Ancient Mounds Among More Modern Dead

Settlers Turned Burial Mounds Into Their Own Cemetery In Piketon, Ohio

Mound Cemetery in Piketon, Ohio. Photo by Mike Luoma.

Settlers Turned Burial Mounds Into Their Own Cemetery In Piketon, Ohio

As we enjoy the spooky season, a look at one of my eerier Mound visits this year — to the Mounds of Mound Cemetery in Piketon, Ohio, near the Scioto River.

Entrance to Mound Cemetery in Piketon, Ohio. Photo by Mike Luoma.

There’s not much I can tell you about the earthworks. Little is known of the provenance of these Piketon Mounds — they haven’t seen any formal study. They are assumed to be ancient Adena constructs, and likely Burial Mounds. Later Hopewell involvement is suggested by some sources.

They are impressive in their own way. Mysterious. Somber.

Walking in past the gates, the Mounds are to your right, in Mound Cemetery in Piketon, Ohio. Photo by Mike Luoma.

Ephraim George Squier and Edwin Hamilton Davis, noted 19th century surveyors of the Mounds of Ohio and other Midwestern states for the Smithsonian, don’t say much about these mounds here in Piketon in their landmark work Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley.

The “Graded Way” from Ephraim George Squier’s and Edwin Hamilton Davis’ Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley. Public Domain.

Squier and Davis instead focus on a curious-sounding “Graded Way” once nearby. Their illustration shows an embanked ramp dug into the hill leading down towards the river, easing the incline of the slope, a feature obliterated by gravel extraction and highway and housing development long ago.

Protected by the cemetery, these four ancient Mounds outlasted the other, seemingly more eye-catching earthworks.

The 25-foot Mound at Mound Cemetery in Piketon, Ohio. Photo by Mike Luoma.

The tallest of these Conical Mounds remaining is 25 feet high. A possible raised earthen platform seems to connect them.

Around the Mounds. The two largest Mounds from around the back, at Mound Cemetery in Piketon, Ohio. Photos by Mike Luoma.

Mounds Among the Dead. A gravestone sits atop the second-largest Mound here in Mound Cemetery in Piketon, Ohio. Photo by Mike Luoma.

Settlers apparently began burying their dead here from their earliest days on the land.

Around the Mounds, Continued. The Mounds appear interconnected, as there seems to be the remains of a raised platform between them. Or, perhaps this entire form was an effigy mound of some kind, before being turned into a cemetery. These Mounds have not been studied, so we can only speculate. At Mound Cemetery in Piketon, Ohio. Photo by Mike Luoma.

Squier and Davis found a cemetery sprung up around these Mounds early on, when they surveyed them in 1848.

Turning the Mounds and surrounding land into a cemetery both did — and didn’t — preserve them. Mound Cemetery in Piketon, Ohio. Photo by Mike Luoma.

Perhaps those pioneer folk who interred their deceased here somehow instinctually knew this was a place for the dead, well before we knew these to be likely Adena Burial Mounds.

The view from the road, at Mound Cemetery in Piketon, Ohio. Photo by Mike Luoma.

A brief tour of the Burial Mounds in Mound Cemetery in Piketon, Ohio — a quick visit with the mingling Midwestern dead from across more than 2000 years.

The largest mound at Mound Cemetery in Piketon, Ohio, as seen from the road outside of the cemetery. Photo by Mike Luoma.

If you’d like to see more of Mound Cemetery in Piketon, Ohio, check out Mike Luoma’s six-minute video Experience of the site on YouTube: https://youtu.be/nx2QQsVuHy.

Did you know Mike has combined his love for exploring with his DIY/POD publishing skills to create four 2022 Calendars featuring his photos and descriptions? Learn More — Find Links & photo galleries at http://glowinthedarkradio.com/calendars.