Fort Ancient Culture
A.D. 1000 to 1650
The Fort Ancient culture thrived in southern Ohio and northern Kentucky. Villages were made up of a number of circular or rectangular houses surrounding an open plaza. The Fort Ancient people continued to build small burial mounds, but gradually shifted to burials in a cemetery area with no mounds.
There is evidence that the Fort Ancient culture built Serpent Mound in Adams County, Ohio. They also may have built the "Alligator" Mound of Licking County, but that effigy is not likely a sculpture of an alligator. It is more likely an effigy of a panther, opossum, or a salamander.
Typical examples of Fort Ancient pottery.
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References and Suggested Reading
- Blosser, Jack, and Robert C. Glotzhober. Fort Ancient: Citadel, Cemetery, Cathedral or Calendar?. Columbus: Ohio Historical Society, 1995. - Available from Amazon.com
- Griffin, James Bennett. The Fort Ancient Aspect: Its Cultural and Chronological Position in Mississippi Valley Archaeology. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 1966.
- Lepper, Bradley T. Ohio Archaeology: An Illustrated Chronicle of Ohio's Ancient American Indian Cultures. Wilmington, Ohio, Orange Frazer Press, 2005. - Available from Amazon.com
- Woodward, Susan L., and Jerry N. McDonald. Indian Mounds of the Middle Ohio Valley: A Guide to Mounds and Earthworks of the Adena, Hopewell, Cole, and Fort Ancient People. Lincoln: The University of Nebraska Press, 2002. - Available from Amazon.com
Time Periods
Citation
"Fort Ancient Culture", Ohio History Central, July 1, 2005, http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/entry.php?rec=1285
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