Spanish Hill

It is generally accepted that there "three stages" of the Mound Builders era:

Stage 1 - Adena: The name "Adena" comes from the location that several of these mounds were located, the property was owned by Thomas Worthington, an Ohio political leader, who named his estate "Adena." The Adena culture began around 800 BC and are identifiable by the way they built small burial mounds. They were conical in shape and the Miamisburg Mound in the illustration above is the second largest of these known, being 68 feet high. These people who made mounds like this seem to have had a burial ceremony where they prepared the body's spirit for the afterlife. First they covered the body with red paint. Red represented the color of blood and life. It it thought that they believed the red paint allowed the person's spirit to live after death. The painted body was layed on a bed of bark strips on the floor of a burial house. To help the dead enjoy life after death, they placed jewelry, clay pipes, beads, and other useful objects around the body. Finally, they set the burial house on fire and cremated the body. After the house burned down, the Adena covered the ashes with earth. Over time, many times, more people were buried on the same mound. The burial mound grew higher over the years.

Stage 2 - Hopewell: Squier and Davis performed the first intensive survey of the earthworks and mounds at Hopewell Mound Group in 1845 (Squier and Davis 1848). At the time of their survey, the earthworks were owned by W. C. Clark and thus were dubbed the "Clark?s Works." The site did not become known as Hopewell Mound Group until the publication of Moorehead?s 1891-1892 excavations in 1922. About 300 B.C., the Hopewell civilization began, and they ay it lasted up until European contact. This culture was the second of the three Mound Building civilizations. They were the strongest civilization for 500 years and grew in the middle of the United States. They were skilled at arts and crafts. They wove mats, made ceramic pots, and carved figures from bone, wood, and metal. They made spear points and knives from obsidian. Hopewell clothing was made from animal skins. They wore jewelry made from copper and shells. The Hopewell culture spread through trade. Their trade reached from the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Plains, and from Lake Superior to the Gulf of Mexico.

FYI - All of the Ellsworth Cowles collection has been donated to SRAC. We are trying to raise funds to provide a center in the Valley for the communities to be able to come and see these pieces and to learn more about our Native Indian pre-history. Please consider supporting our efforts by becoming a member or donating to our organization.

The image below is an actual picture of one of the "caches" found in the region of the Hopewell Mounds. There are 7,232 flint discs here in this image and we know that they were "unfinished points" that a trader would take from this place and follow the paths eastward into our area to trade with the people that lived here. Sometimes these traders would bury parts of their "inventory" in holes in the ground as a means of storage along the way or for safe keeping. Once the person got these unfinished points form the trader, they would continue the process to make them into the type of point they needed.

We know that they did this because some of these "caches" of "trade blades" have been found in our region.

Stage 3 - Mississippian: The third and greatest mound building civilization was referred to as the "the Mississippian culture." These people lived in the Mississippi River Valley from 800 to 1500 A.D. They built huge mounds, some as big as football fields. Their largest city was Cahokia. Cahokia was located near East St. Louis, Illinois.

As you can see, at Cahokia, they built some complexes, but they would also use geographical areas (hills, etc) and manipulate them to suit their needs.

Please use the following links to learn more about what we know about the hill today: