America’s Mystery Mounds

Thousands of strange earthworks made by early American Indians survive in the USA, but surely none is more awe inspiring than the Great Serpent Mound in Adams Country, Ohio. The largest effigy mound anywhere in the world, this earth image of a sinuous snake with gaping jaws writhes for 400 metres along the edge of a bluff overlooking Brush Creek. A huge mound defines the body of the snake, which is 6 meters wide and reaches a height of 1.5 metres, and the serpent’s jaws enclose a single egg-shapped mound of earth. Long associated with either the Adena or the Hopewell Culture (c.700 BC to c. AD 400), recent excavations at the site suggest that the mound dates to the eleventh century AD. The identity of the builders remains uncertain, but we know that they created the mound in clay brought from the valley below, building it up around an outline of stones.

Archaeologists are baffled by the meaning of this effigy, but some clues may come from mythology. Throughout the world the serpent has often been associated with water, so essential for all life, and in the legends of American Indians the Horned Serpent represents the fertilizing role of water. Perhaps some such life giving force was being invoked by the creators of the Serpent Mound.

Equally mystifying are the other huge artificial mounds that lie scattered across the eastern half of the country. Moulded into human or animal shapes including bears, deer, foxes and birds – these mounds were probably built by a succession of cultures beginning more than 3000 years ago. Like the Serpent Mound, many of the earthworks can be fully viewed only from the skies, leading to intriguing speculation about their origins. Some researchers have suggested that the people responsible may have practised levitation or out of day travel.

Yet another puzzling feature of the Great Serpent Mound is its location on a cryptovolcanic geological feature, the only area in North America where faults are so highly concentrated. In some remote period, two massive underground gas explosions produced by meteoric impact or a subterranean volcano caused these extensive fractures to the earth’s crust. Whatever the mound’s significance, its placement on a unique geological site is surely no coincidence.