Grave Creek Mound facts for kids
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Grave Creek Mound
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Grave Creek Mound in 2006
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| Location | Tomlinson and 9th Streets, Moundsville, West Virginia |
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| NRHP reference No. | 66000751 |
Quick facts for kids Significant dates |
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| Added to NRHP | October 15, 1966 |
| Designated NHL | July 19, 1964 |
The Grave Creek Mound is a huge burial mound located in the Ohio River Valley in West Virginia. It's one of the biggest cone-shaped mounds in the United States. Today, it stands about 62 feet (19 meters) tall and 240 feet (73 meters) wide.
People from the Adena culture built this mound around 250–150 BC. They moved over 60,000 tons of dirt to create it! The town of Moundsville grew up around the mound, close to the Ohio River.
The first time anyone officially dug into the mound was in 1838. Local people, Abelard Tomlinson and Thomas Biggs, did the digging. Grave Creek Mound is the largest Adena mound still standing. Because of its importance, it was named a National Historic Landmark in the mid-1900s.
In 1978, the state opened the Delf Norona Museum at the site. This museum shows many old items and teaches about the ancient Adena culture. In 2010, the US Army Corps of Engineers gave almost 450,000 artifacts to the museum. These items were found during digs and show 10,000 years of history from the native people who lived in the area.
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What is the Grave Creek Mound?
Grave Creek Mound is the largest cone-shaped structure built by the ancient mound builder cultures. It was built in different steps between about 250 and 150 BC. This is known because several burials were found at different levels inside the mound.
In 1838, engineers measured the mound. They found it was about 69 feet (21 meters) tall and 295 feet (90 meters) wide at its base.
Originally, a ditch about 40 feet (12 meters) wide and 5 feet (1.5 meters) deep surrounded the mound. This ditch likely helped protect the mound. Inside the mound, archaeologists found remains and jewelry from the Adena people. They also found a small stone tablet called the Grave Creek Stone. However, most experts today believe this tablet was a trick or a fake.
History of the Mound
Early History
The Grave Creek Mound was built during the Woodland time period. This was part of the late Adena Period, from about 1000 BC to 1 AD. The people who lived in West Virginia then are known as the Mound Builders. This specific burial mound was built slowly, over about a hundred years.
First European American Sightings
It's believed that a European American first saw the Grave Creek Mound in 1770. Joseph Tomlinson and his brother built a log cabin nearby. Joseph found the mound while hunting. Two years later, he built a cabin for his family about 300 feet (91 meters) from the mound.
A young Englishman named Nicholas Cresswell visited the mound in 1775. He wrote about it in his journal. In 1803, Merriwether Lewis also wrote about the mound in his journal. He saw it on his way to meet William Clark for their famous expedition.
Excavations in the 1800s
On March 19, 1838, Abelard Tomlinson and Thomas Briggs began digging into Grave Creek Mound. Abelard was the nephew of the landowner, Jesse Tomlinson. They started digging about 4 feet (1.2 meters) up on the north side of the mound. This way, they could easily dump the dirt into the surrounding ditch.
About 111 feet (34 meters) into the mound, they found a burial chamber. It was dug into the original ground surface. This chamber was about 8 feet (2.4 meters) by 12 feet (3.7 meters) and held two burials. One burial had about 650 beads made of shell or ivory.
Later, they dug two more tunnels. One went straight down from the top of the mound. The other went in from about halfway up the north side. These two tunnels met at a second burial chamber, found on June 9, 1838. This chamber held one burial. Among the items found were 1700 ivory beads, 500 seashells, and five copper bracelets.
Sadly, the tunnels they made destroyed important clues that could have helped researchers. After the digging, Tomlinson made the lower burial chamber bigger. He opened a museum inside the mound, charging people to visit. This museum was later closed in 1847. In 1843, Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, an early expert on Native Americans, mapped the area.
Saving the Mound in the 1900s
In 1908, local women from the Wheeling Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution helped save the mound. They raised money to buy the land and stop it from being torn down for new buildings. In 1909, the state of West Virginia bought the site to protect it. It was named a National Historic Landmark in 1964.
Later archaeological studies showed something interesting about the dirt inside the mound. Even though it was built from the same dirt as the land around it, some of the dirt inside looked different. This was because the remains of burned bodies changed the color of some dirt to blue.
Delf Norona Museum
The Delf Norona Museum shows many artifacts found at the Grave Creek Mound site. The West Virginia Division of Culture and History owns and runs the museum. It opened in 1978. The museum has exhibits that explain the Adena people and how they might have built the huge mound.
In the 21st century, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers gave almost 450,000 artifacts to the museum. These items were found in the 1990s during a big archaeological dig. The dig was for a new lock on the Kanawha River.
These artifacts show 10,000 years of different cultures living in the Kanawha Valley. They include:
- Stone knives
- A 3,000-year-old sandstone cooking bowl, carved by hand before people started making pottery
- Stone jewelry from a Fort Ancient village
In April 2010, the state displayed some of these artifacts at the state capitol in Charleston. The exhibits included old items from the John Reynolds plantation. These included pendants made by enslaved people from Spanish coins in the 1790s. There were also items related to making salt in colonial times.
However, most of the exhibit was about the prehistoric artifacts of Native American peoples. They lived in the valley for thousands of years, much longer than the European Americans. More exhibits will be set up as the state's Office of Culture and History studies the artifacts. The Native American artifacts will stay at the Delf Norona Museum.
