Hopewell Indian Mounds (Cropped Photo)
Photo Source: National Park Service

They exist in many places in the world. They are mysterious and in some cases built by unknown peoples. They are earthworks. Sometimes we can figure out what they are for and other times we are not sure. Britain seems to have many earthworks, a lot of them are pre Roman, but they extend into the middle ages, if you count the earthworks that were built around some of the castles. A famous British earthworks is Wansdyke. This is the type of earthwork know as a linear defensive earthwork. It is a ditch and bank. It was built to protect from attacks from the north. It is not really known who built it and who they were defending against. The best guess for its date is believed to be the 5th to 6th century, but for mound builders no one can bet the Hopewell people.

Digging Into A Mound
Photo Source: National Park Service

Two thousand years ago the native Americans, called the Hopewell Indians, built a structure which is know today has Fort Ancient. Fort Ancient is located in Ohio and overlooks the Little Miami River. For awhile it was believed that the 'fort' was built for protection but most archeologists today believe that it was built as a ceremonial meeting place. One of the reasons for this belief is the discovery of what is believed to be a road leading to the area. It is believed that this is a ceremonial road leading to the earthworks. Many Hopewell mounds and earthen structures were lost when the Europeans settled the area and destroyed them by farming over them. But Ohio is certainly not the only place in the U.S. that has ancient earthworks. Mounds have been found in many other states. In Arkansas a large group of ancient earthworks at Toltec was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1978.

What is under the mounds that we see today in these various U.S. locations? Here is the answer from the U.S. Park Service:

"When Mound City was being used, the scene was dominated not by the mounds we see today, but by a series of wooden buildings that were built and used for a variety of public and private gatherings, meetings and ceremonies.  The mounds we see today were built later, each covering the former location of one of these buildings."

The Hopewell indians were part of a huge trading network that stretched across what is now the eastern U.S. Inside some of the mounds were found jewelry from copper from Michigan, mica from North Carolina and shells from the Gulf of Mexico. There was also shark teeth from Chesapeake Bay in Virginia and obsidian form the Rocky Mountains.

Mounds appear in South American countries too. In 1997 test excavations were made on a mound in Ecuador. The mound contained several levels and was 12 X 23 X 2 meters which converts to 39.5 ft x 75.7 ft x 6.5 ft. Inside. the walls had been subject to high heat. It is believed a smelting furnace had been here. Why the builders would cover up these structures with mounds is still a mystery but archeologists believe they routinely did this when the structures were no longer in use.

Why was it worth all the time and effort to cover old sites. Was this some sort of ceremony to appease the spirits? How come this practice was carried out in so many different places and across such distances? How did peoples that were a thousand miles or more away from other mound builders know what the first mound builders were doing? There are so many unanswered questions here. It sort of reminds me of the pyramids. How come pyramids. were built in Egypt and then appeared in the Western Hemisphere? I don't want to get off track here but one proceeded the other by thousands of years in that case so it is possible that the technique was transported to the new world. The mound builders seemed to exitst roughly around the same time if you take a long view of time. Of course they were on a land route and it was easier to travel from one group of mound builders to the next, assuming they all were friendly to each other. Even the ones in South America could be reached by foot eventually.

Southern Ohio Earthworks and Mounds
Picture Source: National Park Service

The Hopewell indians buried people they considered important in their mounds. There are several mounds in Michigan that are burial mounds. The Hopewells disappeared around 400 AD and evidence of their habitats is also gone. It is believed that they lived in houses that had wooden pole structures with animal skins over them and not permanent structures and that's why we see nothing today. We don't know where they went or why they stopped building mounds. Like so many peoples before and after them that disappeared, there is no explanation available at present.