
Plum Bayou Mounds Archeological State Park: Arkansas’ first archeological state park
By: Zoie CliftThere are many routes of studying and connecting to the human story. Among these is the process of archeology. Archeology in general is telling the human story through the things that humans left behind.
As the name of Plum Bayou Mounds Archeological State Park implies, archeology is an important aspect of this state park.
“A lot of people think that all archeology happens in the field doing excavation,” said Robin Gabe, park interpreter at Plum Bayou Mounds Archeological State Park. “While that is a good portion of the science, another important part of the process is analyzing data and lab work. Archeology really is a process that has many steps. Only one of those steps is excavation.”
Along with digging and finding objects, the practice of archaeology involves a pattern of questioning, investigating, excavating, analyzing and interpreting in an effort to tell the human story.

The state park and the Arkansas Archeological Survey work together at Plum Bayou Mounds Archeological State Park. “Park Staff have a very good relationship with the archeologists at the Plum Bayou Mounds station,” said Gabe. “They continue to actively investigate this site and ask questions and their work is then shared with us. We take that information and share it with our visitors through interpretation programs. Station archeologists are involved in reviewing content for printed publications and exhibit design to ensure accuracy. Our work together on public outreach programs, and site protection is a great partnership.”
There are 10 archeological research stations across the state, including the Plum Bayou Mounds Research Station. The stations are part of the Arkansas Archeological Survey, a research division of the University of Arkansas. Along with the Plum Bayou site, there is also a research station at another state park in the state: Parkin Archeological State Park. Each station has a station archeologist and station assistant.
“If you visit the park, you’ll see our lab through some large windows, our fishbowl lab, over the canoe case and sometimes you might catch a glimpse of us working on collections and doing research,” said Paige Ford, PhD, Arkansas Archeological Survey Station Archeologist at Plum Bayou Research Station at Plum Bayou Mounds Archeological State Park. “Our main missions include site preservation, research, and educational outreach. We work each day to learn more about Arkansas’ past by doing archeological research, to ensure sites like Plum Bayou Mounds are preserved for generations to come, and also to get out into communities to teach them about archeology and why it is important.”
Dr. Martha Rolingson was the first station archeologist at the research station here and she worked there for over 30 years. Her work still impacts research at the site today.
So what has been the most important archeolgical discovery at Plum Bayou Mounds?
“This is a really difficult question, only because all archeological discoveries in any place have importance in their own rights for what they can teach us about the people that lived, worked, and gathered in those places,” said Ford. “So ranking things in terms of their importance is hard because it is all important to the entire human story. And, at Plum Bayou Mounds, there is still so much to learn.”
There are discoveries that stand out though.
“I think one thing that doesn’t get enough emphasis is how incredibly complex Woodland societies like Plum Bayou were in many different respects,” said Ford. “For context, Plum Bayou Mounds and thus Plum Bayou culture dates to the tail end of that Woodland Period, at AD 650-1050. At Plum Bayou Mounds, there is a lot of archeology that speaks to that complexity, including showing us how widespread and far flung their networks and interactions were with surrounding communities. Many discoveries on site include things like stones such as quartz crystal and novaculite which are coming from the relatively nearby Ouachita Mountains, and things from farther afield like scraps of copper coming from the Great Lakes region and marine shells coming from the Gulf of Mexico. So, these communities were incredibly interconnected with others more local to Arkansas and farther away as well. This also shows us that Plum Bayou Mounds not only likely served as an important ceremonial center, but maybe also as a gathering place of many communities, facilitating interaction from across the region.”
The mounds themselves also stand out.
“The archeology of any mound site in the southeastern US, and thus at Plum Bayou Mounds, show us that moundbuilding is way more complex process than just mounding up soil,” said Ford. “The structures must be stable enough to sometimes hold buildings and to also exist for thousands of years. These mounds are still standing just like many others across the region. So, Plum Bayou communities, and other moundbuilding communities, were highly skilled engineers with an amazing knowledge of local geology to plan and build these mounds where they still stand today.”
Parkeology is an event put on in collaboration with the Arkansas Archeological Survey to celebrate International Archeology Day. The event began in 2023 and the park plans to continue it as an annual event. “It is a great way to celebrate International Archeology Day and to highlight our partnership with the Arkansas Archeological Survey,” said Gabe. “Each year we will focus on a different area or question related to this site.”
More information about the Arkansas Archeological Survey can be found at archeology.uark.edu. There are also organizations for the public to get involved in if they are interested in archeology. More information about the Arkansas Archeological Society, which anyone can join, can be found at arkarch.org.
There will also be a Summer Training Program at the park in June 2025. More details about this training can be found at arkarch.org/activities/the-training-program/.
“Archeology is so important in all places, not just Arkansas,” said Ford. "It tells the histories of the places we interact with each and every day, teaches us about the world around us, and informs us about the incredible innovations of past communities. I think in learning what archeology teaches us about Arkansas’ past it can give us an appreciation for cultural and ideological differences, in respecting those differences and understanding that our way of viewing and experiencing the world is not the only way. In other words, archeology can help us better understand the world we live in, past, present, and future, and give us a respect and understanding of communities across time and space. Preserving that past, researching it, and learning it is so important.”
More details about Plum Bayou Mounds Archeological State Park, which is located at 490 Toltec Mounds Road in Scott, can be found at arkansasstateparks.com/parks/plum-bayou-mounds-archeological-state-park. Please note that Plum Bayou Mounds Archeological State Park is a protected archeological site and can only be accessed during park hours. Park house of operation can be found online or by calling the park at 501-961-9442. More about the park can also be found via this article.