Rolling through The Grove, the university’s manicured, tree-studded greenspace, they learn that the school opened its doors in 1848 and was used as a hospital during the Civil War. And as the tour moves past the cedar-lined drive of William Faulkner’s graceful home and turns toward Square Books—generally considered the best bookstore in the South—riders hear of the continuance of the literary tradition, the mantle being passed from William Faulkner to the likes of Barry Hannah and John Grisham and Larry Brown.

It’s a good tour, but after taking it a few times with out-of-town guests, I found myself wondering what came before all of this. What was life like for the area’s inhabitants not merely 200 years ago, but 2,000? Luckily, there are plenty of clues scattered throughout the landscape of the Mississippi Hills National Heritage Area: Native American mound sites, many of which are located along what is now the Natchez Trace Parkway. It’s easy to drive by these mounds and not notice them, in the same way it’s easy for folks who have lived in the state all their lives to use the Natchez, Choctaw, and Chickasaw names for places constantly but offhandedly, forgetting about their native poetry. (For example, Tupelo means “Swamp Tree,” Pontotoc is “Land of Hanging Grapes,” and the Yazoo River, it’s believed, is “River of Death.”)

This past fall, my husband, my three children, and I decided to counter the “drive by” with the “drive to.” We planned a trip to see how many mound sites we could visit within a day’s drive from our home in Oxford, and what we could learn from our efforts.