FSU archaeologist Jayur Mehta has investigated the Carson site—a large Native American village uncovered in the Mississippi River Valley—for years. The site contains large earthen mounds originally built by Native Americans to “represent [a] community,” but they were appropriated by wealthy settlers.

Settlers built their homes atop the mounds, ignoring the many uses those mounds had for indigenous people, such as protection from raiding and flooding, as well as social and ideological benefits. “These places deserve our attention, our efforts, and preservation, just as much as we would strive to preserve colonial Williamsburg or Jamestown,” Mehta says.

• Jayur Mehta