Burial mounds north of Chillicothe surrounded by a medium-sized earthen wall. This would have been primarily a cemetery for leaders of distinction among the mound builders of the day.

Ohio's 3 Ancient Mound Building Cultures

By John Merrill

Ohio is known for the preservation of many of its Mound Builder sites. Great care as gone into their preservation and restoration. Visitors to these sites will be impressed with their size. If we could go back in time to when the first settlers began taking up residence here, you would be impressed with the shear number of these sites. In just Ohio alone there were more than 1000 Mound Builder sites documented throughout the state.

Most of those archeological important sites were just curiosities to the new settlers. They were avoided for many years, but as more people came to the land and the land itself became more valuable, those sites were eventually destroyed. They just became a nuisance to either farming or building a town. Columbus is a good example of how time and civilization changes the historical nature of a location.

During these early investigations it was found that there are basically two types of earthworks used by the Mound Builders. First, are the burial mounds. Studies indicate these may have been the first earthen structures to be built here. Of those earthen structures they are the easiest to date since they were used as burial sites and as such they had organic matter encased at the base of the mound.

When some of these mounds were examined, it was found that the smaller-sized mounds often only contained one burial chamber that also included more finely crafted artifacts and man-made objects in great number. Some of the larger mounds had fewer items, but more burial chambers. It is only speculation, but it appears that the smaller mounds may have been preserved for individuals commanding great respect and honor. And the larger mounds more individuals still commanding respect, but to a lesser degree. For example, today we have presidential burial sites with magnificent enclosures, compared to a mausoleum where a great number of individuals that were of sufficient stature to afford a stone enclosure, and compared to the more common grave sites familiar to most cemeteries. Perhaps the Mound Builders also had their own mortuary status sites as well.

Illustration of Miamisburg Mound based on 1847 woodcut

Then came the highly stylized geometric-walled shapes. Many were constructed with large diameter circles attached to a rectangular. They are somewhat harder to date because the materials used in their construction was mostly inorganic matter, making it more difficult to date.

George Foster House at the northwest corner of S. High Street and Mound Street (circa 1870). Behind and to the left of the stately mansion is the only known photo of the Adena mound. This house was torn down in the 1880s to make room for a group of business buildings. It is believed that another mound once stood about where the intersection of Mound and S. High Street. This mound was leveled and the clay used in its construction was used to make bricks for the Ohio Statehouse completed in 1861. Image from columbuslibrary.org

Central Ohio Earthwork and Mound Builder Sites

When Columbus was laid out by Joel Wright he created a north-south wide avenue along an elevated ridge on the eastern shore of the Scioto River. Near the southern edge of the new city stood a large conical mound. It was said one settler built a cabin on top of it. It was also said that the mound being constructed of clay, it was excavated for that clay to make brick for the new statehouse.

Above: Old Circleville map. Below: Earthwork location superimposed over contemporary map of Circleville.

This was a typical site that existed all along the Scioto River. A little further south from Columbus is the town of Circleville. The reason it is called Circleville is because there was a large circular earthwork with a large angular earthwork attached to it here. The early citizens decided to build their new village around the circled wall. In time that layout just became too impractical and the circular earthwork was removed.

Chillicothe Ohio Earthworks and Mound Builder Sites

Further south from there is Chillicothe. Here, thanks to early surveys of the area, we know that there were a large cluster of earthworks. I suspect they were located here for the same reason that Native Americans came to this area: the easily accessible natural salt licks. In fact the name Chillicothe was a common Native American term used for areas where Native Americans could gather without fear of being attacked by their enemies. There were a number of "chillicothe" sites throughout the state.

Most of those earthworks were destroyed over the years either to farming, or the expanding civilization. Today one of the most commonly visited mounded sites in the state is the Hopewell Culture National Park along the Scioto River just north of Chillicothe. This site was almost completely obliterated when the ground was used as a military training camp in the early 1900s. Thankfully, the Ohio Historical Society made great efforts to preserve and restore the site for future generations.

Yet, this site as magnificent as it is, is a relatively small mound builder site used for burial purposes. Before this area became overly developed, Squier and Davis (19th century archeological surveyors) mapped out 6 considerably larger earthwork sites (non-burial constructions) and 6 other sites of approximately the same size as the National Park site. Today most of the other earthwork sites in and around Chillicothe have been mostly obliterated.

These interesting detail of these large earthwork sites is that they were not used for burial purposes. There were large cemeteries such as the National Park site, and then isolated large conical mounds that mostly appear to be not connected with the earthworks.

Newark Earthworks and Mound Sites

One notable exception are a group of earthworks and mounds near Newark, Ohio. Here despite extensive development, a large earthwork and some conical mounds have been preserved because they a golf course was built around them and they became part of that course. Otherwise they most likely would have been bulldozed to accommodate urban sprawl that was typical of the 20th Century. A nearby octagonal earthwork in Newark was partially saved from civilization.

Small segment of Newark Earthworks surrounded by a golf course

Mound builder Artifacts

Today a few of the artifacts recovered from a few of these sites are on display particularly at the Ohio History Connection in Columbus. Yet, sadly, so many of the artifacts originally recovered during Ohio's early development, were claimed by European expeditions to Ohio, and then later by museums from around the country. Just like many of the Egyptian artifacts are now on display in England, many of Ohio's Mound builder artifacts are on display in many locations around the world.

A few of the artifacts on display in Ohio, are simply exquisite in the detail and craftsmanship. These are the creations of highly skilled craftsmen with a keen eye for detail and style. The materials used in many of these artifacts were not locally obtained. The sources for the materials used to create these recovered artifacts were often time 100s and sometimes 1000s of miles away.

Classifying the builders of Conical Mounds and the Earthworks

From what has been discovered over the last century or so, archeologists have created 3 divisions in the Mound Builders that span more than 2000 years here in Ohio. Around 1200 they had either completely left the area, or they had completely abandoned building earthworks. It is suspected that their culture came to an abrupt end for whatever reason and that reason may never be known.

Here are the 3 distinct divisions archeologists have divided these people into. It does not mean that they are 3 different groups of people, only that this group of people had 3 different cycles. Something like in our society we were originally had an agrarian society, and then we had the industrial revolution which preceded the technological revolution. All three of those periods we were the same people, only we had changed in the way we did things.

• 

  Adena Culture

• Hopewell Culture

• Fort Ancient Culture

People living in Ohio Country before the Mound Builders

Ohio has always been a much sought after resource: fertile land capable of supporting a wide variety of plants which meant there were a wide variety of animals both big and small that survived on these plants. Then came the meat eaters that survived on these animals. Than came man who survived on all of them and eventually mastered them for his own purposes. 

After the last ice age, small groups of people with little organization other than what might be expected in a family structure appeared across Ohio. We know almost nothing about their mortuary practices. What we do know about them comes from their camp sites. These rare findings tell us what they ate and the tools they used.

These were the first people that gained sustenance off the land. I call them "Natural Americans" only because we have a clear definition of the historic Native Americans that were here when the first Europeans arrive, and before them the Mound Builders. We have so little information about the Natural Americans that we really can't make assumptions as to who they were, what race of people they were or even where they came only that they were here.

The Mound Builders Arrival

While the Natural Americans were here, and there's no evidence that they departed or morphed into another group, but that they were here when another group began filtering in from the south. This group was highly organized. They had a culture with strong cultural practices and they populated the state in ways that are hard to imagine today. It appears that they came here with their culture already fully formed. We see this in their mortuary practices which have been found all over the state in great numbers. For most part burial mounds found in the south were the same as those found in the north. Mounds constructed along the Muskingum River are strikingly similar to those found on Kelleys Island. We also find these same burial practices all along the Mississippi River and its tributaries. This was not a culture that came into being here in Ohio. When they first set foot on this land, they were a fully formed civilization. Today we refer to them generally as the Mound Builders.

The Mound Builders had a structured life style that revolved around the elders, and more important, the elders with wisdom in the group. The leaders of the group were no longer the strongest, fastest, and the most skilled hunters. The reason we know this is that in the burial mounds, they were primarily adult males. There were some differences, but what we see is that there were far too few burials in the mounds to account for the expansive population that they had. This meant the burial mounds were for special persons-- not everyone got buried in a ceremonial mound. What happened to the others when they died? We just don't know. Since so few burial sites have ever been discovered, it is possible they were cremated or some other mortuary practice that did not leave any traces of the individual.

It appears the Mound Builders placed great honor upon their elders. It took lots of effort to create a ceremonial mound and so it was reserved for people in their culture deserving of such effort. It is not hard to imagine that much gained wisdom would be passed on from one generation to the next. This meant a continuity from generation to generation.

Seip Burial Mound near Chillicothe

The Mound Builders became the first organized culture in Ohio that we know about today. They thrived here for 1000s of years and over that time span their culture evolved. Contemporary archeologists have divided this group into 3 distinct cultures. The names given to them are derived from where evidence of their culture was first discovered. Although as discoveries expanded, it would become clear that evidence of all three distinctions would be found in most of Ohio, but it would also be found that there were great clusters of these cultures along the major rivers. One of those clusters is located in Ross County around the Chillicothe area. Here the total known mounds and earthworks number in the hundreds and exceed densities for any similar sized area in eastern North America.