The Great Serpent Mound in Ohio and the Pyramid of the Sun in Mexico Are Examples of Art Known as

Prehistoric effigy mound in Ohio, United States

This article is about the site in the USA. For the one in the UK, see Skelmorlie. For the one in Canada, see Serpent Mounds Park.

United states historic place

Great Serpent Mound
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
U.South. National Historic Landmark
The Groovy Ophidian Mound ancient Native American figure
Show map of Ohio Show map of the United States
Nearest city	Peebles, Ohio
Coordinates	39°01′35″Northward 83°25′51″W  /  39.02639°North 83.43083°W  / 39.02639; -83.43083 Coordinates: 39°01′35″N 83°25′51″Due west  /  39.02639°N 83.43083°W  / 39.02639; -83.43083 [two]
NRHP referenceNo.	66000602[1]
Added to NRHP	October 15, 1966

The Keen Ophidian Mound is a 1,348-foot-long (411 chiliad),^[3] three-pes-high prehistoric effigy mound on a plateau of the Ophidian Mound crater along Ohio Brush Creek in Adams Canton, Ohio. Maintained inside a park past Ohio History Connection, it has been designated a National Celebrated Landmark by the Usa Department of Interior. The Serpent Mound of Ohio was get-go reported from surveys past Ephraim Squier and Edwin Davis in their celebrated volume Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley, published in 1848 past the newly founded Smithsonian Museum. The Serpent Mound is the largest serpent effigy in the world.^[4]

Description [edit]

Including all three parts, the Serpent Mound extends most 1,376 feet (419 m), varies in height from less than a foot to more than than three feet (xxx–100 cm), and has a width of 20 to 25 feet.^[5] Conforming to the curve of the land on which it rests, with its head approaching a cliff above a stream, the serpent winds back and forth for more eight hundred feet and 7 coils, and ends in a triple-coiled tail. The shape itself consisted mostly of a layer of yellowish dirt and ash that was reinforced with a layer of rocks, and then covered with a layer of soil.^{[6] [seven]} The serpent head has an open up mouth extending around the east cease of a 120-foot (37 g)-long hollow oval characteristic that may stand for the ophidian eating an egg,^[8] though some scholars posit that the oval feature symbolizes the dominicus, the trunk of a frog, or merely the remnant of a platform. The effigy'south farthermost western characteristic is a triangular mound approximately 31.half-dozen feet (9.half dozen m) at its base of operations and long axis. There are like serpent effigies in Ontario and Scotland.^[4]

Origin [edit]

Archaeologists are nonetheless debating the origin of Serpent Mound. The mound contains no artifacts and no burials that would assistance establish the age of the mound. The two leading theories are that the mound was congenital by either the Adena Civilisation (800 BC to 100 AD) around 320 BC, or the Fort Aboriginal Culture (yard to 1750 AD) around 1070 Advertizement.

Archaeologists began attributing the mound to the Fort Ancient culture (circa 1070 Advert) with the publication of "Snake Mound: A Fort Ancient Icon?" in 1996.^{[9] [ten]} A 2017 article, "Radiocarbon Dates Reveal Ophidian Mound Is More than Ii Thousand Years Old", argues for a construction by the Adena culture circa 320 BC.^[eleven] The academic debate continues with multiple rebuttals to each theory published in the Midcontinental Journal of Archeology.^{[12] [thirteen] [xiv] [15] [16]}

Adena culture [edit]

Historically, researchers get-go attributed the mound to the Adena culture (1000 BC – 100 AD). William Webb, noted Adena exponent, found testify through carbon dating for Kentucky Adena as early on as 1200 BC. As in that location are Adena graves most the Serpent Mound, scholars idea the same people constructed the mound. The skeletal remains of the Adena type uncovered in the 1880s at Ophidian Mound indicate that these people were unique amid the ancient Ohio Valley peoples.

An eight-member team led by archaeologist William F Romain has been published in the Journal of Archaeological Scientific discipline.^{[17] [xviii]} The team institute much older charcoal samples in less-damaged sections of the mound. The investigators conjecture that the mound was originally built betwixt 381 BC and 44 BC, with a mean appointment of 321 BC. They explain the more contempo charcoal establish in the 1990s every bit likely the effect of a "repair" effort by indigenous people around 1070 Advert, when the mound would already take been suffering from natural degradation.^{[ citation needed ]}

Fort Ancient civilisation [edit]

In 1996, the team of Robert V. Fletcher and Terry L. Cameron (under the supervision of the Ohio Historical Society's Bradley T. Lepper) reopened a trench created by Frederic Ward Putnam of Harvard over 100 years before. They found a few pieces of charcoal in what was believed to be an undisturbed portion of the Serpent Mound. However, bioturbation, including burrowing animals, frost cracks, etc., tin can reverse the structural timeline of an earthen mound such as Serpent Mound. It can shift carbon left past a afterward civilization on the surface to areas deep within the structure, making the earthwork appear younger.

When the team conducted carbon dating studies on the charcoal pieces, two yielded a engagement of ca. 1070 Advertizement, with the tertiary piece dating to the Late Archaic period some two g years earlier, specifically 2920+/-65 years BP (before the nowadays). The third engagement, ca. 2900 BP, was recovered from a core sample below cultural modification level. The commencement two dates place the Serpent Mound within the realm of the Fort Ancient civilization. The third dates the mound dorsum to very early Adena culture or before.^[19]

The Fort Ancient people could have been the builders of the Serpent Mound. Alternatively, they may have refurbished the earthwork for their own apply in the same fashion that people today ready up erstwhile houses to make them suitable for occupation over again. The rattlesnake is significant as a symbol in the Mississippian civilisation, which would assistance explain the image of the mound. However, there is no sign or indication of a rattle.^[19]

If this mound was built by the Fort Ancient people, information technology was uncharacteristic for that grouping. For example, the mound does not contain artifacts, although, like the Adena people, the Fort Aboriginal culture typically cached many artifacts in its mounds. In another divergence, the Fort Ancient people did not usually bury their dead in the manner of the burials constitute in proximity to the effigy.^[19]

1 of the only other effigy mounds in Ohio, the Alligator Effigy Mound in Granville, was carbon dated to the Fort Aboriginal catamenia.

Purpose [edit]

Astronomical significance [edit]

The screw tail at the stop of the Snake Mound

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.^{[twenty] [21] [22]}

A delineation of the ophidian mound that appeared in The Century periodical in Apr 1890, drawn past William Jacob Baer.

If 1070 AD is authentic equally the structure year, building the mound could theoretically have been influenced past 2 astronomical events: the light from the supernova that created the Crab Nebula in 1054, and the appearance of Halley's Comet in 1066.^[23] The supernova light would have been visible for two weeks after information technology get-go reached world, fifty-fifty during the day. The Halley's Comet's tail has always appeared every bit a long, straight line and does not resemble the curves of the Ophidian Mound. Halley's comet appears every 76 years. Numerous other supernovas may have occurred over the centuries that bridge the possible construction dates of the effigy.

Serpent Mound Impact structure [edit]

The mound is located on the site of a archetype astrobleme, an aboriginal meteorite impact construction. One of the strongest clues to the impact origin of this structure is in the pattern of disruption of sedimentary strata. In the center of the structure, strata take been uplifted several hundred feet, in much the aforementioned way that the central uplifts of lunar craters such as Copernicus were formed. In 2003 geologists from Ohio State University and the University of Glasgow (Scotland) corroborated the meteorite impact origin of the structure at Serpent Mound. They had studied core samples collected at the site in the 1970s. Further analyses of the stone core samples indicated the touch on occurred during the Permian Period, about 248 to 286 million years ago; thus, the topographic expression of this touch, an impact crater, has been completely erased past erosion.^{[24] [25]}

Contempo history [edit]

The Snake Mound was first mapped by Euro-Americans equally early as 1815. In 1846 it was surveyed for the Smithsonian Institution by 2 Chillicothe men, Ephraim One thousand. Squier and Edwin Hamilton Davis. Their book Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley (1848), published by the Smithsonian, included a detailed description and map of the serpent mound.

Summertime Solstice 2021 marked the Shawnee people'south official return to the mound.^{[26] [27]} Representatives of the Shawnee Tribe and the Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma spent the weekend interacting with visitors, and explaining the Shawnees' traditional connections to the mound and to other locations in Ohio.^[28]

Preservation [edit]

Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley fascinated many across the country, including Frederic Ward Putnam of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard University. Putnam 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.^{[ citation needed ]} In 1886, with help from a grouping of wealthy women in Boston (such as the noted Glass Flowers' patroness Mary Lee Ware),^[29] Putnam raised funds to buy 60 acres (240,000 thousand²) at the Serpent Mound site for preservation. The purchase also contained three conical mounds, a hamlet site and a burial place.^[30] Serpent Mound is listed as a "Great Wonder Of the Ancient Globe" by National Geographic Mag.^[31]

Originally purchased on behalf of the Trustees of the Peabody Museum, in 1900 the land and its ownership were granted to the Ohio Land Archaeological and Historical Society (a predecessor of the present Ohio Historical Society).

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 2010 until March 2021.^{[22] [32] [33]} In March 2021 the Ohio History Connexion took back active direction of the site.^[34]

Following an example of vandalism in 2015, more security cameras and protective gates were added.^{[35] [36]}

Excavation [edit]

Hopewell piping, points, and earspool on display at Serpent Mound

After raising sufficient funds, in 1886 Putnam returned to the aforementioned site. He worked for 4 years excavating the contents and burial sequences of both the Serpent Mound and ii nearby conical mounds. After his work was completed and his findings documented, Putnam worked on restoring the mounds to their original state.

One of the conical mounds that was excavated by Putnam (1890)^[37] yielded a chief burial which has grave appurtenances that associate information technology with the Adena period (800 BC-100 BC). He besides found and excavated nine intrusive burials in the mound. Additionally, Putnam discovered an ash bed north of the conical mound that independent many prehistoric artifacts. After the excavation, the conical mound was reconstructed and is today standing south of the parking lot at Snake Mound State Memorial.

In 2011, excavations were undertaken prior to installation of utility lines at Serpent Mound State Memorial. The excavations focused on three sides of the conical mound that Putnam (1890) had excavated. In improver to concentrations of artifacts, an ashy soil horizon was excavated north of the conical mound. The ashy soil horizon had prehistoric artifacts associated with them. It is believed that the ashy deposit is a remnant of the ash bed that Putnam (1890) excavated. Wood charcoal from within the remnant ash bed was carbon dated to 1041-1211 Advertisement, the Fort Aboriginal menstruum. Because the burials in the conical mound dated to the Early Woodland period, the Fort Ancient period dating of the remnant ash bed is suggestive of ritual reuse of the circum mound area.^{[38] [39]}

Serpent Mound Museum [edit]

A digital GIS map of Ohio's Great Snake Mound, created by Timothy A. Toll and Nichole I. Stump in March 2002

In 1901, the Ohio Historical Society hired engineer Clinton Cowan to survey newly acquired lands. Cowan created a 56 past 72-inch (1,800 mm) map that depicted the outline of the Serpent Mound in relation to nearby landmarks, such as rivers. Cowan also made specific geographical surveys of the area, and he discovered the unique astrobleme on which the mound is based. He found that the mound is at the convergence of three distinctly unlike soil types. Cowan's data, in conjunction with Putnam's archaeological discoveries, has been the ground for all modern investigations of the Snake Mound.

In 1967, the Ohio Historical Guild opened the Ophidian Mound Museum, built near the mound. A pathway was constructed around the base of the mound to aid visitors. The museum features exhibits that include interpretations of the effigy's form, clarification of the processes of constructing the mound, the geographical history of the area, and an exhibit on the Adena civilisation, historically credited as the creators of the mound.

Serpent Mound State Memorial is currently existence operated on behalf of the Ohio Historical Society by the Arc of Appalachia Preserve System. Information technology is a not-profit organization specializing in the preservation and protection of native biodiversity and prehistoric aboriginal sites in southern Ohio.

Run across as well [edit]

• Cahokia
• Crooks mound
• Glades culture
• Hopewell Civilisation National Historical Park
• Indian Mounds Park (disambiguation)
• Mound builder (people)
• Nazca Lines
• Spiro Mounds
• Marree Man

References [edit]

1. ^ "National Register Data System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. January 23, 2007.
2. ^ "Serpent Mound". Geographic Names Information System. U.s.a. Geological Survey.
3. ^ Glotzhober and Lepper, Snake Mound: Ohio'south Enigmatic Effigy Mound, Ohio Historical Society, Columbus, Ohio, 1994, p. three
4. ^ ^{a b} ""Serpent Mound", MNSU (dead link)". Archived from the original on 13 August 2004. Retrieved 7 Dec 2021.
5. ^ "Great Serpent Mound". metmuseum.org . Retrieved 2018-08-30 .
6. ^ "The Aboriginal Ohio Trail : Serpent Mound". CERHAS - University of Cincinnati. Retrieved 2017-12-23 .
7. ^ Putnam, F. West. (1889). "The Serpent Mound of Ohio". The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine. 39 . Retrieved 2017-12-23 .
8. ^ Landis, Don. "Monuments, Mounds, Pyramids..." The Genius of Ancient Human being: Development'south Nightmare. Green Forest, AR: Master, 2012. 67. Impress.
9. ^ Fletcher, Robert V.; Cameron, Terry L.; Lepper, Bradley T.; Wymer, Dee Anne; Pickard, William (1996). "Serpent Mound: A Fort Ancient Icon?". Midcontinental Journal of Archæology. 21 (1): 105–143. ISSN 0146-1109. JSTOR 20708387.
10. ^ Saraceni, Jessica E. (Nov–Dec 1996). "Redating Serpent Mound". Archaeology. 49 (6). Retrieved April 2, 2021.
11. ^ Romain, William F.; Herrmann, Edward Due west.; Monaghan, K. William; Burks, Jarrod (2017-09-02). "Radiocarbon Dates Reveal Serpent Mound Is More than Two Yard Years Old". Midcontinental Journal of Archeology. 42 (3): 201–222. doi:10.1080/01461109.2017.1371871. ISSN 0146-1109. S2CID 134562935.
12. ^ Midcontinental Journal of Archæology. Tandfonline.com . Retrieved 2019-x-24 .
13. ^ Lepper, Bradley T. (2018). "On the Age of Snake Mound: A Reply to Romain and Colleagues". Midcontinental Periodical of Archæology. 43: 62–75. doi:10.1080/01461109.2017.1419917. S2CID 165388387.
14. ^ Romain, William F.; Herrmann, Edward W. (2018). "Rejoinder to Lepper Apropos Serpent Mound". Midcontinental Periodical of Archaeology. 43: 76–88. doi:10.1080/01461109.2017.1403738. S2CID 165489600.
15. ^ Romain, William F. (2019). "Serpent Mound in its Woodland Period Context: 2d Rejoinder to Lepper". Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology. 44: 57–83. doi:10.1080/01461109.2018.1511155. S2CID 165272228.
16. ^ Lepper, Bradley T.; Frolking, Tod A.; Pickard, William H. (2019). "Debating the Age of Serpent Mound: A Reply to Romain and Herrmann's Rejoinder to Lepper Concerning Ophidian Mound". Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology. 44: 42–56. doi:10.1080/01461109.2018.1507806. S2CID 165322960.
17. ^ Herrmann Edward W (2014). "A new multistage structure chronology for the Peachy Snake Mound, Us". Periodical of Archaeological Scientific discipline. fifty: 117–125. doi:10.1016/j.jas.2014.07.004.
18. ^ "New Radiocarbon Dates Propose Serpent Mound is More Than 2,000 Years Former". ancientearthworksproject.org. July 26, 2014. Archived from the original on March 27, 2017.
19. ^ ^{a b c} "Serpent Mound: A Fort Aboriginal Icon?", Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology, Vol. 21, No.1, University of Iowa, 1996
20. ^ Hardman (1987). "A Map Of The Great Ophidian Figure Mound" (PDF). Ohio State. p. 34. hdl:1811/55881. Retrieved three February 2022.
21. ^ Glotzhober and Lepper, Serpent Mound: Ohio's Enigmatic Effigy Mound, Ohio Historical Society, Columbus, Ohio, 1994 p. 11
22. ^ ^{a b} "Serpent Mound". Ohio Historical Club. Archived from the original on 2010-12-27. Retrieved 2011-03-05 .
23. ^ Fletcher, Robert 5.; Terry Fifty. Cameron; Bradley T. Lepper; Dee Anne Wymer; William Pickard (Spring 1996). "Serpent Mound: A Fort Ancient Icon?". Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology. 21 (1).
24. ^ "Serpent Mound". Earth Impact Database. Planetary and Space Science Centre University of New Brunswick Fredericton. Retrieved 2012-02-07 .
25. ^ "Subsurface Geology of the Serpent Mound Disturbance of Adams, Highland, and Pike Counties, Ohio." Ohio Department of Natural Resources, Partition of Geological Survey. PDF Archived 2010-xi-28 at the Wayback Machine (accessed 10 Apr 2007)
26. ^ "Shawnee Citizens Officially Invited Back To Great Serpent Mound". WYSO. 2021-07-12. Retrieved 2021-x-13 . {{cite spider web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
27. ^ "Ohio'south Serpent Mound - An American Indian Story Written in the Earth". Ohio History Connection . Retrieved 2021-10-xiii . {{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
28. ^ Pember, Mary Annette. "Shawnee reclaim the dandy Serpent Mound". Indian Country Today . Retrieved 2021-10-13 .
29. ^ D. Wes Beattie. "Mary L. Ware and the Early Funding of Harvard Anthropology: Private Sources of Funding in the Nineteenth Century (Paper)". Eraven.franklinpierce.edu.
30. ^ Ralph W. Dexter, "Contributions of Frederic Ward Putnam to Ohio Archeology", The Ohio Journal of Scientific discipline 65(3): 110, May, 1965
31. ^ "Serpent Mound Recognized As Corking Wonder Of Ancient World". NBC4I.com. Archived from the original on 2011-01-x. Retrieved 2011-03-21 .
32. ^ "Serpent_Mound_Visitors_Guide". Archived from the original on 2011-02-22. Retrieved 2011-03-05 .
33. ^ "Spring 2010 Highlands Nature Sanctuary Protecting The Region's Woodlands" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2011-07-27. Retrieved 2011-03-05 .
34. ^ "Newsroom Weblog Posts | Ohio History Connection". Retrieved 7 December 2021.
35. ^ "Human who took joyride at Serpent Mound sentenced", Carrie Blackmore Smith. Cincinnati Enquirer. November half-dozen, 2016. Retrieved ix jan 2017
36. ^ "Man faces felony charges after Serpent Mound Park vandalism", Brian Hamrick. WLWT5. July xv, 2015. Retrieved 9 jan 2017
37. ^ Putnam, F.W. (April 1890). "The Ophidian Mound of Ohio". The Century Magazine: 871–887.
38. ^ Schwarz, Kevin. "Long Shadows Over the Valley: Recent Findings from ASC Group's Excavations at Snake Mound State Memor". academia.edu.
39. ^ Schwarz, Kevin (1 January 2020). "Use and Continuity on the Plateau: Recent Archaeological Investigations at Serpent Mound State Memorial, Ohio". Journal of Ohio Archeology . Retrieved vii December 2021.

Further reading [edit]

• Fletcher, Robert V., Terry L. Cameron, Bradley T. Lepper, Dee Anne Wymer, and William Pickard, "Snake Mound: A Fort Ancient Icon?", Midcontinental Periodical of Archaeology, Vol 21, No. 1, Spring 1996, University of Iowa.
• Putnam, Frederic Ward, "The Ophidian Mound of Ohio: Site Excavation and Park Reconstruction.", Century Magazine Vol 39: 871–888. Illustrations by William Jacob Baer.
• Squier, Ephraim G. and Edwin H. Davis, Aboriginal Monuments of the Mississippi Valley, Smithsonian Establishment Printing, Washington D.C., 1998. Reprint of 1848 edition with a new introduction by David J. Meltzer.
• Weintraub, Daniel and Kevin R. Schwarz, "Long Shadows Over the Valley: Recent Findings from ASC Group'south Excavations at Serpent Mound State Memorial", Current Research in Ohio Archaeology 2013. The Ohio Archaeological Council.
• Woodward, Susan Fifty. and Jerry N. McDonald, Indian Mounds of the Middle Ohio Valley, Blacksburg, Virginia: The McDonald & Woodward Publishing Visitor, 1986

External links [edit]

• Serpent Mound, Ohio Historical Society
• Arc of Appalachia: Serpent Mound
• "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 Ophidian Mound secrets

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Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serpent_Mound

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