Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of iHeart Radio. Hey
Speaker 1: brain Stuff, Lauren Vogelbaum. Here. Imagine you're a person living
Speaker 1: about a thousand years ago and what's now the state
Speaker 1: of Ohio. Your job is mostly growing corn and otherwise
Speaker 1: hanging out in and around your village, providing all the
Speaker 1: necessities of life for yourself and your community, making pottery
Speaker 1: to cook in, maintaining your home and the other buildings
Speaker 1: in the village, and working to cure food other than corn,
Speaker 1: growing squash and beans, hunting deer and turkeys and so on.
Speaker 1: But one day you're talking with some friends and you decide,
Speaker 1: let's make a snake sculpture on the edge of this
Speaker 1: meteorite crater over here. And so you do, and you
Speaker 1: make it one thousand, three hundred and seventy six ft long,
Speaker 1: that's four hundred nineteen meters. Located in southwestern Ohio, Serpent
Speaker 1: Mound is a giant earthen mound, the largest serpent effigy
Speaker 1: in the world, a thought to have been constructed by
Speaker 1: the fourt Ancient people around nine hundred years ago, although
Speaker 1: some argue that the site is much older and that
Speaker 1: the four Ancient people didn't build it but actually refurbished it.
Speaker 1: Although no human remains or artifacts have been found in
Speaker 1: the sinuous grassy hillock that is Serpent Mound, some graves
Speaker 1: and burial mounds stand nearby, probably built by the people
Speaker 1: of the Adena culture, the fort Ancients, predecessors in the
Speaker 1: area about six hundred years even earlier. Regardless, Serpent Mound
Speaker 1: belongs to a class of structures called effigy mounds, which
Speaker 1: were commonly built in the shape of animals like bears,
Speaker 1: b links, bison, or birds, and often served as burial
Speaker 1: sites for ancient peoples. Serpent Mound sits on the edge
Speaker 1: of a meteorite impact crater, and the serpent itself ranges
Speaker 1: between nineteen and twenty five feet wide that's six to
Speaker 1: seven and a half meters, and it rises around three
Speaker 1: feet or one meter from the surrounding landscape, with its
Speaker 1: head formed by a rock cliff overhanging a nearby creek.
Speaker 1: Although it's difficult to know what's purpose was since it
Speaker 1: wasn't used for burials, it does act as a calendar.
Speaker 1: The sunset on the summer solstice lines up with the
Speaker 1: serpent's head. The eastern facing curves of the snake's body
Speaker 1: line up with the sunrise on the equinoxes, and the
Speaker 1: serpent's tail coils line with the winter solstice. In the
Speaker 1: year two thousand eight, Serpent Mound and eight other Ohio
Speaker 1: American Indian earthworks were chosen by the United States Department
Speaker 1: of the Interior for inclusion on the United States tentative
Speaker 1: list of sites to be submitted to UNESCO for inclusion
Speaker 1: on the Prestigious World Heritage Sites List. The UNESCO is
Speaker 1: the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural organization. If Serpent
Speaker 1: Mound is eventually inscribed on the list, possibly in three
Speaker 1: according to Ohio History Connections World Heritage director Jennifer Altman,
Speaker 1: it would be an among the likes of Egypt's Pyramids,
Speaker 1: the Great Wall of China, Pompeii Stonehenge, and the taj Mahal. A.
Speaker 1: Serpent Mound is located within the Serpent Mound State Memorial,
Speaker 1: designated a National Historical Landmark in Peebles, Ohio, maintained by
Speaker 1: the Ohio History Connection. The site is open seasonally from
Speaker 1: April through November, with visitor hours every day except Mondays
Speaker 1: and some holidays. The site boasts an observation tower that
Speaker 1: was built in following increasing interest from European colonists that
Speaker 1: started in eighteen forty seven when the mound was sketched
Speaker 1: and surveyed. Though the tower is currently closed for the
Speaker 1: season for needed repairs, and archaeological investigation continues, as new
Speaker 1: radio carbon dating suggested that the effigy maybe from his
Speaker 1: early as three hundred BC. Today's episode is based on
Speaker 1: the article Ohio Serpent Mound is archaeological mystery on houst
Speaker 1: works dot com, written by Jesslyn Shields. Brain Stuff is
Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radio in partnership with how stuff
Speaker 1: works dot Com, and it's produced by Tyler Clang. Four
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