Swann-2026-Eight-Mounds-for-the-Moon-Sultzertown-Emerald-Mound-Abstract

The Sultzertown mound (Emerald Mound, 22AD504) on the Natchez Bluffs of Mississippi is a Plaquemine platform begun about A.D. 1350 on the site of a Mississippian village of about A.D. 1200. Eyewitness accounts published in 1814 and the survey of Squier and Davis (1848) describe a summit with two great end mounds on its long axis, ramps at the middle of the north and south sides, and lesser mounds set in pairs beside each approach; ploughing reduced the record to six by 1838. A one-meter LiDAR model (USGS 3DEP, 2016) measures the summit at 193 by 129 m (633 by 423 ft), with its long axis at 94°06′ true. The findings of the author, Matthew Swann, are these: Eight lesser mounds in four pairs. The 1814 accounts give four lesser mounds on each long side, two flanking each ramp, eight in all, one pair to each quarter; the tally of six reflects a ploughed summit. The lunar octad. These mounds answer the eight horizon extremes of the Moon over the 18.6-year nodal cycle, the major and minor standstills rising and setting, with the end mounds on the equinoctial line and the ramps on the meridian. The Natchez kept a calendar of thirteen moons, and the Hopewell octagons at Newark and High Bank, Ohio, encode the same cycle. The North Galactic Pole at the zenith. The North Galactic Pole, the axis of the Milky Way, stood 5′ from the zenith of the site in A.D. 1200, at the founding of the village. The Milky Way is a great circle across the sky, and its pole can be found from the band itself. The two-to-three summit confirmed. The LiDAR ratio of 1.49 matches the proportion of two to three that the eyewitnesses described. The northwest corner and the Swan. The northwest corner line of the measured summit, at 307°51′, meets the setting point of the zenith and the descent of Gienah Cygni, the wing of Cygnus, 3′ from the line in A.D. 1200. Cygnus over the mound centers. A star of Cygnus stood within 20′ of the founding zenith at 16 of 35 Archaic, Adena, Hopewell and Mississippian centers, against 9 expected by chance (p = 0.012). Orion, tested the same way, stood at the zenith of none. Ground-penetrating radar along the north and south edges of the summit would test the plan directly: it predicts the buried footings of four lesser mounds on each side, two flanking each ramp. If confirmed, Sultzertown would be the first eight-point lunar plan identified in a Mississippian platform mound, and the first found beyond the Hopewell octagons of Ohio at Newark and High Bank.