I’ve got a piece in today’s WSJ on, of all things, Indian mounds. (Subscriber link.) The occasion for the article is an effort to purchase and preserve a threatened site in Ohio called Spruce Hill. In addition to describing that particular case, I try to make some broader points about a little-known part of ancient American history and culture:
When it comes to the New World’s pre-Columbian architecture, glamorous Aztec and Mayan sites such as Tenochtitlán and Chichén Itzá bask in attention. In the U.S., Southwestern cliff-dwellings and pueblos such as Mesa Verde in Colorado and Chaco Canyon in New Mexico are tourist magnets. The earthworks of eastern North America, by contrast, aren’t well understood or appreciated. …
Even the grandest of them suffer from the stubborn fact that they’re essentially heaps of dirt. Still, they’re impressive in their enigmatic way. The prehistoric people who built them with simple tools put enormous effort into these projects, and they’ve lasted across centuries.