6) Pinson Mounds State Park
South of Jackson, visitors will find the archaeological wonder that is Pinson Mounds State Park. Here there are several mounds that were built by the native Chickasaw Tribe between 1,300 and 1,500 years ago. There are about thirty of these earthen mounds, with the tallest being Saul’s Mound, which reaches seventy-two feet in height. In 1965, the land was bought by the state of Tennessee, and was subsequently added to the national register of historic places later that year. No one is completely certain what the mounds or the area was used for. Some believe that they had an important role in funerary rites; others believed that it was a center for craftsmen and artisans to ply their trade, and a few think that could have been the site of a village. One thing is for sure, different mounds were built for different purposes. Regardless of why the Pinson Mounds were built, the sheer amount of effort it took for a people using stone tools to build these mounds is astonishing, and well worth the trip to see.
