Higher Ground: America's Mound Builders · Episode 3 of 7 · 35 min
Cities of the Dead: The Adena, Hopewell & Serpent Mound
Not every mound was a lifeboat. Woodland cultures raised burial mounds and geometric earthworks for the dead and the sky: the Adena, the Hopewell and their continent-spanning trade network, the Newark Earthworks, and the enigmatic Serpent Mound. This is the series' honest counterweight, and the story of a thousand years of earthmoving skill that later Mississippian cities would put to work.
Where it happens
- Newark Earthworks, OhioGeometric earthworks including the Octagon aligned to the northern moonrise
- Serpent Mound, OhioEnigmatic effigy mound with a disputed date
- Grave Creek Mound, West VirginiaLargest conical burial mound in its region
- Ohio Valley+1 more episodeHeartland of the Adena and Hopewell
Timeline
- c. 500 BCEAdena tradition emerges and begins regular earthen burial mounds.
- c. 250-150 BCEGrave Creek Mound raised in stages.
- c. 100 BCE-500 CEHopewell florescence of earthworks and long-distance trade.
- c. 500-550 CEHopewell ceremonial system winds down.
- c. 700-1100 CEEffigy-mound building flourishes in the Upper Mississippi Valley.
Still debated
The date of Serpent Mound is unresolved: a 1990s radiocarbon date of about 1070 CE pointed to a much later builder than the Adena, while a 2014 reassessment dated material to roughly 300 BCE. Why Hopewell earthwork building and trade faded is also debated.