Welcome
Oakville Indian Mounds is closed for the holidays Dec 17 through January 4. We are owned and operated by the Lawrence County School System and will be observing their holiday schedule.
Please be aware that our main entrance sign is currently being replaced. Look for our metal markers honoring the Cherokee clan names at our entrance to turn into the park
The picture below shows a clump of Smooth Cat's Ear (Hypochaeris glabra) in bloom with our platform mound in the background.
HISTORICAL OVERVIEW
Located in the southeastern portion of Lawrence County, Oakville Indian Mounds Park and Museum is shaded by the 180,000 acre William B. Bankhead National Forest and shares the treasures and remaining vestiges of the great Indian hunting grounds. The Bankhead is encompassed by part of the Warrior Mountains, the western terminus of the Appalachian Mountains. With its prolific wildlife, waterfalls, caves, and deep gorges, Bankhead is one of the southeast’s premier sites for petroglyphs, prehistoric drawings, and rock carvings. Indians hunted in this area for some 12,000 years before the Europeans arrived. Oakville Indian Mounds Park (hereinafter referred to as the Park) is an educational, archeological, genealogical, and sociological legacy to Lawrence County and North Alabama. Spanning a timeline of human occupation of over 14,000 years and a diversity of races and cultures, the Park preserves, protects, and presents artifacts dating as far back as 10,000 B.C. and ancient geological evidence of the settlement and evolution of the people of this region of Alabama. Creek (Muskogee), Yuchi (Uchean), Shawnee (Algonquin), Chickasaw (Muskogee), and Cherokee (Iroquoian) Indians were the five historic tribes to live in the Oakville area.