Piketon Mounds
The Piketon Mounds are a grouping of four conical burial mounds preserved in Mound Cemetery in Piketon, Ohio. The largest of the mounds is about 25 feet high and 75 feet in diameter. The smaller mounds range in height from five to two feet.
This mound group is associated with a "Graded Way," or set of parallel embankments that frame a natural drainage channel that leads from the high terrace down to the Scioto River.
The age of the Piketon Mound group is unknown. Such groupings of conical burial mounds are typical of the Adena culture (800 BC – AD 100), but the parallel embankments framing the "Graded Way" are more typical of the Hopewell culture (100 BC – AD 500).
Although there has been no careful scientific investigation of the mounds, curiosity seekers have dug into one or more of the mounds. Reportedly, one of the smaller mounds held the burial of a girl wrapped in bark.
The Piketon Mounds are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
References and Suggested Reading
- CERHAS. EarthWorks, Virtual Explorations of the Ancient Ohio Valley. The Center for the Electronic Reconstruction of Historical and Archaeological Sites (CERHAS). Cincinnati, OH, 2006.
- Lepper, Bradley T. People of the Mounds: Ohio's Hopewell Culture. N.p.: Hopewell Culture National Historical Park, 1995.
- Pangea Productions. Searching for the Great Hopewell Road. N.p.: Pangea Productions, 1998.
Time Periods
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Citation
"Piketon Mounds", Ohio History Central, July 31, 2007, http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/entry.php?rec=2935
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