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Serpent Mound

Coordinates: 39°01′35″N 83°25′51″W / 39.02639°N 83.43083°W / 39.02639; -83.43083
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This article is about the site in the United States. For the site in the Scotland, see Skelmorlie. For the site in Canada, see Serpent Mounds Park.

Great Serpent Mound
The Great Serpent Mound – ancient Native American effigy in Adams County, Ohio
Map
Interactive map of Great Serpent Mound
Nearest cityPeebles, Ohio
Coordinates39°01′35″N 83°25′51″W / 39.02639°N 83.43083°W / 39.02639; -83.43083[2]
NRHP reference No.66000602[1]
Added to NRHPOctober 15, 1966

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.[3]

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.[4]

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.
Ohio historical marker

Description

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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 1,348 ft (411 m) in length, varying from 9 in (23 cm) to more than 3 ft (91 cm) in height. The mound stands with a width varying between 22 and 24 ft (6.7 and 7.3 m) 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 120-foot (37 m) 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.[3] The western side of the effigy features a triangular mound approximately 31.6 ft (9.6 m) at its base and long axis. Similar serpent effigies exist in Serpent Mounds Park in Canada and Skelmorie in Scotland.[5]

Serpent Mound impact crater

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Main article: Serpent Mound 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.[6][7]

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.[8]

Origin and chronology

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Throughout the twentieth century, anthropologists and archaeologists had disputed whether the Adena or Fort Ancient cultures had created the Serpent Mound.[9] 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.[10]

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.[11][12][13] 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.[14]

Prehistory of Ohio

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Main article: Prehistory of Ohio
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)[15]

Cultures of the Midwest

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Adena culture

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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.[16][4]

Fort Ancient Culture

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Main article: Fort Ancient Culture
Map of Fort Ancient from 1848

The Fort Ancient Culture refers to the Native American Cultures who predominantly inhabited land near the Ohio River valley in a culture that flourished from 1000 CE to 1750 CE. These civilizations flourished in the modern-day regions of southern Ohio, northern Kentucky, southeastern Indiana, and western West Virginia. The Fort Ancient tribes are often referred to as a "sister culture" of the Mississippian culture, although they can be distinguished from that culture through the time period in which they thrived and their many cultural differences. Along with their relation to the Mississippian culture, evidence suggests that the Fort Ancient Culture were not the direct descendants of the Hopewellian Culture. Despite what many believe, the tribes of the Fort Ancient Culture were not responsible for the creation of The Great Serpent Mound, although they contributed to its physical appearance through maintenance of it around 200 CE.

Fort Ancient tools found in Maysville, Kentucky

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 more than 100 years before. They found a few pieces of charcoal in what they believed to be an undisturbed portion of the Serpent Mound. Natural changes called bioturbation, including burrows, frost cracks, etc., can reverse the structural timeline of an earthen mound such as Serpent Mound, however, and bioturbation can shift carbon left by a later culture 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 date of ca. 1070 CE, with the third piece dating to the Late Archaic period some two thousand years earlier, specifically 2920+/-65 years BP (before the present). The third date, ca. 2900 BP, was recovered from a core sample below the cultural modification level. The first two dates place the Serpent Mound within the realm of the Fort Ancient culture. The third dates the mound back to very early Adena culture or before.[17]

Another effigy mound found in Ohio, the Alligator Effigy Mound in Granville, was carbon dated to around 950 AD.[18]

Interpretations

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The curvature of the Serpent Mound

According 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.[19]

According to Woodward and McDonald's interpretation:

“Serpent Mound has given rise to a rich, diverse, and dynamic body of folk and scientific lore — there is no shortage of thoughts about how the effigy came to exist or, perhaps more importantly, why. At one time this earthen serpent was considered by some people with Christian affinity to be a mark of God that indicated the location of the Garden of Eden and served as a reminder of his moral authority. Today, New Age pilgrims find power and enlightenment, traditional views revere unrevealed distant purpose and perspective, and others seek meaning in geometric relationships between mounds and astronomical concurrences.”

— Woodward & McDonald, Indian Mounds of the Middle Ohio Valley, p.118

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.[20]

Alignments

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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.[21] Additionally, the coiled tail of the mound is aligned to the winter solstice sunrise.[22] 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.[23]

Preservation

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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 60 acres (0.24 km2) 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. [24]

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.[25] The site is now managed by the Ohio History Connection.[4]

In 2012, a group that identified themselves as "light warriors" vandalized the Serpent Mound by running and jumping on its surface, as well as burying quartz crystals in and around the mound to "reactivate" the Serpent Mound. [26] Following another instance of vandalism in 2015 where 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.[27]

Excavation and survey

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Digital Geographic Information System Map of the Serpent Mound

Squier and Davis were the first to publish a survey of Serpent Mound in 1848.[3] In 1901, Clinton Cowen surveyed and mapped Serpent Mound and the area around it.[28]

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.

Gorgets and points from the Adena culture, found at the Serpent Mound
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.[5]

In 2011, archaeologists took the opportunity to excavate the property prior to installation of utility lines at the Serpent Mound State Memorial. The excavations focused on three sides of the conical mound that had been excavated previously by Putnam in 1890. In addition to these concentrations of artifacts, an ashy soil horizon was excavated north of the conical mound, where archaeologists were able to uncover many prehistoric artifacts. It is believed that the ashy deposit of charcoal is the remainder of a Fort Ancient Culture ash bed. The wood charcoal from within the remnant bed was carbon dated back to the time of the Fort Ancient Culture, between the years of 1041 CE and 1211 CE. Given the results found through carbon dating, burials in the conical mound dated to the Early Woodland and Fort Ancient periods, suggestive of ritual reuse of the circum mound area and ash bed.[29]

Serpent Mound Museum

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Main article: Ohio History Connection

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.[25][30]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. January 23, 2007.
  2. ^ "Serpent Mound". Geographic Names Information System. United States Geological Survey, United States Department of the Interior.
  3. ^ a b c Willoughby, Charles C. (April–June 1919). "The Serpent Mound of Adams County, Ohio". American Anthropologist. 21 (2): 153–163. doi:10.1525/aa.1919.21.2.02a00030. JSTOR 660267 – via JSTOR.
  4. ^ a b c "Serpent Mound - Ohio History Connection". Ohio History Connection. Retrieved October 8, 2025.
  5. ^ a b Greenman, Emerson F. (1964). "Guide to Serpent Mound" (PDF). Ohio Historical Society. p. 8. Retrieved January 23, 2026.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  6. ^ Milam, Keith A. (June 2010). "A Revised Diameter for the Serpent Mound Impact Crater in Southern Ohio". The Ohio Journal of Science. 110 (3). Ohio Academy of Science – via Ohio State University Knowledge Bank.
  7. ^ "The Serpent Mound Impact Structure". ohiodnr.gov. Archived from the original on March 26, 2023. Retrieved April 15, 2026.
  8. ^ Baranoski, Mark T.; Schumacher, Gregory A.; Watts, Doyle R.; Carlton, Richard W.; El-Saiti, Belgasem M. (2003). "SUBSURFACE GEOLOGY OF THE SERPENT MOUND DISTURBANCE, ADAMS, HIGHLAND, AND PIKE COUNTIES, OHIO" (PDF). Ohio Department of Natural Resources Division of Geological Survey. Retrieved April 15, 2026.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  9. ^ "Great Serpent Mound". www.metmuseum.org. October 2002. Retrieved May 3, 2022.
  10. ^ "New Radiocarbon Dates Suggest Serpent Mound is More Than 2,000 Years Old – The Ancient Earthworks Project". March 27, 2017. Archived from the original on March 27, 2017. Retrieved April 26, 2022.
  11. ^ Lepper, Bradley T.; Duncan, James R.; Diaz-Granádos, Carol; Frolking, Tod A. (August 2018). "Arguments for the Age of Serpent Mound". Cambridge Archaeological Journal. 28 (3): 433–450. doi:10.1017/S095977431800001X. S2CID 165819360.
  12. ^ Herrmann, Edward W., G. William Monaghan, William F. Romain, Timothy M. Schilling, Jarrod Burks, Karen L. Leone, Matthew P. Purtill, and Alan C. Tonetti (2014), "A New Multistage Construction Chronology for the Great Serpent Mound, USA", Journal of Archaeological Science 50:117-125.
  13. ^ Henriksen, Peter Steen; Holst, Sandie; Breuning-Madsen, Henrik (July 3, 2019). "Dating Ancient Burial Mounds in Denmark – Revealing Problematic Ancient Charcoal". Norwegian Archaeological Review. 52 (2): 170–178. doi:10.1080/00293652.2019.1670250. ISSN 0029-3652.
  14. ^ W. A. Kenyon, "Mounds of Sacred Earth – Burial Mounds of Ontario." Royal Ontario Museum, 1986. ROM Archaeology Monograph 9. ISBN 0-88854-303-4
  15. ^ Lepper, Bradley T.; Frolking, Tod A.; Pickard, William H. (January 2, 2019). "Debating the Age of Serpent Mound: A Reply to Romain and Herrmann's Rejoinder to Lepper Concerning Serpent Mound". Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology. 44 (1): 42–56. doi:10.1080/01461109.2018.1507806. ISSN 0146-1109. S2CID 165322960.
  16. ^ "Adena culture – Ohio History Central". ohiohistorycentral.org. Retrieved January 26, 2023.
  17. ^ "Serpent Mound: A Fort Ancient Icon?", Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology, Vol. 21, No.1, University of Iowa, 1996
  18. ^ Lepper, Bradley T.; Frolking, Tod A. (October 2003). "Alligator Mound: Geoarchaeological and Iconographical Interpretations of a Late Prehistoric Effigy Mound in Central Ohio, USA". Cambridge Archaeological Journal. 13 (2): 147–167. doi:10.1017/S0959774303000106. ISSN 1474-0540.
  19. ^ "Archaeology: Serpent Mound might depict a creation story".
  20. ^ Saraceni, Jessica E. (1996). "Redating Serpent Mound". Archaeology Newsbriefs. Vol. 49, no. 6. Retrieved May 6, 2026.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  21. ^ Hardman, C. and M. H. Hardman, 1987. “The Great Serpent and the Sun”. Ohio Archaeologist 37 (3): 34–40.
  22. ^ "Serpent Mound - Location, Origins & Preservation". HISTORY. November 3, 2017. Retrieved May 6, 2026.
  23. ^ Barnes, Ben; Lepper, Brad (June 7, 2021). "Ohio's Serpent Mound- An American Indian Story Written in the Earth". Ohio History Connection Blog. Retrieved May 6, 2026.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  24. ^ Dexter, Ralph W. (May 1965). "CONTRIBUTIONS OF FREDERIC WARD PUTNAM TO OHIO ARCHAEOLOGY". The Ohio Journal of Science. 65 (3): 110–117 – via The Ohio State University Knowledge Bank.
  25. ^ a b "Arc of Appalachia Sense of Place 2024-2025" (PDF). Arc of Appalachia News Magazine. 2025. Retrieved April 24, 2026.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  26. ^ Cook, Robert A.; Lepper, Bradley T. (2025). "UNCOILING SERPENT MOUND'S "SLITHERY VIBE": REFUTING MODERN MANIFESTATIONS OF THE MOUNDBUILDER MYTH". Journal of Ohio Archaeology. 11. Ohio Archaeological Council: 1–28.
  27. ^ Carrie, Blackmore Smith (July 14, 2015). "Vandal goes mudding on ancient Indian burial mound". USA Today. Cincinnati Enquirer. Retrieved April 24, 2026.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  28. ^ Lepper, Bradley (January 31, 2014). "SERPENT MOUND PARK IN 1901". Ohio History Connection. Retrieved March 2, 2026.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  29. ^ Weintraub, Daniel; Schwarz, Kevin (2013), "Long Shadows Over the Valley: Findings from ASC Group's Excavations at Serpent Mound State Memorial", Ohio Archaeological Council Current Research 2013, Ohio Archaeological Council, retrieved January 14, 2026{{citation}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  30. ^ "Serpent Mound" (PDF). National Park Service History. Retrieved April 24, 2026.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)

Further reading

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  • Fletcher, Robert V., Terry L. Cameron, Bradley T. Lepper, Dee Anne Wymer, and William Pickard, "Serpent Mound: A Fort Ancient Icon?", Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology, Vol 21, No. 1, Spring 1996, University of Iowa.
  • Putnam, Frederic Ward, "The Serpent 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, Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley, Smithsonian Institution Press, 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's Excavations at Serpent Mound State Memorial", Current Research in Ohio Archaeology 2013. The Ohio Archaeological Council.
  • Woodward, Susan L. and Jerry N. McDonald, Indian Mounds of the Middle Ohio Valley, Blacksburg, Virginia: The McDonald & Woodward Publishing Company, 1986
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