The Great Mound

THE GREAT MOUND THE GREAT MOUND THE GREAT MOUND

LILY FILLWALK

Mounds State Park, located in Anderson, Indiana is home to earthworks created by the Adena and Hopewell peoples.

The Great Mound in Anderson, Indiana

Oak leaf ecoprint on a historical map of the Adena and Hopewell earthworks

Mounds State Park has 10 earthworks located on the site.

These mounds were created by the Adena (800 B.C. — AD 1) and Hopewell people (200 BCE — 500 CE).

The Adena and Hopewell peoples were known as “mound builders.”

The Adena and Hopewell peoples were known for their earth and artworks.

The artwork of the Hopewell people had thematic imagery of animals, the most dominant being bears, deer, and birds.

The Hopewell buried individuals in their mounds, while the Adena people did not.

Both peoples’ earthworks were known as places of ceremony.

Bird claw cut from mica, which was a dominant material for religious purposes. Created by the the Hopewell people (Middle Woodland Period).

The celestial alignments of the Great Mound

The mounds helped the Adena and Hopewell peoples track the passage of time.

The mounds were constructed with celestial alignments that corresponded to the seasons.

White oak trees surround the mounds.

Oak trees are a symbol of strength, resilience, and knowledge.

Quercus alba

A bench to observe the Great Mound

Once, this site was a sacred place for religious ceremonies, burials, and viewing astronomical alignments.

The land is now used for leisure activities, camping, and family picnics by people who may not know the history of the site.

Before the land was state owned in 1929, it was an amusement park that exploited the mounds and advertised them as a “destination.�

The land has a deep history of colonization, by non-Indigneous indiviuals.

The historic Bronnenberg House, built in 1840 Frederick Bronnenberg Sr. settled here after arriving from Germany. Bronnenberg purchased the land that is now know as Mounds State Park.

A walking path paved from the visitor center to the mounds

In hopes of making the land more accessible to visitors, some of the burial mounds were destroyed in order to make a visitor center and road throughout the park.

The burial mounds are now a tourist attraction instead of a sacred space.

The Indigenous significance of the land is not as visible as it once was.

acknowledgements: thank you. thank you to the land. thank you to the Adena and Hopewell peoples. thank you to Tarrah Krajnak. thank you to the Ecophotography class at Pitzer College. thank you.

Adena Culture - Ohio History Central. (2010). Ohiohistorycentral.org. http://ohiohistorycentral.org/w/Adena_Culture Adena culture | North American Indian culture | Britannica. (2020). In Encyclopædia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Adena-culture Burial mound | archaeology | Britannica. (2020). In Encyclopædia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/burial-mound DNR: Mounds State Park. (2020). In.Gov. https://www.in.gov/dnr/parklake/2977.htm ‌Hopewell culture | North American Indian culture | Britannica. (2020).

In Encyclopædia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Hopewell culture Indiana Woodland Steward - Scout Oak Trees to Identify the Best Mast Producer. (2020). Inwoodlands.org. http://www. inwoodlands.org/scout-oak-trees-t/ Middle Woodland Period - The Hopewell Culture · The Moundbuilders’ Art: A Confluence of “Ingenuity, Industry, and Elegance” · Open Virtual Worlds. (2020). Openvirtualworlds.org. https://openvirtualworlds.org/omeka/ exhibits/show/moundbuildersart/moundbuilders/middlewoodland Native American Indian Oak Tree Medicine, Meaning and Symbolism from the Myths of Many Tribes. (2020). Native-Lan guages.org. http://www.native-languages.org/legends oak.htm#:~:text=Individual%20oak%20trees%20 of%20great,conferences%2C%20and%20naming%20ceremonies.)&text=Oak%20trees%20are%20also%20 used,in%20some%20Native%20American%20cultures. ‌