The Americas- Part 3
The Great Serpent Mound
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| Fort Ancient Culture(?), Great Serpent Mound, c. 1070, Adams County, Ohio (photo: Eric Ewing, CC BY-SA 3.0) https://ka-perseus-images.s3.amazonaws.com/8337cccc5373fc69fdf7945f2d69e8d42f449a60.jpg |
The Great Serpent mound in rural, southwestern Ohio, is the largest serpent effigy in the world, measuring at 1300 feet long. This mound was built by settled people who cultivated maize, beans, and squash. The agriculture mentioned here was inherited from the Olmecs, who were discussed in my last blog post.
There are no written records of the people who built the mound, and there is lot of skepticism as to what the mound was used for. In the pictures depicted above, you can see that the serpent is crescent shape and arranged in a way so the head is at the east, while the tail is at the west. There is a lot of speculation about the head-- some scholars think the oval shape resembles a large eye, while others see a frog about to be eaten by wide, open jaws. I believe that it is a frog because ancient cultures in North and South America gave supernatural powers to snakes and reptiles. This idea leads people to believe that this mound has supernatural powers. Aside from supernatural speculation, there is also celestial speculation on this mound. The head of the serpent aligns with the summer solstice sunset, and the tail points to the winter solstice sunrise. Therefore, scholars believe that this mound indicated when times and seasons occurred, which could have indicated the farmers when to plant or harvest.
A lot of the other civilizations observed in this class had left written records that allow scholars to learn about these societies. However, this reading mentions that the people who created this mound left little to no evidence about their lifestyles. In fact, it is still unknown which culture actually built this mound. However, scholars believe that the Fort Ancient Culture erected this mound. The Fort Ancient Culture was influenced by the Mississippian culture, which would explain why there is a rattlesnake-like figure on the mound-- the rattlesnake was a common symbol among the Mississippians. I wonder why these people kept themselves such a secret?
Although scholars have their own ideas regarding the speculation around this mound, the debate continues. Was this mound used to mark time, did it document celestial beliefs, did the snake represent a deity?
References
Brown, Dr. Katherine T. “Fort Ancient Culture,” 2020. https://smarthistory.org/fort-ancient-culture-great-serpent-mound/.
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