tribe of historic times, the site has evidence of 12,000 years of human habitation. The Macon plateau was inhabited during the Paleoindian, Archaic, and Woodland phases. The major occupation was ca. 950-1150 CE during the Early Mississippian-culture phase. The people of this sophisticated, stratified culture built the complex, massive earthworks that expressed their religious and political system. Archeologists call this society the Macon Plateau culture, a local expression of the South Appalachian Mississippian culture. During this period, an elite society supported by skillful farmers developed a town. Leaders directed the complex construction of large, earthwork platform mounds, the central structures on the plateau. Carrying earth by hand in bags, thousands of workers built the .-high Great Temple Mound on a high bluff overlooking the floodplain of the Ocmulgee River. Magnetometer scans have revealed the platform mound had a spiraling staircase oriented toward the floodplain. The staircase is unique among any of the Mississippian-culture sites. Other earthworks include at least one burial mound. The people built rectangular wooden buildings to house certain religious ceremonies on the top of the platform mounds. The mounds at Ocmulgee were unusual because they were constructed further from each other than was typical of other Mississippian complexes. Scholars believe this was to provide for public space and residences around the mounds. Circular earth lodges were built to serve as places to conduct meetings and important ceremonies. Remains of one of the earth lodges were carbon dated to 1050 CE. This evidence was the basis for the reconstructed lodge which archeologists later built at the park center. The interior features a raised-earth platform, shaped like an eagle with a forked-eye motif. Molded seats on the platform were built for the leaders. The eagle was a symbol of the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex, which the people shared with other Mississippian cultures. Lamar Period As the Mississippian culture declined at the ceremonial center, ca. 1350 a new culture coalesced among people who lived in the swamps downstream. The Late Mississippian period (1350 - 1600 A.D.), also consisted of the Lamar Period, where natives built two mounds that have survived at that site, including a unique spiral mound. The Lamar period is composed of four distinct phases that lasted between the years 1375 and 1670. It is identified through unique ceramic design elements that were primarily produced during this period. These four phases were the Duvall, Iron Horse, Dyar, and Bell