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cleansed.40 Some of the Mississippian-era human remains unearthed during archaeological

excavations at Ocmulgee National Monument also show signs of scrape marks consistent with

postmortem flesh removal. The placement of these remains relative to surrounding structures,

often within the confines of a primary dwelling, suggest that bones, not full bodies, held cultural
significance for the people who lived at the Ocmulgee site.41 Although the Creek Nation's

religious traditions have changed significantly over the intervening centuries, a burial practice

still used by some members of the Muscogee Nation ties directly back to these older traditions.
In many cemeteries in Okmulgee42, Oklahoma, small houses are erected over grave sites. While

bodies today are buried intact, these structures harken back to the buildings erected to shield
decomposing bodies from predation as seen by both Ortiz and Yarrow.43

Occupation at the Lamar site and surrounding region by Muskogean speakers continued

from the late Mississippian encounter of the de Soto expedition through the early 1800s. Though

English accounts of the people living at Ocmulgee are not extremely detailed until after the War

for American Independence, William Bartram, an adventurous botanist traveling through the
region in the 1770s, made note of both the people and the mounds at Ocmulgee.44 Changes in

the region drastically altered the political climate of the Indigenous Southeast over this same

period. At Achese, the Spanish found a small, settled, agricultural village, tribute to the much
more powerful Ocute region to the north.45 However, by the late 1600s smaller Native American

groups banded together, and formed strong confederacies, many in reaction to encroachment by

both Europeans and other hostile Indigenous bands. The formation of these new polities

40 Henry Yarrow, “The Study of Mortuary,” in First Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of
the Smithsonian Institution:1879-1880, ed. J.W. Powell (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1881), 93-94.

41 Davis, interview by author, February 1, 2018.
42 Ocmulgee holds such a special place in Muscogee history, the Creek Nation named their new capitol in

Oklahoma in its honor.
43 Davis, interview by author, February 1, 2018.
44 Jennings, ed., The Flower Hunter and The People, 27-29.
45 Smith, Narratives of De Soto, 50-53.

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