Serpent Mound

The Great Serpent Mound is a 1,348-feet-long (411m), four-feet-high prehistoric effigy mound located in Peebles, Ohio. It was built on what is known as the Serpent Mound crater plateau, running along the Ohio Brush Creek in Adams County, Ohio. The mound is the largest serpent effigy known in the world.

The first published surveys of the mound were by Ephraim G. Squier and Edwin Hamilton Davis, featured in their historic volume, Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley (1848), that was commissioned by the Smithsonian Institution.

The United States Department of Interior designated the mound as a National Historic Landmark in 1966. The mound is maintained through the Ohio History Connection, a nonprofit organization dedicated to preserving historical sites throughout Ohio.

class=notpageimage|thumb|Ohio historical marker|alt=Ohio historical marker plaque for Serpent Mound, reads: "One of North America's most spectacular effigy mounds. Serpent Mound is a gigantic earthen sculpture representative of a snake. Built on a spur of rock overlooking Ohio Brush Creek around 1000 A.D. by the Fort Ancient culture, the earthwork was likely a place of ceremonies dedicated to a powerful serpent spirit. The site is located on the edge of a massive crater, possibly formed by the impact of a small asteroid around 300 million years ago. Frederic Ward Putnam studied Serpent Mound between 1886 and 1889. Due largely to his efforts, Serpent Mound became the first privately funded archaeological preserve in the United States.

Description

Effigy mounds have been constructed independently by several cultures. The significance of Serpent Mound is based on its size and historical relevance. Made up of three parts, Serpent Mound extends over in length, varying from to more than in height. The mound stands with a width varying between based on the section. Serpent Mound conforms to the surrounding land, as it was built on a bluff above the Ohio Brush Creek. The mound winds back and forth for more than eight hundred feet, with its tail coiling in seven areas throughout the mound. The mound features a triple-coiled tail at the end of the structure, often viewed as a benchmark of the mound. Yellowish clay and ash make up the main constituents of the mound, with a layer of rocks and soil reinforcing the outer layer.

Squier and Davis interpreted the structure as an open-mouth head of a serpent that nearly engulfs an east-facing hollow oval feature and is long. Squier and Davis believed the oval feature may represent an egg, with an apparent depiction of the snake consuming it. Archaeologist J.P. McLean identified the mound as the body of a frog.

Serpent Mound impact crater

The mound is located on the site of a meteorite impact site known as the Serpent Mound Impact Crater. The crater is around 8.7 miles (14 km) in diameter and was formed 252-330 million years ago.

In 2003, the Ohio Department of Natural Resources formed a team of geologists to corroborate the meteorite impact origin of the structure at the Serpent Mound. A previous survey in 1975 by S.P. Reidel provided them with a background of information pertaining to the site. This has led archaeologists to believe that the topographic expression of the impact crater has been completely erased by erosion.

Origin and chronology

Throughout the twentieth century, anthropologists and archaeologists had disputed whether the Adena or Fort Ancient cultures had created the Serpent Mound. In 2014, radiocarbon dating to determined the mound was built in 300 BCE (2300 years ago) by the Adena peoples. This date was corroborated in 2019. Additionally, it was found that the mound was subsequently rebuilt or repaired about 900 years ago (1100 CE) during the Fort Ancient period.

These dates were later challenged by archaeologist Brad Lepper who published a response questioning the attribution of construction to the Adena culture. Lepper et al. pointed out that the dates obtained in 2014 are of poor quality. The material the team dated is not charcoal, but “organic sediment”. Moreover, the samples were obtained from soil cores and not an exposed stratigraphic profile, so the resulting dates are known to be problematic. Henriksen and his colleagues have demonstrated that such dates can be as much as 3,000 years older than the actual age of a mound. Lepper argues the Adena culture is not known to have built effigy mounds or to have used serpent symbolism in their art, whereas the Fort Ancient culture built the Ohio Alligator Effigy Mound and frequently depicted serpents in their art. Lepper et al. concluded that the best available data indicated that Serpent Mound was built by the Fort Ancient culture. Another serpent effigy, the Serpent Mound in Canada, has been dated to more than 2,000 years old. It has also been linked to the Adena culture.

Prehistory of Ohio

thumb|The spiral at the tail of the Serpent Mound

The Woodland Period (800 BCE–1200 CE) of the Post-Archaic Period is known for its rich ritual and artistic life and well-developed villages. The period is well known for many earthworks and mounds built during the time. During the early and middle woodland period, the Adena culture and Hopewell tradition flourished during the Early and Middle Woodland periods, and the addition of agriculture enabled the population of the Woodland people to expand dramatically. Several groups of the Woodland people lived in larger villages, surrounded by defensive walls or ditches. Ceremonial and artistic endeavors waned during the Late Woodland period, as did trading with other groups. Many of the earthworks and effigy mounds were built early in this period. Construction of mounds by cultures in the area stagnated until the late prehistoric period (900 CE-1650 CE)

Cultures of the Midwest

Adena culture

The Adena culture consisted of the pre-contact Native Americans who lived throughout the midwest in the areas that would become the states of Kentucky, Indiana, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and most predominantly, Ohio. The majority of these peoples inhabited the Scioto River and Hocking valleys in southern Ohio, as well as the Kanawha Valley near present-day Charleston, West Virginia. This period is often referred to as The Early Woodland Period, ranging between 800 BCE and 1 CE. The name “Adena” refers to the shared culture of the peoples rather than to a singular group or tribe.

Archaeologists attribute two of the mounds at the site to the Adena culture as a whole, although are unsure of the specific tribes who inhabited the land. The term "culture" encompasses similarities in artifact style, architecture, and other cultural practices, allowing archaeologists to distinguish the Adena culture from other cultures in the region at different time periods. The Adena Mound site became the "type site" of the regional culture that is used by anthropologists.

Another effigy mound found in Ohio, the Alligator Effigy Mound in Granville, was carbon dated to around 950 AD.

Interpretations

thumb|The curvature of the Serpent MoundAccording to archaeologist Brad Lepper, Serpent Mound may be a depiction of a Dhegihan Siouan origin story of the Great Serpent "Toothy Mouth”, lord of the Beneath World, who impregnated the First Woman.

According to Woodward and McDonald's interpretation:

From assumptions of a construction date around 1070 AD, some archaeologists believe that the appearance of Halley's Comet in 1066 could have influenced its construction. However, it is not possible to prove if this was true.

Alignments

In 1987, Clark and Marjorie Hardman published their finding that the oval-to-head area of the serpent is aligned to the summer solstice sunset. Additionally, the coiled tail of the mound is aligned to the winter solstice sunrise. The three curves of the serpent possibly have alignments to the summer solstice sunrise, equinox, and winter solstice sunrise, or alternatively align with important moonrises in the lunar cycle. However, the lines of sight are too short and vague to determine the actual alignment.

Preservation

thumb|upright=1.15|A depiction of the Serpent Mound that appeared in The Century periodical in April 1890, drawn by [[William Jacob Baer]]

Frederic Ward Putnam of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard University spent much of his career lecturing and publishing on the Ohio mounds, specifically the Serpent Mound. When he visited the Midwest in 1885, he found that plowing and development were destroying many of the mounds, removing significant history of these cultures and their burial sites. In 1886, with help from a group of wealthy women in Boston, headed by Alice C. Fletcher, Putnam raised funds to purchase at the site of the Serpent Mound in hopes to ensure its preservation. Along with the Serpent Mound, the purchase also contained three conical mounds, a village site, and a burial place.

In 1900, the land and its ownership were granted to the Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society (a predecessor of the present Ohio History Connection). The Ohio Historical Society designated the Arc of Appalachia Preserves system, a project of Highlands Sanctuary, Inc., as the managing agency of Serpent Mound from 2009 until 2021. The site is now managed by the Ohio History Connection. Following another instance of vandalism in 2015 when a local drove his truck over one of the Adena burial mounds, more security cameras were installed to ensure the protection of the site and surrounding area. The Logan County Prosecutor Ken Armstrong considered assigning a research paper on the sites history as a punishment.

Excavation and survey

thumb|upright=1.25|Digital [[Geographic information system|Geographic Information System Map of the Serpent Mound]]

Squier and Davis were the first to publish a survey of Serpent Mound in 1848.

After raising funds to purchase the site, Frederic Ward Putnam returned to Serpent Mound in 1886. He worked for four years to excavate the burial sequence contents of both the Serpent Mound and two nearby conical mounds. After completing his excavation and publishing his work, Putnam worked on restoring the mounds to their original state. One of the conical mounds that was excavated by Putnam in 1890 yielded several artifacts of a principal burial during the period of the Adena people. Along with these findings, Putnam found and excavated nine intrusive burials in the mound through his discovery of an ash bed containing many prehistoric artifacts, north of the conical mound. After the excavation, the conical mound was reconstructed and currently stands just north of the parking lot at the Serpent Mound State Memorial. thumb|upright|[[Gorgets and points from the Adena culture, found at the Serpent Mound]]

thumb|upright|Hopewell pipe, points, and earspool on display at the Serpent Mound

During excavation of the Serpent Mound, archaeologists uncovered pipes, points, and earspools from the Hopewell culture as well as Gorgets and points from the Adena culture.

Serpent Mound Museum

In 1900, the site was given to the Ohio History Society, now known as the Ohio History Connection. The society built an observation tower overlooking the mound. A museum was opened in the mid 1970s. In 2009, the Arc of Appalachia Preserve System began managing the park for the Ohio History Connection, until the Ohio History Connection took over once more in early 2021.

References

External links

Serpent Mound, Ohio Historical Society
"Hopewell culture National Historical Park", National Park Service
Ohio History Teachers – Field Trips: Serpent Mound
"Archaeological Sites: Serpent Mound", Minnesota State University Mankato
Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society
Scientists try to unlock Serpent Mound secrets