SIX YEARS AGO, in June 2019, a little before 5:30 a.m., Angel Mounds State Historic Site director Mike Linderman set out to view Mound A. It felt like any other morning, and he didn’t expect very much—if anything—to happen. The grass was still dewy from the previous night, and the sun hadn’t yet appeared. All was cold, dark, and empty.
Suddenly, as the last few minutes of the last hour ticked away before sunrise, the sun emerged beaming on the horizon. “It came up and sat down behind the mound like a glowing crown on a cone,” Linderman recalls. “The archaeologist had been right,” he thought. And to his chagrin, as he stood there before Mound A, an incredible thought occurred to him: He was the first person in nearly 600 years to see the summer solstice alignment at Angel Mounds. “I guess I’m eating crow tonight,” Linderman chuckled to himself.
Sometime before this, an archaeologist specializing in archaeoastronomy and ancient religions named William F. Romain visited the site and ran the positioning of the mounds through a computer. “They realized there were these alignments that weren’t there by coincidence,” Linderman explains. Hence, Linderman’s trip out to Mound A to see for himself.
The invisible solar and lunar alignment lines that track a path across the central mound run parallel to each other and the Ohio River. “We now believe that very early on in its establishment as a settlement, this location was created to keep track of annual lunar and solar events,” Linderman says.
The Middle Mississippian peoples who had inhabited this area from 1100 to 1450 A.D. may have created the mounds to align with celestial events, Linderman says, to help plan out their planting and harvest seasons. In the years since the summer solstice alignment discovery, researchers at the site have found a Milky Way alignment. “There’s probably more that we just haven’t found yet.”
Indeed, many mysteries remain—we still don’t know what the Native American peoples inhabiting the area called themselves, or the Angel Mounds village site, or why the site was eventually abandoned. But excavations over the years have uncovered more than 2.5 million artifacts, many of which are now on display at the newly updated interpretive center, alongside contemporary works by modern makers. The extensive two-year, $6.5 million renovation also added new signage along a nearly 4-mile trail loop that leads through a reconstructed village. All these improvements were made with the consultation of federally recognized tribal historians.
Logan York, tribal historic preservation officer for the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma (and a modern-day descendant of the historic site’s original inhabitants), has visited the site a few times for these consultations. “You turn the corner and boom, the second-largest earthwork in North America is right there,” he says. “It is at once both amazing and inspiring to be around these sites, but also a bit sad because they also show in dramatic fashion all that tribes have had taken away from them.”
Angel Mounds probably wasn’t just a cultural site for the native peoples, York adds. It was a place of science, a place where astronomers, architects, and mathematicians would have gathered together to learn and make real the Mississippian understanding of the universe. “That is really exciting for me because I know my own participation at Angel Mounds is nothing new; it is a continuation of Miami presence at this site.”
And in a way, the historic site’s new winter solstice viewings carry on these traditions of being a prime gathering spot. Every year, a large crowd of people descends on the site to witness the winter solstice. “The solstice events have brought new life into the site as far as visitors go,” says Linderman. “The mounds aren’t this static remnant of a lost culture. They’ve become a living, functioning thing.”
Unlike the summer solstice marking the longest day of the year, the winter solstice occurs at a more convenient time of 4:30 p.m. or so. This year, on December 19 and December 20, visitors to the historic site can expect a short presentation and a docent-led viewing of the winter solstice.
The sun will set in alignment with mounds A and B. Mound A is the largest of all the mounds at approximately 44 feet tall, 644 feet long, and 335 feet wide—making it one of the largest prehistoric structures in the eastern United States. Hence, this year’s winter solstice viewing will take place here. The Winter Solstice Alignment events will take place from 3:45 to 5:30 p.m. CT on December 19 and 20. Tickets are $5 for adults, $3 for children, and $4 for seniors. Parking is free and available at the interpretive center. Visitors are encouraged to arrive early, so they have plenty of time to visit the new interpretive center before heading out to the mounds to find their perfect spot to view the solstice alignment. Expected time for the solar alignment is between 4:15 and 4:30 p.m.
