The Serpent Mound Debate Archaeologists disagree about who built this remarkable effigy mound, and when they did it. By David Malakoff 12
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nyone who has tried to catch a snake knows the reptiles are elusive. So it only seems appropriate that Serpent Mound, a twisting, quartermile long, three-foot-high earthwork in southern Ohio, has eluded archaeologists’ grasps for decades. Over the past 170 years, researchers have offered changing and conflicting views on the age of the iconic effigy, which has been designated a National Historic Landmark. Some believe that people of the Adena culture, who created countless elaborate earthen mounds in the central Ohio River Valley and adjacent lands, built the serpent about 2,300 years ago. But others assert that it’s
fall • 2017
3/8/18 3:44 PM
