Editing Beulaville, North Carolina (section)

===Native American Presence===

The earliest Native Americans thought to have lived in the area were the [[Joara]] (whose settlements date back to AD 1000), based out of present-day [[Burke County, North Carolina|Burke County]]. The Joara were the chiefdom of the [[Mississippian culture]]. Immediately prior to European colonization in the early 18th century, the coastal plain of North Carolina was home to many distinct Native American tribes: the Coree, Coharie, several small [[Neusiok]] communities, and the [[Tuscarora people|Tuscarora]]. This latter tribe gradually became the most dominant in the region as smaller tribes were either exterminated by Europeans or peacefully assimilated into the Tuscarora for collective security. By the time of permanent European settlement, the Tuscarora were utilizing the heavily forested areas of eastern Duplin County as a hunting ground.

Native American burial mounds are numerous in Duplin County, in the rural areas surrounding Beulaville especially. There are four sizable mounds within a ten-mile radius of the town, the two largest being in the vicinity of [[Hallsville, North Carolina|Hallsville]] and [[Sarecta, North Carolina|Sarecta]]. Combined, these mounds contain roughly one hundred bodies.<ref name="notes on indian burial mounds">[https://archive.org/details/notesonindianbur00holm "Notes on the Indian burial mounds of eastern North Carolina"]. Retrieved November 19, 2013.</ref>