Overview
This two-day route highlights the depth and diversity of Native history in Arkansas long before European colonization. Plum Bayou Mounds Archeological State Park preserves the state’s largest and most complex mound site, a ceremonial landscape that demonstrates sophisticated community planning and regional connections. Traveling east into the Delta, Parkin Archeological State Park preserves another major village site and offers a different window into Native life along the Mississippi River system. The final stop, Hampson Archeological Museum State Park in Wilson, interprets the nationally significant Nodena collection from a palisaded farming village occupied roughly A.D. 1400–1650. By linking monumental landscapes, archeological sites, and museum collections, the route encourages travelers to see ancient Arkansas as a series of dynamic communities rather than a single undifferentiated period.
