The mounds rise from the northern shore in serpentine curves, six of them, composed entirely of oyster shells. The largest stretches 180 by 165 feet and rises as high as 22 feet in places — some accounts say it once reached 50 feet. Mississippian people of the Pensacola culture built them over four and a half centuries, from 1100 to 1550, arriving seasonally from Bottle Creek on the Mobile-Tensaw Delta to harvest oysters and fish Little Dauphin Island Sound. Archaeologist Gregory Waselkov of the University of South Alabama believes Bottle Creek served as the major village, and Dauphin Island as a winter migration destination.
The oysters were collected from reefs at low tide, steamed over heated coals covered with seaweed — a process resembling a New England clam bake. The shells were discarded around the fire. As the fire's location shifted each season, the shells accumulated in stratified layers: oyster shells thick, charcoal and fish bones thin, over and over, century by century. The meat was smoked for preservation. Few artifacts survived — primarily broken cooking pots. Stone tools were scarce.
In 1699, Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville landed on the island and discovered a large pile of human bones. He named it Massacre Island. The bones were not massacre victims. A hurricane had broken open a Mississippian burial mound, spilling skeletal remains. The name persisted for years until it was changed to Île du Dauphine around 1707, honoring Louis XIV's great-grandson, the future Louis XV.
The park now sits on the Dauphin Island-Bayou La Batre Loop of the Alabama Coastal Birding Trail. Up to 384 species of birds have been spotted on the island — shorebirds, long-legged waders, warblers. Dauphin Island was named America's "birdiest" small coastal city in 2005 and 2006. The park exhibits a variety of subtropical plants exceeding that of other Gulf Coast barrier islands, species brought by Native American groups for medicine or food from as far inland as the Appalachian Mountains and as far south as Yucatán. Live oaks on the island may be over 800 years old.
The mounds are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. They were added August 14, 1973.
- ·164-acre park. Oysters steamed in pits covered with seaweed (archaeologically documented by Gregory Waselkov, USA, 1990). Creek and Seminole used island until forced removals 1830s. Adjacent to Cadillac Square French colonial residential zone. NRHP August 14, 1973.
Memories
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