A sacred mound where artifacts have been located is being destroyed for a Sam's Club in Oxford, Alabama.

The city paid the University of Alabama $60,000 for a report on the site, which dates to around 1000 A.D. It's similar to other rock mounds in the Southeast and East.

"With increasing development occurring, these sites are in jeopardy," Robert Thrower, a member of the Poarch Band of Creek Indians who serves as chairman of culture and heritage for the United South and Eastern Tribes, told the Associated Press. "Here, you're looking at a site that is a sacred site for us."

But the city won't halt work at the site, which is being used as landfill for the Sam's Club. Despite protests and the university report, Mayor Leon Smith says the hill doesn't have any significance.

"It's the ugliest old hill in the world," Smith told the AP.

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Ala. city plows beneath Indian site for Sam's Club (AP 7/21)