Bottle Creek Tour

2003 bottle creek tours

2003 Bottle Creek Tours On November 9 and 23, 2003, nearly 100 people joined USA archaeologists Dr. Greg Waselkov and Bonnie Gums on boat tours to Mound Island in the Mobile-Tensaw Delta to visit the Bottle Creek mounds. People from all over Alabama, Western Florida, and Southern Mississippi came along, including several archaeology students from the University of West Florida in Pensacola, University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa, and Murphy High School in Mobile. Many others were regular volunteer excavators with the Center, and members of the Alabama and Pensacola Archaeological Societies. The weather was beautiful for both trips and everyone had a great time. All proceeds from the tours benefited Blakeley State Park, which had recently suffered drastic funding cuts.	The boat trip on the Mobile-Tensaw River on the Delta Explorer provided beautiful views of the delta.
The McMillan family protected the Bottle Creek site for most of this century. In the early 1990s the land was purchased by Scott Paper Company, which in turn donated the site to the State of Alabama. Now administered as a preserve by the Alabama Historical Commission, the site is patrolled to prevent vandalism.	Dr. Greg Waselkov (left) tells the story of the people who lived at Bottle Creek.
A team from the University of South Alabama produced this map of Bottle Creek in 1990, which has been updated periodically. Between 1991 and 1994, the University of Alabama conducted the first intensive excavations at Bottle Creek. Those explorations uncovered some of the few prehistoric and historic Indian house floors found in this part of the Gulf coast, as well as evidence of mound construction methods. In November of 2003 nearly 100 people joined USA archaeologists Dr. Greg Waselkov and Bonnie Gums on boat tours to visit the Bottle Creek mounds. Want to find out more?	Climbing to the sumit of Mound A rising to a height of 45 feet.
	Returning from our trip on the Delta Explorer, a pontoon boat operated by Blakeley State Park.
	Disembarking at Lower Bryant's Landing on the Tensaw River.