Woodland Mounds in West Virginia
Woodland Mounds in West Virginia

Author: Darla Spencer

Publisher: Arcadia Publishing

Published: 2019-07-01

Total Pages: 154

ISBN-13: 1439667292

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The first Europeans to arrive in the Ohio Valley were intrigued and puzzled by the many conical earthen mounds they encountered there. They created wild theories about who the mysterious "mound builders" might be. It was not until the 1880s that Smithsonian Institution investigations revealed that the mound builders were the ancestors of living Native Americans. More than four hundred mounds have been recorded in West Virginia, including the Grave Creek Mound in Marshall County, once the largest conical mound in North America. Join archaeologist Darla Spencer and learn about the Grave Creek Mound and sixteen additional Adena mounds and groups of mounds from the fascinating Woodland period in West Virginia.

Early Native Americans in West Virginia: The Fort Ancient Culture
Early Native Americans in West Virginia: The Fort Ancient Culture

Author: Darla Spencer

Publisher: Arcadia Publishing

Published: 2016

Total Pages: 160

ISBN-13: 1467118516

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Once thought of as Indian hunting grounds with no permanent inhabitants, West Virginia is teeming with evidence of a thriving early native population. Today's farmers can hardly plow their fields without uncovering ancient artifacts, evidence of at least ten thousand years of occupation. Members of the Fort Ancient culture resided along the rich bottomlands of southern West Virginia during the Late Prehistoric and Protohistoric periods. Lost to time and rediscovered in the 1880s, Fort Ancient sites dot the West Virginia landscape. This volume explores sixteen of these sites, including Buffalo, Logan and Orchard. Archaeologist Darla Spencer excavates the fascinating lives of some of the Mountain State's earliest inhabitants in search of who these people were, what languages they spoke and who their descendants may be.