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Serpent Mound
USINFO | 2013-08-05 16:25
The Great Serpent Mound is a 1,348-foot (411 m)-long, three-foot-high prehistoric effigy mound located on a plateau of the Serpent Mound crater along Ohio Brush Creek in Adams County, Ohio. Maintained within a park by the Ohio Historical Society, it has been designated a National Historic Landmark by the United States Department of Interior. The Serpent Mound of Ohio was first reported from surveys by Ephraim Squire and Edwin Davis in their historic volume Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley, published in 1848 by the newly founded Smithsonian Museum.
Researchers have attributed construction of the mound to three different prehistoric indigenous cultures. Although it was once thought to be Adena in origin, now based on the use of more advanced technology, including carbon dating and evidence from 1996 studies, many scholars now believe that members of the Fort Ancient culture built it about 1070 CE (plus or minus 70 years). There are still anomalies to be studied. Serpent Mound is the largest serpent effigy in the world.
Preservation
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. In 1886, with help from a group of women in Boston, Putnam raised funds to purchase 60 acres (240,000 m2) at the Serpent Mound site for preservation. The purchase also contained three conical mounds, a village site and a burial place. Serpent Mound is listed as a "Great Wonder Of the Ancient World" by National Geographic Magazine.
Originally purchased on behalf of the Trustees of the Peabody Museum, in 1900 the land and its ownership were granted to the Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society (a predecessor of the present Ohio Historical Society). It became the first state park in the United States..
The Ohio Historical Society designated the Arc of Appalachia Preserves system, a project of Highlands Sanctuary, Inc., as the managing agency of Serpent Mound
Researchers have attributed construction of the mound to three different prehistoric indigenous cultures. Although it was once thought to be Adena in origin, now based on the use of more advanced technology, including carbon dating and evidence from 1996 studies, many scholars now believe that members of the Fort Ancient culture built it about 1070 CE (plus or minus 70 years). There are still anomalies to be studied. Serpent Mound is the largest serpent effigy in the world.
Preservation
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. In 1886, with help from a group of women in Boston, Putnam raised funds to purchase 60 acres (240,000 m2) at the Serpent Mound site for preservation. The purchase also contained three conical mounds, a village site and a burial place. Serpent Mound is listed as a "Great Wonder Of the Ancient World" by National Geographic Magazine.
Originally purchased on behalf of the Trustees of the Peabody Museum, in 1900 the land and its ownership were granted to the Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society (a predecessor of the present Ohio Historical Society). It became the first state park in the United States..
The Ohio Historical Society designated the Arc of Appalachia Preserves system, a project of Highlands Sanctuary, Inc., as the managing agency of Serpent Mound
