Customer Reviews

Indian Mounds of the Middle Ohio Valley: A Guide to Mounds and Earthworks of the Adena, Hopewell, Cole, and Fort Ancient People (Guides to the American Landscape)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

At one time Ohio had the largest concentration of prehistoric earthworks on the planet. While sadly most of these structures have been lost over time to human intrusion, a number do still remain in this state. This book shows excellent photographs and diagrams of most of the more well-known and interesting sites. Here you will find the Newark mound groups, Fort Ancient, Serpent Mound, and details on the Adena, Hopewell, and other peoples who erected these impressive monuments to collective effort. Not only are the mounds studied here, directions are provided to make day-trips to these locations possible. An approachable starting point for learning about Ohio's amazing pre-Columbian past.

We spent a few days hunting down the mounds in Southern Ohio. We used this book as a guide and carefully mapped out the sites we thought we could fit into our time frame. The book is filled with great information and served as a valuable reference. The State and Federal Park sites are the best maintained and offer on-site information. At several of the sites, the mounds were downplayed by other monuments or historical reference. And of course, a golf course adorns one of the mound formations. The good news is they left the mounds and didn't plow them away. Great Book, we will probably use it again to research other sites.

An Amazon Verified Purchase. Bought this for my Daughter & her family in Colorado. She loved the Guide and we plan to spend a week in July exploring the mounds

I am thoroughly enjoying Indian Mounds of the Middle Ohio Valley. As an avid field advocational archaeologist, I have found this book to be a useful guide and reference for the remaining Adena and Hopewell sites that have survived years of neglect and urban development. The site descriptions provide an excellent view of these important earthworks and burial mounds as they appeared when first surveyed. Eventhough most of these sites no longer exist in their ancient and majestic geometric forms, the books does provide a thorough history of each site and how they have changed over the millenium. I have used this book as a guide to find many of these sites and would highly recommend it to anyone interested in the prehistory of the Middle Ohio Valley.

Really enjoyed the book...Wanted more detailed info on the mounds across from the mouth of the Licking River where downtown Cincinnati now stands.

On one hand, these authors should be strung up by their toes and spanked a thousand times, at a minimum--e.g., insisting without proof that the Grave Creek Tablet is a fake. Gee, that's funny, because they don't seem to concur down at its home base, the fine Grave Creek Archeological Museum in Moundsville, WV, that I just visited myself in May 2009.

"Pre-meditated history" as such rears its ugly head elsewhere within this work, a sickly tactic to say the least. Of course, that includes the obligation to basically regurgitate accusations of racism toward those not willing to regard Mound Builder history as strictly Native American (meaning "Isolationist") while conveniently forgetting that the "Adena" and "Hopewell" take their assigned names from WHITE families (indirectly in the first case, and directly in the second), and that the fear of NATIVE AMERICANS CLAIMING MOUND OWNERSHIP precludes any change in designation. It's a classic case of two-faced "Say What?" which only serves to remind us that despite the blatant, comical attempts here and there to make rodent taste like chicken, YOU CAN STILL SMELL A RAT.

Furthermore, although I can easily imagine the potentially involved Native American tribes forgetting over generations the details of their ancient history (it being passed verbally), I have a much harder time accepting the fact that they also lost sight of all their wonderful "Mound Builder" craftsmanship, not to mention their apparent astronomical savvy.

But on the other hand, "Indian Mounds of Ohio"--given its impeccable attention to detail--is nonetheless indispensible, as it clearly catalogues all of the Ohio mound sites available to the public and especially notes those really worth seeing, all with useful directions, timely tips, and other details that make resultant Road Trips a snap.

I've thus very effectively utilized it to thoroughly and smugly cover the holy grounds of the "Adena" and "Hopewell" along the very western edge of Appalachia (i.e., the line running from Newark to Portsmouth OH, through Chillicothe), and then to venture westward towards Dayton, east towards Charleston, and south into Kentucky.