Pocahontas Mounds, Archaeological mounds in Hinds County, Mississippi, US

Pocahontas Mounds is an archaeological site featuring two major earthen structures built by early Native American peoples. One forms a rectangular platform, while the other is a cone-shaped burial mound, each representing different functions within the community.

Pocahontas Mounds was occupied from 800 to 1300 CE by Coles Creek and Plaquemine Mississippian peoples, with brief earlier use in the Middle-Late Archaic period around 4000-1000 BCE, shown by 2004 excavations. Mound A was added to the National Register of Historic Places on November 25, 1969, and Mound B on April 11, 1972. Archaeologist James A. Ford described the platform mound in the late 1930s.

The site lies along U.S. Route 49 near its junction with Interstate 220 and is listed on the Mississippi Mound Trail. A roadside park opened at Mound A in 2008 as a rest stop and educational center explaining the site. Children from a school once found a bird effigy bowl and a human effigy ceramic pipe at Mound B.

The site is fairly easy to walk around at ground level, with informational markers explaining the structures and their significance. Plan your visit for dry conditions so you can comfortably explore both mounds and read the signs without difficulty.

Children from a school once kept on Mound B's grounds found a fragmentary bird effigy bowl and a human effigy ceramic pipe at the burial mound. Excavations in 2004, directed by Jeffrey Alvey for the Cobb Institute of Archaeology and funded by the Mississippi Department of Transportation, also recovered copper ear-spools, pottery and flint chips.