Happy Ocmulgee New Year’s Day!

The acropolis at Ocmulgee National Historical Park was the first urban design plan in North America, aligned to the Winter Solstice Sunrise! Its architecture told the residents when the annual calendar began anew . . . as was the tradition in Mesoamerica.

by Richard L. Thornton, Architect & City Planner

Twenty years ago, this morning , , , a land surveyor from Macon, GA and I set up his transit on the center of the Great Temple Mound at (then) Ocmulgee National Monument and measured the azimuth of the sunrise. Using the center of the mound as a benchmark, he then measured the angles to the center points of some visible mounds nearby. I took the information home to Jasper, GA and applied it to precise U. S. Geological Survey maps and aerial photographs. 

Sheezam! All of the mounds in the Ocmulgee River Basin, built after 900 AD, were aligned to a triangular matrix, based on the Solar North-South line, plus the azimuths of the Winter Solstice Sunrise and Sunset! The main plaza was aligned to the Winter Solstice Sunrise. The center points of the mounds were precise nodes on the intersections of these lines.

Timber poles on the mounds and in nearby plazas functioned as sun dials for determining the time of day and locating heavenly bodies in the night time sky. You can see the poles below in the model that I built of the Ocmulgee Acropolis.

How in the heck did those Indigenous American surveyors, a thousand years ago, carry out such precision on locations two to fourteen miles away that could not be seen from the top of the Great Temple Mound? These feats seemed impossible according to what archaeologists told us about the cultural level of the people of Ocmulgee. 

CADD graphics in 2003 were crude according to today’s standards and Google Maps did not exist.

The First Ocmulgee National Monument Site Plan

In September of 2002, I had learned that there was NO SITE PLAN for Ocmulgee National Monument, only a surveyor’s boundary survey and a vague drawing by a commercial artist in a tourist brochure. I called up my old friends at the National Park Service archaeological center at Harpers Ferry. They confirmed that even their office had no site plan, even though the US Government had owned Ocmulgee for 70 years.

Then, I began reading the 70 years of archaeological reports, climaxing with a book by University of Georgia professors, published in 1994, Ocmulgee Archaeology – 1936-1986. None of these archaeologists, including my old mentor, Dr. Arthur Kelly, seemed aware that modern maps are based on magnetic North, not the True Solar North. They were all puzzled by the fact that the major structures were all “slightly off” from being aligned to the major points (N,S,E,W, SE . . . etc.) on a map. They all interpreted this to be from the imprecise measuring tools, used by primitive peoples.)

I put all of the maps, site analysis calculations and site plans into a booklet . . . Ocmuglee Under Five Suns . . . and decided to sell it at the 2003 Southeastern American Indian Festival at Ocmulgee National Monument. It was my first published book . . . if you don’t count a legion of Urban Design, Downtown Revitalization and Comprehensive Plans. 

A girlfriend from Woodstock, GA, who grew up in Macon, came along to provide sex appeal to my marketing efforts. We sold over $1400 of books and my handmade Maya-style pottery that weekend . . . but two other things happened.

Professor Charles Hudson showed up at the booth with a group of junior professors and graduate students. He presented himself as a “an Indian grave digger, who sold Native American artifacts at flea markets.” Hudson had completely forgotten that he and several other famous archaeology professors had been in my office in Asheville, NC twenty years earlier to discuss their proposed route for the De Soto Expedition. Hudson wanted me to identify some artifacts for him.

I told him repeatedly that I was an architect and city planner, not an archaeologist, but he insisted. He pulled out a plastic bag of potshards. I correctly identified every one of them. He was stunned . . . actually red-faced. 

Hudson then pulled out a plastic bag of what he described as “arrowheads.” I immediately responded that they were not arrowheads, but spear points, atlatl points, drills and scrappers. His followers then gave him a puzzled look. I immediately fingered the Clovis point, Archaic quartz point and drill bits. Hudson’s followers began drifting away from the booth.

He stopped me and then started stating the wrong names of cultural periods for archaeological sites. I immediately interrupted him. ”Wo! Thunderbird is not a Mississippian town site in Florida. It’s a Paleo-Indian and Early Archaic jasper and flint quarry in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia . . . not very far from my former farm there. It’s archaeologist, Bill Gardener, was a friend of mine. His firm did all my archaeological work at Colonial Era farm restorations.” 

Hudson’s jaw dropped. By now all the followers were gone. He started to say something, then walked away.

Standing nearby were six distinguished-looking Creek men . . . grinning ear to ear. Their main spokesman . . . from Tulsa . . . stepped forward, ”You’re Creek! Are you a citizen of the Muscogee Creek Nation?” I told him no . . . that I was a Georgia Creek, but have some third and fourth cousins in Oklahoma, who were members of the Muscogee-Creek Nation.

He responded, “Well maybe, we can figure out a way to get you enrolled,” then asked, “Hey, did you know that you just made a fool out of Charles Hudson? He’s a famous archaeologist. Claims to be THE expert on the Creek People.”

I answered, “Yep, he was in my former office in Asheville about twenty years ago, but forgot the two hours spent there. By the way, he is an anthropology professor at the University of Georgia . . . but no archaeologist. I have never heard of him working at any site, after he graduated from the University of North Carolina. He publishes books that were written by his graduate students then promotes himself very effectively.”

The six men were members of the National Council of the Muscogee Creek Nation. They then asked me if I would be willing to devote several years to researching the architecture and history of our people.

I said “Yes!“  The rest is history.

Footnote

Some Georgia archaeologists pressured the National Park Service to refute my booklet. The park director didn’t want to do that without proof. Ocmulgee N. M. then paid a large, politically-connected land surveying firm, $15,000 to locate the mounds on a site plan . . . something that should have been done 70 years earlier. Their results duplicated the work done by the Macon land surveyor and myself, so the matter was hushed up.

Now you know!