A long-ignored prehistoric mound building people. By the 14th century more than a dozen accretional burial mounds-reaching heights of 12 to 15 feet-marked the floodplains of interior Virginia. Today, none of these mounds built by the nearly forgotten Monacan Indians remain on the landscape, having been removed over the centuries by a variety of natural and cultural causes. This study uses what remains of the mounds-excavated from the 1890's to the 1980's- to gain a new understanding of the Monacans and to gauge their importance in the realm of the late prehistoric period