This map is best viewed at high resolution and color depth 

Over ten thousand ancient mounds and earthworks once dotted the Ohio Valley.  Surveyors counted nearly 500 earthworks in Ross County, Ohio, alone.  Today, less than one thousand have survived.  This stylized map shows many of the ancient Native American cultural sites, museums, and archives open to the general public.  Click Resources for more information about these sites.

The ancient Earthworks of the Ohio Valley astonished European and American explorers when rediscovered in the late 1700s.  Amateur and professional surveyors mapped these mysterious "antiquities" in the 1800s.  Many of these surveys were published by the Smithsonian Institution in the landmark work Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley (1848) by Ephraim Squier and Edwin Davis.  We have chosen five historic surveys of the river valleys to show the sophistication and density of some of these ancient earthworks.
 
 

	Modern City	5	Cincinnati Museum Center	15	Fort Ancient State Memorial	25	Moundbuilders State Memorial
	Museum or Archive	6	Dayton Museum of Science	16	Orator's Mound	26	Fairmount Mound Cemetery
	Adena Culture Site	7	Museum of Anthropology, U.K.	17	Indian Mound Park	27	Marietta Earthworks
	Hopewell Culture Site	8	Miamisburg Mound State Memorial	18	Fort Hill State Memorial	28	Sun Watch Village
	Ft. Ancient Culture Site	9	Adena Park	19	Seip Mound State Memorial	29	Serpent Mound State Memorial
?	Site of Unknown Age	10	Camden Park Mound	20	Story Mound	30	Ashland Central Park Mounds
1	Sauder Village	11	Grave Creek Mound	21	Hopewell Culture National Historical Park	31	Tarlton Cross
2	Cleveland Museum of Natural History	12	Hueston Woods Campground Mound	22	Highbanks Park Earthworks	32	Leo Petroglyph State Memorial
3	Minnetrista Cultural Center	13	Shawnee Lookout Park (Miami Fort)	23	Piketon Mound	33	Flint Ridge State Memorial
4	Ohio Historical Center	14	Norwood Mound	24	Portsmouth Mound Park	34	Granville Effigy