Platform mounds and plazas have a 5000-year-long history in the eastern United States but are often viewed through the lens of late prehistoric and early historic understandings of mound use. This review approaches the history of these important landscape features via a forward-looking temporal framework that emphasizes the variability in their construction and use through time and across space. I suggest that by viewing platform mounds in their historical contexts, emphasizing the construction process over final form, and focusing on nonmound sites and off-mound areas such as plazas, we can build a less biased and more complex understanding of early Native American monumentality.

中文翻译：

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早期平台，早期广场：探索密西西比丘陵和广场中心的前身

平台土墩和广场在美国东部已有5000年的历史，但通常通过史前晚期和对土墩使用的早期历史认识的视角来观察。本文通过一个前瞻性的时间框架来探讨这些重要景观特征的历史，该框架强调了它们在构造和使用上随时间和跨空间的可变性。我建议，通过在历史背景下查看平台土堆，强调最终形式的建造过程，并集中于非土堆场址和非土堆场区（例如广场），我们可以对早期美国原住民的纪念性建立起较少偏见和更复杂的理解。