Ohio's Serpent Mound, an archaeological mystery, still the focus of scientific debate

The Plain Dealer ^ | October 11, 2018, Updated October 12, 2018 | Susan Glaser

[SunkenCiv]

On a lush hilltop deep in Southern Ohio, a giant snake slithers through the grass, its intentions a mystery.

Despite more than a century of study, we still don't know who built the Great Serpent Mound, or why.

That's part of what makes a visit here so fascinating, and also a little bit frustrating. There are still questions that can't be answered through a Google search or more than a century of research.

This much is known:

• At 1,348 feet long, the serpent is the largest effigy mound in the world -- that is, an earthen creation in the shape of an animal or other symbol.
• Its construction is sophisticated, built in layers, with its head directly aligned with the setting sun on the summer solstice.
• It was built at least 1,000 years ago - and quite possibly much, much earlier.

The Serpent Mound is not a burial mound, though there are burial mounds nearby, from two different native populations, the Adena, who lived in Ohio from roughly 800 B.C. to A.D. 100, and the Fort Ancient, who lived here a thousand years later, from 1000 to 1650.

Debate continues among archaeologists about which of those two cultures constructed the snake, and for what purpose.

"It's one of those big questions in archaeology that we hope to answer one day," said Jarrod Burks, the director of archaeological geophysics at Ohio Valley Archaeology, based in Columbus.

He added: "It's become quite heated, with a lot of back and forth."

...The Serpent Mound is unrelated to the Hopewell sites, built either well before or long after the Hopewell culture existed in Ohio.

[SunkenCiv]

If you dug a pit at Stonehenge, burned your trash in the pit, and then recovered the hole without leaving any sign of the hole, sure. But you're not doing that, nor is it likely that you could pull it off. Past disturbances of the ground or stratified deposits are visible, as the filled-in ancient robber's hole leading to the door of Tut's tomb was visible to Howard Carter.

[Fred Nerks]

The dragon is depicted as a celestial phenomenon, with flames and much noise and appears in many depictions to have set fire to a nearby planet. In some depictions, the 'dragon' holds a sphere in it's mouth, just as Serpent Mound does. I see them both, the Chinese Dragon and the Serpent Mound as a depiction of the same celestial event.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks, nice catch.

[Fred Nerks]

Quetzelcoatl

The Australian aboriginal peoples appear to have their counterpart in the Rainbow Serpent which created the mountains and the rivers...

[Grimmy]

But I could eat a picnic lunch and leave the bones. Someone comes by 2000 years later, digs up the bones and says “proof! it’s 2000 years old!”.

It’s unlikely that archaeologists can sort Johnny Come Later squatters with the actual makers in many circumstances.

[minnesota_bound]

Looks like the 18th fairway.....

[SunkenCiv]

Par 4, at least. :%)

[SunkenCiv]

The bones still wouldn’t be at the foundation of the mound.

[SunkenCiv]

https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/624/cpsprodpb/16614/production/_103886619_hi049777653.jpg

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-45874858

[SunkenCiv]

Yeah, it’s kinda big, and a wheelbarrow requires the wheel, very little evidence for that invention in Precolumbian America.

[Fred Nerks]

... Mauro’s map, the sixteenth-century Carta Marina produced by Olaus Magnus is a landmark in cartographical accuracy, and yet nevertheless its seas are populated by monsters

The latest excavations at Pompeii are uncovering 2,000-year-old works of art

[Trump_the_Evil_Left]

I've solved the mystery!!

[SunkenCiv]

Laz would hit it.