LAY OF THE LAND

The Benefits Of Preservation

The Serpent Mound in southern Ohio was first brought to national attention in 1848 by journalist Ephraim Squier and physician Edwin Davis. (See “The Serpent Mound Debate,” page 12.) In 1885, Harvard archaeologist Frederic Ward Putnam visited the mound only to find plowing and development threatening to destroy it. With the help of some wealthy Boston women, it was purchased and preserved, the first case of a privately-funded preservation project in the United States.

In 1887-89, Putnam excavated the mound but failed to find diagnostic or dateable artifacts. He later identified it as belonging to the Adena culture (circa 500 B.C. to A.D. 100) because two Adena mounds were nearby. That interpretation stuck until the 1990s, when the Ohio Historic Society conducted new research on the serpent. They recovered some charcoal that was radiocarbon dated to A.D. 900, placing it in the era of the Fort Ancient culture.

A research project in 2011 led by William Romain got new radiocarbon dates with a mid-point of 321 B.C., right in the middle of the Adena era. And so the controversy continues, with both sides hoping for new evidence to support their theories.

But it continues only because, in 1886, Putnam, with the help of the wealthy Boston women, saved this National Historic Landmark from near certain destruction by purchasing and preserving it. A century later, the Conservancy started the first systematic program to save what remained of the great mounds of Ohio with the purchase of the Hopewell Mounds. Over the next thirty-five years, the Conservancy has acquired, through gift or purchase, many more Ohio mounds, and they are being permanently preserved so that archaeologists can return with new research techniques to unlock their many mysteries.

Mark Michel, President