Mississippi River Country

From Indigenous earthworks to a state-straddling mountain range and man-made architectural masterpieces, the USA's famous river tells a wealth of stories worthy of any road trip

- Phoebe Smith

Meandering through ten states and covering a distance of around 3,766km, the USA's most famous river acts as a thread connecting people and places - both with each other and the past. Collectively, the states that line the waterway are known as Mississippi River Country and are home to not one but five UNESCO World Heritage Sites, scattered both along the waterway and far from its banks.

Starting in Louisiana, where the river widens before spooling out into the Gulf of Mexico, is a remarkable site in the north-eastern reaches of the state called Poverty Point. Viewed from the ground, it appears as a series of grassy hills surrounded by a network of 4km of hiking trails; but from above, the complexity of these 3,400-year-old man-made constructions is better revealed. Painstakingly created by Indigenous Americans, an estimated 1.5 million cubic metres of soil went into their creation, all moved and shaped by hand. The series of concentric half-circles that form these hills resembles the tiered interior of Rome's Colosseum, despite being built without modern devices or the tools that the Romans had to hand.

Archaeologists still don't know with complete certainty the purpose of these mounds, though the absence of burial remains and evidence of crop growth has led many to suspect they were used as a ceremonial centre and residential area, and that they were key to local trade. Since being abandoned in 1100 BC, the millions of artefacts that have been found there, including figurines, rudimentary tools and cooking utensils, helped support this theory, and many are available to study at the visitor centre.