Who Built Ohio's Serpent Mound?

The Serpent Mound, a vast effigy built on a meteorite crater's edge in what's now Ohio, may be 900 years old -- or much older. Learn what we know and don't know in this episode of BrainStuff, based on this article: https://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/earth/archaeology/ohio-serpent-mound.htm

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of iHeart Radio. Hey
brain Stuff, Lauren Vogelbaum. Here. Imagine you're a person living
about a thousand years ago and what's now the state
of Ohio. Your job is mostly growing corn and otherwise
hanging out in and around your village, providing all the
necessities of life for yourself and your community, making pottery

(00:24):
to cook in, maintaining your home and the other buildings
in the village, and working to cure food other than corn,
growing squash and beans, hunting deer and turkeys and so on.
But one day you're talking with some friends and you decide,
let's make a snake sculpture on the edge of this
meteorite crater over here. And so you do, and you

(00:46):
make it one thousand, three hundred and seventy six ft long,
that's four hundred nineteen meters. Located in southwestern Ohio, Serpent
Mound is a giant earthen mound, the largest serpent effigy
in the world, a thought to have been constructed by
the fourt Ancient people around nine hundred years ago, although

(01:07):
some argue that the site is much older and that
the four Ancient people didn't build it but actually refurbished it.
Although no human remains or artifacts have been found in
the sinuous grassy hillock that is Serpent Mound, some graves
and burial mounds stand nearby, probably built by the people
of the Adena culture, the fort Ancients, predecessors in the

(01:28):
area about six hundred years even earlier. Regardless, Serpent Mound
belongs to a class of structures called effigy mounds, which
were commonly built in the shape of animals like bears,
b links, bison, or birds, and often served as burial
sites for ancient peoples. Serpent Mound sits on the edge

(01:48):
of a meteorite impact crater, and the serpent itself ranges
between nineteen and twenty five feet wide that's six to
seven and a half meters, and it rises around three
feet or one meter from the surrounding landscape, with its
head formed by a rock cliff overhanging a nearby creek.
Although it's difficult to know what's purpose was since it

(02:10):
wasn't used for burials, it does act as a calendar.
The sunset on the summer solstice lines up with the
serpent's head. The eastern facing curves of the snake's body
line up with the sunrise on the equinoxes, and the
serpent's tail coils line with the winter solstice. In the
year two thousand eight, Serpent Mound and eight other Ohio

(02:31):
American Indian earthworks were chosen by the United States Department
of the Interior for inclusion on the United States tentative
list of sites to be submitted to UNESCO for inclusion
on the Prestigious World Heritage Sites List. The UNESCO is
the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural organization. If Serpent
Mound is eventually inscribed on the list, possibly in three

(02:55):
according to Ohio History Connections World Heritage director Jennifer Altman,
it would be an among the likes of Egypt's Pyramids,
the Great Wall of China, Pompeii Stonehenge, and the taj Mahal. A.
Serpent Mound is located within the Serpent Mound State Memorial,
designated a National Historical Landmark in Peebles, Ohio, maintained by

(03:16):
the Ohio History Connection. The site is open seasonally from
April through November, with visitor hours every day except Mondays
and some holidays. The site boasts an observation tower that
was built in following increasing interest from European colonists that
started in eighteen forty seven when the mound was sketched
and surveyed. Though the tower is currently closed for the

(03:38):
season for needed repairs, and archaeological investigation continues, as new
radio carbon dating suggested that the effigy maybe from his
early as three hundred BC. Today's episode is based on
the article Ohio Serpent Mound is archaeological mystery on houst

(04:01):
works dot com, written by Jesslyn Shields. Brain Stuff is
production of I Heart Radio in partnership with how stuff
works dot Com, and it's produced by Tyler Clang. Four
more podcasts from my heart Radio. Visit the I Heart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows.