Talk:Serpent Mound

Untitled

I've done some major expanding on this page. If you could clean it up or wikify it more, it would be greatly appreciated. Last Pantagruelist 03:41, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)

The first image is dead...anyone know why? Alex 03:44, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

deleted? I just noticed the same thing. Annoying. +sj + 18:22, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

Nice article - one quibble regarding Serpent Mound and cryptoexplosion structure

"Though the meaning is grounds for debate, the mound's placement on such an area is almost undoubtedly not by coincidence"

I would argue that it is likely coincidence and they they simply chose a local topographic high. The structure is several km across and the mound is not in the center but rather at the rim uplift. The word "undoubtedly" seems strong.

Otherwise it suggests that the mound builders knew that the local geology was slightly anomalous (at least by Ohio standards). I would argue that while the builders were undoubtedly keen observers and may have noted some differences, the change in bedrock geology definitely not obvious, especially prior to roadcuts, quarries, and the like. It is clear that the meteor or possibly volcanic explosion occurred tens of millions of years before humans existed.

There are a few minerals (flourite, etc) that are rare in this part of Ohio that occur in the Serpent Mound disturbance and maybe those were noticed but otherwise it takes systematic mapping of faults, strikes, and dips to identify it.

Footnotes

Does anyone know why the footnotes were removed from the bottom of the article? The footnote superscripts are still in the body of the article 205.133.190.7 01:37, 23 August 2007 (UTC)dkc

Got me.. looking at the history it seems that it must have been some time ago. I added a reference section with the reflist template, so there are footnotes again. Also renamed "Bibliography" to the more common WP "Further reading", and moved "External links" below that, following regular WP section ordering. Pfly 19:56, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

HEAD

The article should be titled, IMO, "Great Serpent Mound" vice "Serpent Mound"--there are other serpent mounds such as the serpent mound in Ross County Ohio! Thoughts? Doc Rock 16:10, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Sexual interpretation

The 1848 map illustration suggests an obvious sperm/vagina interpretation, but the article does not seem to mention any sexual possibilities. -69.87.200.153 22:57, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Although I suppose I see what you mean, it is unlikely prehistoric Native Americans had ever seen sperm, which are microscopic. TriNotch 05:34, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Bad introduction

The present introduction contains a detailed description of the snake figure which does not belong in the introductory paragraph at all. Other stuff belongs in the introduction however that aren't there. __meco (talk) 16:05, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

-- Style -- This article has very poor style for an encyclopedia article. Asides about 'archaeological interests' and problems with terminology are written in an opinionated style. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.211.104.116 (talk) 21:17, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

WP:SOFIXIT §hep • ¡Talk to me! 21:26, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

I just removed this

"which suggest the mound may have been built 3,000 years ago. " Unless it is sourced, we can draw our own conclusions, thank you. Carptrash (talk) 17:11, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

WP:WEASEL wording concerning attribution of mound to Ft Ancient

Please do not reinsert this material, [1], [2] User:Ross hamilton unless you have reliably sourced WP:CITEs showing that other scholars disagree with the current attribution of the mound to the Fort Ancient culture. Edit warring over this matter without providing the relevant requested citations will only exacerbate the situation. Heiro 18:15, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Progeny/Mathematics

I'm sitting here dumbfounded by the fact that 1000 years ago, people were capable of projecting a 2D image onto a 3D surface and then somehow pulled enough workers into the project to carve it out. I'm not going to touch the page at all but shouldn't there be some wiki page about causality? Even if it's just conjecture it's part of the evolving wiki. Are there really no sources to try to explain why and how these geograms exist? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.87.1.230 (talk) 23:12, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

Tribe of Dan Egyptian gods nonsense

User:Wheres Dan, this Native American archaeological site has ZERO to do with ancient egyptians, mesopotamians or isrealites. Insert any information that implies this in any way and it will be removed. Any source that states that this site is connected to those things is WP:FRINGE and not WP:RELIABLE. Heiro 02:55, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

The insertion didn't suggest the Tribe of Dan, it simply said historians have noted its similarities to the worship of the Egyptian deity Kneph, the Iranian deity Ahura Mazda, as well as Indian and Japanese traditions relating to the serpent, the egg, and the creation of the world. {See: "Rosicrucian Digest 1938"}

Wheres Dan (talk) 03:09, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

It is WP:FRINGE, at best, and will not stand up to WP:RELIABLE, not to mention WP:UNDUE. Insert anything that implies this site is connected to Ancient Egypt, Iran, Isreal, Martians, Japan, etc. without ironclad reliable modern scholarship and it will be removed. Heiro 03:13, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

How about you find the source that says the Native Americans you're talking about worshipped the egg coming from the mouth of a serpent as being religious? Most of the so-called "Native Americans" share DNA links with the Far East and Middle East. This mound could be from the Far East tradition given the propensity of Asian haplogroups among the so-called Native Americans found in the area of this mound, but there is also a large collection of the Middle Eastern group X found in the region, as well. {See: "Mitochondrial DNA analysis of the Ohio Hopewell of the Hopewell Mound Group}, {See: "Migration and Social Structure among the Hopewell: Evidence from Ancient DNA")

Wheres Dan (talk) 03:35, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

No it does not, read it closer, "Ohio Hopewell Mound Group sample shares unique mutations with mtDNA lineages in China, Korea, Japan and Mongolia.", confirming the current theory that Native Americans originated from northeastern Asia. No DNA evidence has ever been found linking Native American populations to the Middle East. Ask the Mormons, they'd love to find that smoking gun, lol. Heiro 03:42, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

Read the second one closer. There was an X found in there. {See: "Indians in the Americas: the untold story"}

Wheres Dan (talk) 03:55, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

Does that article say anywhere that Native Americans are connected to Egyptians, Iranians, or the Middle East in any way? That X haplotype is found all over northern Europe and Asia, it came with the Asian immigrants who crossed Beringia many thousands of years ago, you wont find a reliable source that states otherwise. read here Genetic history of indigenous peoples of the Americas#mtDNA and Origin and Diffusion of mtDNA Haplogroup X. Heiro 04:02, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

The article itself says that is hasn't been concluded who built the mound. You've already conceded Middle East links to the region by admitting the X is found in the ancient Americas, which is already confirmed by bioarcheology. The X came from N, which came from West Asia, largely found around present-day Turkey and throughout the region. One of the Odin's ancestors came from the area of modern-day Turkey, and the X has been found in similarities to groups both in Sweden and ancient America, while the Adena mound sites have been found to be similar to those found in Sweden. The high-level of X found along the Atlantic-Arctic travel routes suggest it could have came to the continent that way, but that is for archeologists to determine. See:

"Who built the ancient stone architecture of Canada and New England," Richard Thornton. 22 aug 2010.

Wheres Dan (talk) 04:55, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

Speculation unsupported by sources, see WP:OPINION and WP:NPOV. Find reliable modern scholars who specifically state your above conclusions or pack it in. Otherwise, it will not be added to this article. End of story. Heiro 05:18, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

"Historians have noted its similarities to the worship of the Egyptian deity Kneph, the Iranian deity Ahura Mazda, as well as Indian and Japanese traditions relating to the serpent, the egg, and the creation of the world." This would be acceptable based on the source provided. It doesn't say that is what it is, rather was it resembles.

What we know is that 1) it is an effigy mound, i.e. religious. 2) Ancient Egyptians, Iranians, Indians, and Japanese worshipped similar things. 3) DNA has been found to link Middle Easterners and Asians to the region. 4) It is similar to the egg on the mound from the Ogdoad and Kneph was a hawk-headed serpent which is similar to the Ogdoad egg coming from a bird on a mound. {See: "The new Schaff-Herzog encyclopedia of religious knowledge"} 5) The Hopi people and Kickapoo people were known to have built dracontia serpentine mounds in North America; {See: "The new Schaff-Herzog encyclopedia of religious knowledge"} this serpentine mound is aligned with the Draco constellation. 6) Haplogroup A from Africa has been found in the Hopi. {See: "Prehistoric lifeways in the Great Basin wetlands: bioarchaeological reconstruction and interpretation"} Haplogroup Q from Central Asia/India has been found in the Kickapoo, who are a Northeastern American tribe {See: "Asymmetric Male and Female Genetic Histories among Native Americans from Eastern North America"} 7)The ancient Ohio Valley races have been compared to the Ancient Egyptians and Indian Brahmin with their geometric accuracy and societal order {See: "New light from the great pyramid"} 8) Kshetras are Indian pilgrimage sites, and also refer to the cosmos serpent Draco going back to Vedism {See: "Buddha and early Buddhism"}

Wheres Dan (talk) 06:38, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

WP:NOT#OR to all of the above unless you can find a reliable modern scholar who specifically states these things. Also, per the original link you wanted to use : See WP:UNDUE. What a person 100 years ago thought it might resemble, before numerous archaeological investigations, carbon dating, not to mention the 100 years of archaeological investigations of the entire continent of North America and the chronologies of all the cultures that existed here and the recent DNA evidence, etc. See where I'm going with this? This persons uneducated suppositions before 100 years archaeological investigations have no bearing on this site, therefore to include it here would give it undue weight. Heiro 06:50, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

The entire first half of the article is based on speculation that is was the Hopewell, Adena, or Fort Ancient cultures. It includes beliefs of the last 100 years not even supported by concrete proof. All I was adding was what an historian believed it resembled in line with the rest of the material of the article completely speculative. Maybe it was the Kickapoo who built it?

Wheres Dan (talk) 08:07, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

The speculation in the article? You mean the material sourced to citations based on dozens of professional archaeologists in the last one hundred years of peer reviewed archaeological research involving DNA research, ceramic chronologies, radiocarbon dating, etc. as opposed to one armchair historian writing in the predawn era of modern archaeological science musing about how lots of ancient peoples worshipped serpents? I dont know how else to explain this to you. Read our policies on WP:Original research, WP:UNDUE, WP:FRINGE and WP:NPOV. Until you can read and understand these policies, we obviously pretty much don't have anything to discuss. Heiro 08:24, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

Riiiight.

• Over the years, scholars have proposed that the mound was built by members of the Adena culture, the Hopewell culture, or the Fort Ancient culture.

• Historically, researchers first attributed the mound to the Adena culture.

• Scholars currently think that the Fort Ancient culture (1000-1650 CE), an Ohio Valley-based, mound-building society, constructed Serpent Mound about 1070 CE.

• Researchers have speculated that perhaps ancient native people created large totemic shrines that were built on platforms made of earth and stone.

Wheres Dan (talk) 09:02, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

Read my last post. Heiro 09:30, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

Read my last post. What was inserted in the article is no different than all of your researchers and scholars' speculation already incorporated.

Wheres Dan (talk) 19:16, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

No it is not. If you can not tell the difference between the two then you have serious WP:COMPETENCE issues and will not be allowed to edit here long. Seriously, read those policy links, also WP:SYNTHESIS. Seek to insert any material like what you did, into ANY Native American archaeological site article, and I will treat it as disruptive editing by an already repeatedly warned editor. I will take this to the appropriate admin board. And you really should address this Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Uncooperative editor has serious problems with WP:FRINGE and WP:RS. Heiro 19:23, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Just leave. If you can't tell the difference between para-masonic armchair philosophers and modern archaeologists, and are incapable of looking at sources younger than Strom Thurmond, you are useless to this site. Ian.thomson (talk) 19:28, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

Open Presentation of Conceptually and Actually Related Topics

I'm a very serious scholar of anthropology, linguistics, and archaeology, and I find the above discussion amateurish and close-minded. So what if there is no connection between Egyptian snake-eclipse myths or such and Serpent Mound ? Then at least there is a conceptual connection worth mentioning if it's not original research. What editors like Hiero represent is the grass-roots version of the USA nationalistic propoganda goal of erasing Indians, no, Amerinds, no, now Native Americans from public, private, or academic discussion by intolerating any conceptual or possibly actual connection they might have to the larger Eurasian historical paradigm.

Sigh. So many other Wikipedia pages at least give some (disdainful) voice to these "dissidents" or "creative thinkers" and their proposed theories. Apparently I find here that the Serpent Mound is a backwater of Wikipedia, which is not surprising considering the memory-genocide the USA government continues to wage against the Indians : that first it sought to slaughter them without warning under General Sherman and now under with the pens of men like Lyle Campbell it writes the Indians out of American memory and discussion.

And as all humans are probably from the same place, and the Native Americans supposedly came over here from Eurasia some 25 thousand years ago or so, does it really boggle the mind of editors like Hiero that they might share myths with peoples living in Eurasia ? Are myths and religions known to be so transient that they change completely over time, or more conservative ? Editors like Hiero not only seem to view the Serpent Mound Builders (let's call them the Cherokee, gasp) but also Pre-Islamic Egypt and Israel as irrelevant, though they seem to mean a whole lot to people all over the world and in every country.

But I suggest that future contributors try to find in the literature these things, and add them : Solstice-equinox alignments are known from many other ancient sites around the world. Apparently, knowing the seasons helped humans do their hunter-gatherer or early-agriculture thing, along with structuring a religious calendar of worship of their perceivedly supernatural beings. Also, even slightly unusual geological phenomena are used the world over by every religion that has ever existed. The Kaab in Mecca supposedly houses a meteorite, and hills and big stones and nice waterfalls, etc, are prime places for designation as a place of worship the world over. (And mentioning the Kaab is nonsense?) The Serpent Mound is not some big mysterious thing IF you study a whole ton. It could be a fluke that they built it at the rim of a million+ year old meteorite crater - look at all the other mounds and stuff we have from Indians in America, are they built next to craters ? No. The Indians perhaps found a nice cliff. And what if they were led by some supernatural entity? Most peoples do claim things like this. Is it the place of Wikipedia to surpress theories of supernatural phenomena ? Well, apparently it is, since neutral point of view tends to wind up being modern Western academiaical Socialist-Atheism, but it shouldn't be this way.

Also, totally lacking from the internet as a whole, and from this article, are the viewpoints of the people who think Serpent Mound is evil and should be destroyed, or even what local people think of it. From my reading and travels, I have encountered people like this, and I think the article as it stands sounds too much like what the State of Ohio has at the site and on its websites.

Dwarfkingdom (talk) 04:27, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

Please go read WP:SOAPBOX and WP:FRINGE. And this page is for bettering the article, not ranting because you cant insert fringey nonsense into articles. Heiro 08:24, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

Also, it would be useful for Dwarfkingdom to read more work of religious scholars such as Mircea Eliade, who have shown how numerous cultures have independently developed religious symbolism that appears to have some similarities and is based on natural features of the world: the sun, moon, tides, water, seasons, etc. It has not been developed in only one culture or at one historic time.Parkwells (talk) 19:57, 8 January 2023 (UTC)

Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Serpent Mound/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

Does anyone know why the notes at the bottom were removed? The superscript notes still remain in the body 205.133.190.7 01:25, 23 August 2007 (UTC)Dkc

Last edited at 01:25, 23 August 2007 (UTC). Substituted at 05:48, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

'Three cultures' in lede

MAybe I am missing something. The lede says it has been attributed to three cultures, Adena, Fort Ancient, and then Adena again. By my count, that is only two cultures. Am I missing something (is the lede missing something)? Agricolae (talk) 03:27, 15 November 2017 (UTC)

Not sure why that was like that, to my knowledge never attributed to any other actual native cultures (unless you count the 19th century mythical "mound builders"[3]). Fixed. Heiro 03:40, 15 November 2017 (UTC)

Building time

I just read in 'Hamlyn History - Archeology' by Maev Kennedy © 1998 'that the Great Serpent Mound could not have been built by a small community'. My back of envelope calculation disagrees: Using data from the book: 1.6m high, 6m across => cross area ~ 6sqm 370m length => volume ~ 2.500cum

Assumptions: 10 liter buckets, 5 min per bucket => ~ 21.000 man hours 16 men at 3 hours/day => ~ 450 days

Formulas: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circular_segment

Ing.walter.hartmann (talk) 10:15, 28 December 2017 (UTC)

interesting but our articles have to be based on what reliably published sources say and our own research can’t be used. See WP:NOR and WP:VERIFY. Maybe you can find another source. Doug Weller talk 11:19, 28 December 2017 (UTC)

Museum

Does anyone have a source for the museum discussion? — Preceding unsigned comment added by DkcOhio (talk • contribs) 18:10, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: FYSEM-UA 900 Busting 11 myths about the archaeology of human evolution

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 31 January 2022 and 13 May 2022. Further details are available on the course page. Peer reviewers: Dsm9603, IsaiahCastro.

dating

The dating of the mound is no longer disputed too much. I clarified the matter somewhat. Eio-cos (talk) 02:18, 16 May 2022 (UTC)

I propose we got back to the disputed version of this article. The dating still seems to me to be much in doubt. The citations don't indicate any resolution of the issue. DkcOhio (talk) 21:33, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

Date of creation

Graham Hancock's account should be considered that serpents mount is over 20,000 years old. 2603:8080:DC00:A4D8:1ED0:2490:C0A7:1E00 (talk) 19:00, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

I can’t imagine why, he doesn’t meet our criteria as a reliable source. Maybe if that date is discussed in some actual reliable sourced, eg peer reviewed archaeological papers. Doug Weller talk 19:03, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

Even suggesting this shows you do not have the requisite knowledge of the subject to edit it. As Doug Weller states above, bring an iron clad WP:RS or this will not even be considerd. JFW. Heiro 22:18, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

Thanks to Doug Weller and Heiro for following this article so closely and preserving it. I would like to help. I'm not sure where some of the changes started, maybe with the NYU student group, but there seems to be a confusion of the terms "culture" (as in Adena or Fort Ancient cultures) and "civilization". It was my understanding that "civilization" has a specific meaning in anthropology and archeology, and these ancient cultures do not qualify. I have changed the use of "civilizations" throughout this article to "cultures." It was my understanding that Norte Chico and Mesoamerica were the two first independent civilizations that arose in the Western Hemisphere. Parkwells (talk) 20:39, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

Good changes/improvements in the cleanup/copyedit, Parkwells. - CorbieVreccan ^☊ ☼ 21:16, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

Besides not being an "iron clad reliable source," Hancock did not even speculate that "Serpent Mount is over 20,000 years old". What Hancock imagined was that Serpent Mount is 12,800 years old and stated that North America "...was covered by an immense ice cap over a mile deep..." at 20,000 years ago. It is sort of ironic and fitting that Hancock is misquoted by one of his supporters. Paul H. (talk) 21:47, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

Given the ongoing nature of the Graham Hancock situation, and the continuing multiple IP attempt to insert UNCITED and WP:FRINGE material based on it, would it be appropriate to ask for a month or two semi-protected or autoconfirmed status edit filter for this article so editors with other things to do don't have to come here every other day to revert the change? It's been going on for almost two months now, and doesn't seem like it will let up any time soon. The filter may break the pattern.Heiro 18:40, 8 January 2023 (UTC)

IIRC, I've only done fairly minor edits here. So if you would like me to press the button, I could semi the article. I'd probably start with a month as it's never been protected before. - CorbieVreccan ^☊ ☼ 20:12, 8 January 2023 (UTC)

I think it's worth the attempt. Due to the Netflix shows spread we are getting so many one off IP edits on this subject, a filter may slow it down. A month would be fine, if it pops back up afterward, we can address it again then. Heiro 20:52, 8 January 2023 (UTC)

Done - CorbieVreccan ^☊ ☼ 20:58, 8 January 2023 (UTC)

ThanksParkwells (talk) 21:05, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

Thanks Paul H. (talk) 21:48, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

"Meaning"

Given the much earlier dates shown in recent radiocarbon analysis, the "meaning" section comes off as anomalous. It begins with a reference to the CE 1070 date as if it's solid fact. If one is reading the article from the beginning, that date has already been fairly convincingly set back at least a millennium or two. So the references to Halley's comet and a supernova around 1070 are, well, kind of ridiculous, and contribute nothing to the reader's understanding. It might be better to say "we just don't know" than to perpetuate a hypothesis that, while reasonable, seems more to be based on faulty assumptions. Kellymac (talk) 05:20, 15 January 2023 (UTC)