Ormond Indian Burial Mound
N 29° 16.817 W 081° 03.195
17R E 494827 N 3239040
The Ormond Indian Burial Mound contains the skeletal remains of more than 125 early Native Americans.
Waymark Code: WMJG0T
Location: Florida, United States
Date Posted: 11/13/2013
Views: 16
An historical marker at the site provides the following information:
"The Ormond Mound was constructed by the prehistoric people of this area sometime after A.D. 800. The skeletal remains of more than 125 early Native Americans are buried in this sand burial mound. Interring bodies in earthen mounds was a common burial practice in the late pre-historic period. The bones of most of the deceased were "bundled" and buried during special ceremonies. As more bodies were buried and covered with layers of sand, the mound grew over time. The Mound is preserved as one of the finest and most intact burial mounds in Florida through the efforts of the community that worked to save this site in 1982.
City of Ormond Beach
Ormond Beach Historical Trust, Inc."
The following additional information is from the Ormond Beach Historical Society website:
"Thanks to community efforts and the Ormond Beach Historical Society in the 1980s, the Ormond Indian Mound, at the corner of South Beach Street and Mound Avenue, has been preserved as one of the finest and most intact Indian burial mounds in eastern Florida.
Salvage excavations indicate that more than one hundred individual burials remain in the mound. The Timucua Indians, whose tribes stretched from northeastern Florida to Southeastern Georgia, began this mound in the late St. Johns Period, after A.D. 800.
Please Note - You can park your vehicle across the street in Ames Park and enjoy a delightful walk along the Halifax River as you explore this wonderful historic site.
Associated with the Ormond Mound was a charnel house used to store bodies before burial. The Timucua used such structures to prepare corpses (mostly of prominent people) for the afterlife. The dead were laid out on wooden racks and allowed to decompose, attended usually by high priests. After the bodies dried away, each set of bones was then bundled individually and interred with special ceremony. This method explains the great number of skeletons found in burial mounds.
The Timucua Indians were over 200,000 strong in Northeast Florida and Southeast Georgia when the French and Spanish came to Florida in the early 1500s. With constant warfare among the rival chiefs and other Indian tribes, plus the lack of immunity to diseases brought by Europeans, the Timucua tribes rapidly diminished. As the Spaniards gave Florida to the English in the early 1760s, they took several of the Timucua to Cuba with them. But the Timucua were essentially extinct by the early 1800s. It is believed that remaining Timucuas may have joined with the Seminoles.
Please Note – You can park your vehicle across the street in Ames Park and enjoy a delightful walk along the Halifax River as you explore this wonderful historic site."