A walk into the past

Saturday
Today promised to be another very pleasant day, so we headed out to do some hiking. I had been reading yesterday evening about some hiking out near Hillsborough in Highland County, we haven’t done before, at Fort Hill earthworks, a Native American earthwork, built by the Hopewell culture. This was about a 90 minute drive to the east.
The major earthwork at Fort Hill is an ancient earthen-walled enclosure constructed on top of a large flat-topped ridge. The earthen-stone wall has a circumference over one and a half miles, and encloses just over 35 acres. It was built to follow the natural contour of the rim of the hill, and is bordered on the inside wall by a substantial ditch. There are several trails in the area, and though we started on the Fort trail, we split off almost half way round onto the Gorge trail, as we thought it would be more interesting. We didn’t see obvious earthworks on the section of the Fort trail we did - we were thinking they were just overgrown with the foliage of summer, and were probably more obvious in Fall or winter, but talking to someone back at the start, it may be we didn’t go quite far enough on the Fort trail. Apart from that, the gorge trail was more interesting, following a stream, and with overhanging cliff faces in places. It was slower going though, as it was more rugged, and you had to keep your eyes open for tree roots, and clamber over a couple of fallen trees! We stopped to eat a sandwich along the way, by the stream, and while I was mid-sandwich, I saw this huge dragonfly touch down on a rock, but unfortunately before I could give my sandwich to Roger to hold, and get my camera, it had already flown off, and I didn’t see him come back!

We hiked for about five miles, and then drove on to another Native American site, about 15 minutes away, (which we had been to before, but many years ago now) and the subject of my blip. Serpent Mound is a National Historic Landmark, an effigy mound, representing a snake with a curled tail. Nearby are three burial mounds—two created by the Adena culture (800 B.C.–A.D. 100), and one by the Fort Ancient culture (A.D. 1000–1650), but scientists are still unsure which culture was responsible for the serpent. Based largely on the nearby presence of Adena burial mounds, archaeologists attributed the effigy to the Adena culture that flourished from 800 B.C. to A.D. 100. However, in 1991 and then 2014 there were two contradictory excavations using radiocarbon dating, the former attributing it to the Fort Ancient culture (A.D. 1000-1500) and the latter to the Adena culture at around 300 B.C.! I guess it will be keeping the scientists busy for some time to come! Similarly, it’s original purpose is unclear. The perfect alignment of the serpents head with the direction of the setting solstice sun demonstrates the builder’s earthly acknowledgement of celestial events. The serpent motif has great symbolism in many cultures around the world to the cycles of birth and death, resurrection and the higher and lower worlds, so possibly it was a site of ancient ceremony, also supported by the presence of the nearby burial mounds. It’s really difficult to take pictures that do it justice. Serpent Mound extends for about 1,376 feet, winding back and forth in seven coils, and ending in a triple-coiled tail. The serpent head has an open mouth extending around a 120-foot long hollow oval feature that may represent the snake eating an egg. The top image was taken from a short observation tower, the lower two from the path running around it.