Nowadays, students on the LSU campus pay little attention to the dramatic, sloping grassy backdrop on their path to class: the more than 6,000-year-old North American earthen mounds.
The mounds, though famously a site of children playing, students lounging and even LSU fans tailgating around them, have been fenced off from the public since 2022.
As the university embarks on a more than $400,000 project to protect the cultural and historical landmarks, conservationists plan to reintroduce the campus and the Baton Rouge community to some of the oldest manmade structures in the Americas. Researchers think Native Americans held ceremonies at these sacred structures, but precisely who among the tribes built them remains a mystery. A few ancient artifacts have been discovered there over the years by archaeologists…