Earthworks Blog

Mound City by Patricia Cleary

Book Review

Patricia Cleary writes about the history of St. Louis, which was once known as Mound City with over 30 Indigenous earthworks, including the "Big Mound.”
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Edisto Island: Spanish Mount and Pockoy Shell Rings

December 2024

Edisto Island, South Carolina, is home to archaic native sites, such as Spanish Mount, a shell midden, Pockoy Island, and Fig Island shell rings.
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Hopewell Octagon - Light and Shadow Animation

An animation showing how shadows and energy could have traveled through a Hopewell culture octagon.
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Hopewell Lunar Observatory

At the center of the Newark Earthwork's Fairground Circle is Eagle Mound. Is it an effigy mound, or is there another explanation?
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Jeffers Mound, Ohio

July 2024 - Mini- Mound Tour 2

Jeffers Mound is on a bluff, overlooking the Olentangy River, a tributary of Scioto River, along which many Ohio Hopewell sites were located.
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Hopewell Culture National Historical Park Visitor Center and Mound City Group - Chillicothe, Ohio

July 2024 - Mini- Mound Tour 3

Of all the sites I visited in July, Mound City reminded me most of a graveyard, a walled place apart from everyday life with monuments honoring people who lived in the past.
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The Serpent Mound State Memorial, Peebles, Ohio

July 2024 - Mini- Mound Tour 4

The Serpent Effigy Mound is located on the southwest rim of a Hypervelocity Impact Crater. The land on which it rests was once owned by Harvard University.
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Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site, Illinois, an UNESCO World Heritage Site

July 2024 - Mini- Mound Tour 5

Monk's Mound is the largest earthwork north of Mexico and is nine to ten stories tall. The day we were there, it was busy with many visitors, and one man was exercising, running up and down the steps.
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