Shields Mound and Grant Mound at the Mill Cove Complex Jacksonville Florida Shape the Form of a Fishhook and Fishing Weight at the Head of the Mouth of Pisces

A "fish-hook" and "fishing weight" (sinker) are shaped by the stars as represented at the Shields Mound, Grant Mound and earthworks at the Mill Cove Complex, and those are stars just at the head of the head of Pisces.

Mill Cove is just to the south and west of our previously deciphered Talbot Island State Park Grand Mounds, both in the greater Jacksonville, Florida area. 
Each of these decipherments complements the other in adding great strength to this and previous mound and earthwork interpretations.

Shields Mound, Grant Mound, A Fishhook and Fishing Weight (Sinker)
Marked in the Stars of Pisces and at the Mill Cove Complex

The MOUNDS and EARTHWORKS at the Mill Cove Complex

Shields Mound, Grant Mound, A Fishhook and Fishing Weight (Sinker)

The mound location placements above are based on a map diagram in William N. Morgan, Precolumbian Architecture in Eastern North America, Ripley P. Bullen Series, Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida Press, Gainesville, FL, 1999, http://www.upf.com/, for which we are most grateful, since they are nowhere else to be found.

The site of the mounds was first excavated in 1894 and 1895 by Clarence Bloomfield Moore, upon whose drawings and descriptions Morgan relies, correctly so.

Incredulously, 2e read some article in an archaeology magazine questioning Moore's drawings because modern LIDAR soundings today just show rough earthwork remnant blobs of earthworks ruined by modern civilization, all of course in situ, but without the previous detail shown by Moore. That's mud!

It just goes to show how much has been destroyed in the last 100+ years by rapidly expanding populations and suburbs. LIDAR may have its uses, but it should never be used to replace quality drawings from previous eras. That would be ludicrous. Archaeology is not there to glorify modern technology or to call into question clear drawings from the past that have no business being challenged. Rather, Archaeology should try much harder to comprehend the facts before them, rather than "inventing" the past through confusion.

What Morgan writes is unequivocal, referring to Moore in 1895:

"Situated on a bluff along Mill Cove with a commanding view to the north, Shields Mound rose to a height of some 18 feet (5.5 meters) in 1895 and appeared to have rounded corners, although originally they may have been square. A lower oval platform or apron engaged the pyramid's north slope. An unusual ramp shaped like a fishhook proceeded south from the mound. Beginning more or less at grade, the ramp extended about 500 feet (150 meters) to the south, where it rose almost 14 feet (4.3 meters) above grade. The ramp then curved toward the northwest and descended once more to grade, terminating in a shallow depression bounded on the west by a linear berm.

Leading southwest from the pyramid and ramp, two parallel ridges of earth flanked a "covered way," or ceremonial avenue, at most 50 feet (15 meters) wide. The processional way continued possibly 1,800 feet (550 meters) to a small lake. Much disturbed by cultivation at the time of the survey, the low ridges of earth may have been formed by scraping fill material from the surface of the avenue."

And so somebody is now using LIDAR to challenge those descriptions?
Just because modern ARCHAEOLOGY can not explain what was clearly found?
We have no problem with the 1895 drawing.
IT IS CLEARLY CORRECT and BEAUTIFULLY DONE.
Thank you Moore and Morgan!
LIDAR is for OTHER things.

Moreover, we wonder why something as simple as the "fishing weight" has thus far apparently never been identified by the archaeological community. Have people never been fishing for bullheads in places like Oak Lake in Lincoln, Nebraska? Did not think so. Well, we did some of that in our youth. You need a fish hook (with an "eye" to thread or tie the line), fishing weight (we used to call that a "sinker"), fish line, bait, and a rod, or simple fishing pole. If you look at Moore and Morgan's drawings, you might find a fishing line as well, and note that the "ceremonial avenue" leads to a lake, obviously, to go fishing!

Learning How to Fish  -- is online.

THIS POSTING IS Posting Number 66 of
The Great Mound, Petroglyph and Painted Rock Art Journey of Native America

Shields Mound and Grant Mound at the Mill Cove Complex Jacksonville Florida Shape the Form of a Fishhook and Fishing Weight at the Head of the Mouth of Pisces