Mound Building Information
Lasting traces of Adena culture are still seen in their earthworks called mounds. Adena's mounds used to be numbered in the hundreds, but only a number of Adena monuments still survive today. These mounds generally ranged in size from 20 feet to 300 feet in diameter and were used as burial structures, ceremonial sites, historical markers and possibly gathering places. These mounds were built using hundreds of thousands of baskets full of specially selected and graded earth.
Adena History
The Adena's were a Pre-Columbian Native American culture. They were one of the few mound builder tribes. Their tribe existed from 1000 to 200 BC during the Woodland period. they settled and lived in Ohio, Indiana, West Virginia, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, and New York. The Adena were notable for their agricultural , pottery, artistic work and extensive trading network, which supplied them with a variety of raw materials, ranging from copper from the Great Lakes to shells from the Gulf Coast. The Adena was named from the mound on Thomas Worthington's early estate named the Adena in Ohio.