Adena Axis Mundi & Large Skeletal Remains: Archaeology of the Grave Creek Mound - Part I

[S. Jayabarathan]

Adena Axis Mundi & Large Skeletal Remains: Archaeology of the Grave Creek Mound - Part I

(Read the article on one page)

The City of Moundsville is located along the Ohio River in Marshall County, West Virginia. From the time of European settlement in the 1770s, Moundsville was regarded by antiquarians as one of the most significant ancient sites in North America. For it was here that the Adena mound builders and their descendants constructed the largest ceremonial center in the Upper Ohio Valley, including the Grave Creek Mound, several earthworks enclosures, and as many as 47 additional mounds. There were also stone mounds averaging four feet (1.2 meters) in diameter, crowning the hills around Moundsville, variously interpreted as lookouts, cairns, or sacred wells.

The ritual landscape of Moundsville continued across the Ohio River in Belmont County, Ohio, where Henry Schoolcraft surveyed the remains of still another stone mound, and described a circular earthen enclosure or henge. The Grave Creek Mound is a massive structure, originally between 62 and 65 feet (approx 19 to 20 meters) high and 240 feet (73 meters) in diameter, with a flat top 60 feet (18 meters) in diameter. Surrounding the mound and located directly at the base was a large circular ditch, 40 feet (12 meters) wide and four to five feet (1.2 to 1.5 meters) deep, with a single causeway entrance at the south.

A map of the Portsmouth Earthworks, Group C, a Hopewellculture series of mounds located in Greenup County, Kentucky. It is part of a larger earthworks complex, the Portsmouth Earthworks, located across the Ohio River in Portsmouth, Ohio. It is also known as the Biggs Site. Representative image. ( Public Domain )

The Adena constructed many circular ditches and earthen banks throughout the Ohio Valley, some featuring interior mounds; practices typically interpreted as an expression of cosmological principles.

Bones of Uncommonly Large Size

The large Grave Creek Mound proved to be an irresistible attraction to early antiquarians and curiosity seekers. In The Natural and Aboriginal History of Tennessee (1823), John Haywood mentioned, “Near Wheeling, in Virginia, on Grave creek, on the lands of Mr. Tomlins, is one mound of a conical form, 75 feet high. In the interior of this mound, human bones were found, of uncommonly large size.”

• A Portrait of an Adena Female and Women in Adena Society
• A Glimpse into the Intuitive Medicine of the Native American Tradition
• The Hill of Sorcery: Mythology and Archaeology of the Tlachtga Barrow
• The Establishment Has Already Acknowledged A Lost Race of Giants

Grave Creek Mound. (Tim Kiser/ CC BY-SA 2.5 )

According to Delf Norona, yet another early chronicler states that the mound had “been so far opened as to ascertain that it contains many thousands of human skeletons”, some of them “of uncommon large size”. In 1838, the owner of the mound initiated amateur excavations, beginning with the digging of a tunnel from the north side of the mound, four feet (about a meter) above the ground level.  As the tunnel passed through the body of the tumulus, numerous deposits of ashes and bones were encountered, possibly representing human cremations placed in the mound over the course of its construction.

Ascending Grave Creek Mound, 2011. (Sue Ruth/ CC BY 2.0 )

The tunnel eventually reached the “lower vault”, dug seven to eight feet (approx. two and a half meters) deep into the natural surface, consisting of a rectangular, eight by 12 foot structure with log supports and a log covering. The tomb contained the remains of two individuals. One of the skeletons encountered in the chamber was buried with 650 shell beads and an expanded center bar gorget six inches (15 centimeters) in length.

The tomb contained the remains of two individuals. Representative image. ( Public Domain )

According to Thomas Townsend, the “inferior maxillary bone, or lower jaw, was large and strong,” while the second skeleton was without artifacts and “the bulk much smaller and more delicate”. These observations resulted in the first skeleton being labeled male and the second female. Both burials were extended on the backs, and the smaller skeleton was five foot nine inches (175.26 cm) in length. The lower tomb had originally been connected with a timber-lined passageway inclined 10 to 15 degrees from the north side of the mound, leading downward to the tomb.

Following the discovery of the lower chamber, a shaft was sunk from the top of the mound, and another burial chamber discovered near the top of the primary mound, consisting of a log tomb 18 feet (5.4 meters) long and eight feet (2.5 meters) wide. The chamber contained a single burial with marginella shell beads, between 66 and 150 rectangular mica fragments, a long diamond shaped limestone gorget, and five copper bracelets (three on one wrist and two on the other). The mica pieces were perforated and found so as to suggest that they were attached to a garment or burial shroud. Both the upper and lower chambers were covered with stones, some featuring cup-mark indentations, as found at many Adena sites.

++++++++++++++++

16 MAY, 2017 - 01:59 JASON AND SARAH

A Portrait of an Adena Female and Women in Adena Society

(Read the article on one page)

The Adena Culture emerged in the Ohio River Valley sometime between 1400 and 800 BC, and persisted until around 300 AD. Adena raised earthen mounds ranging from just a few inches to nearly 70 feet high (21 meters). Within the mounds, the honored dead were buried in sub-mound pits, log tombs, and occasionally elaborate timber structures. The human remains from the mounds were frequently found with artifacts, including copper bracelets, beads, and gorgets, as well shell, flint, and slate objects.

The Adena also constructed circular earthen enclosures. These “sacred circles” usually included an interior ditch following the circuit of the earthen wall and one causewayed entryway. These structures are typically considered to have served some ritual or ceremonial purpose. The Adena people lived in dispersed seasonal hamlets and consumed white-tailed deer, squash, and gourd. At the Charleston Mound Group in West Virginia and elsewhere, evidence has been found suggesting that the Adena engaged in some level of maize agriculture by the third century BC.

Since May of 2015, the authors have been working closely with Marcia K. Moore on a project to reveal the living image of the Adena people. For this project, the authors selected a good many photographs of several intact Adena crania, in order to provide a tangible, physical foundation point for the recreations made by Marcia, who then chose which skulls among the photographs she wished to recreate. For the build of the body of the Adena male, references of measurements of skeletons from Adena tombs reaching between 7 and 8 feet (213 and 243 cm) in height were also sent. The large remains were discovered and originally measured by Smithsonian agents and 20th century archaeologists. The first publicly available image of the Adena male was released in late 2015, and was picked up and ran by National Geographic in Poland. 

• SEE: The Adena Giant Revealed: Profile of Prehistoric Mound Builders
• Looking to Elders to Discover the Amazing Burial Mounds and Forgotten Woodland Traditions of Canada
• The Hill of Sorcery: Mythology and Archaeology of the Tlachtga Barrow
• The Mythical Dilmun and The Island of the Dead

Artist’s representation of the “Adena Giant”, Prehistoric Mound Builders. [Image copyrighted © by MARCIA K MOORE CIAMAR STUDIO. The use of which is prohibited unless prior written permission from the artist is obtained. Contact Marcia K Moore at: www.marciakmoore.com]

The Adena Female

For the stunning image of the Adena female, Marcia chose a skull from the Wright Mounds in Kentucky. The dead at the Wright Mounds were considered by anthropologist H.T.E. Hertzberg to exemplify the distinct congenital features of Adena, including large, lower jaws and high-vaulted cranial vaults—enhanced by artificial occipital flattening. In their reviews of Adena skeletal material, William S. Webb, Charles Snow, and Don Dragoo noted the characteristics of the powerful people who once dominated the Ohio River Valley. Adena possessed massive and prognathic jaws, pronounced brow ridges, and some of the highest skull vaults noted for any population in the world. Their bones were very thick, featuring marked eminences for musculature. And it was not only the male skeletons that occasionally exhibited extraordinary stature. Some Adena mounds also contained the remains of females exceeding six feet in height (182.88 cm).

The Adena Female. [Image copyrighted © by MARCIA K MOORE CIAMAR STUDIO. The use of which is prohibited unless prior written permission from the artist is obtained. Contact Marcia K Moore at: www.marciakmoore.com]

Adena Society and Influential Females

Modern archaeology considers Adena society to have been heterarchical in nature. In heterarchical societies, leadership positions activate when needed, but supposedly do not ascribe lasting power to the person or persons chosen to bear the status roles. However, research in some regions of the Ohio Valley has suggested that at least some Adena polities were modeled upon an inherited, generational elitism.

Whatever the nature of power in the Adena Culture, what is evident in the archaeological record is that influential females were often the ones to wield it. Such evidence can be found at The McKees Rocks Mound, located in Stowe Township, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. The mound was between 16 and 17 feet high and 85 feet in diameter at the time of excavation in 1896. The McKees Rocks Mound was built up in three periods of construction, possibly spanning hundreds of years, and the final structure contained the remains of between 30 and 40 individuals. The original or primary mound had been built of river sand to a height of between 3 and 4 feet, covering the remains of a single female burial—numbered as burial 26 by excavator Frank Gerodette.

+++++++++++++++