 6-8 inches (15-20 cm) thick.

Archaeologist Arthur Kelly also found Soque-style houses near the Great Temple Mound at Ocmulgee National Historic Park. They dated from around 1000 AD to 1150 AD. The original houses on the acropolis at Ocmulgee were large, round South American style teepees.

Chiki . . . the word for “house” in Totonac, Itza Maya, Eastern Creek, Seminole and Miccosukee is derived from the Maya verb, meaning “to weave a basket.”

Below is the exterior of that same house and a Campeche Maya house under construction . . . followed by my virtual reality images of a house, excavated by archaeologist Robert Wauchope, at site 9WH 2, just west of the Kenimer Mound in the Nacoochee Valley of Georgia.

House at the Eastwood Site (9WH2) in the Nacoochee Valley of Georgia