"We are making our way up the Natchez Trace Parkway from Natchez, Mississippi to Nashville, Tennessee, and today we visit BEAR CREEK MOUND, our last exhibit before we leave Mississippi.

"The Bear Creek Mound is typical of the ceremonial Indian Mounds we have seen along our Natchez Trace journey. It is a flat topped temple mound that stands about 10 feet high and is right on the Mississippi-Alabama Border. The mound itself was built less than a 1000 years ago, sometime between 1200 and 1400 AD. At first you may think this is just another old Indian mound; however, the mound is located at the oldest major prehistoric site on the entire Natchez Trace. Dating back more than 10,000 years, the BEAR CREEK MOUND SITE was occupied by migratory hunters as early as 8000 B.C. Just imagine, this site was occupied by human beings for thousands of years, from Paleo times through the Mississippian period.

"On our next program we will take a small step in our journey as we cross over into Alabama, but remember this final exhibit in Mississippi; it's a lasting footprint of human life here that spanned not just a few decades and centuries, but rather, several millennia. For Natchez Trace a road through the wilderness, I'm Frank Thomas."

For more about Natchez Trace: A Road Through the Wilderness, visit eddieandfrank.com