Serpent Mound in its Woodland Period Context: Second Rejoinder to Lepper

Romain, William F.

doi:10.1080/01461109.2018.1511155

Cited by 4 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…Of wider interest, the findings presented here provide support for the notion of a continuity of belief in the Milky Way Path of Souls extending from the Mississippian period back more than one thousand years into the Early Woodland period (e.g. Romain 2005;2015a;2015b2019). Special thanks to William Iseminger and the Cahokia Mounds Historic Site for permission to reproduce Bill's wonderful painting of Cahokia.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 65%

Following The Milky Way Path of Souls

Romain¹

2021

JSA

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Cahokia was a major Native American city on the east side of the Mississippi River, across from the modern-day city of St. Louis, Missouri. Cahokia flourished from c.1050 AD to c.1250. In this paper archaeoastronomic and ethnohistoric data along with computer simulations are used to explore the idea that the Cahokia site axis and the Rattlesnake Causeway were intentionally aligned to the Milky Way. It is proposed that this alignment accounts for the peculiar 5° offset of the site from the cardinal directions. Following Sarah Baires, it is suggested that Rattlesnake Causeway was a terrestrial metaphor for the Milky Way Path of Souls used by the deceased to cross to the Land of the Dead. Rattlesnake Mound at the end of the Causeway is suggested as a portal to the Path of Souls. According to ethnohistoric accounts, the Land of the Dead was guarded by a Great Serpent – suggested here as visible in the night sky as either the constellation Serpens or that of Scorpius.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 65%

Following The Milky Way Path of Souls

Romain¹

2021

JSA

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“…Complicating the archaeoastronomic assessment of Serpent Mound is a debate regarding when the effigy was built. Multiple radiocarbon dates from the base of the effigy indicate that it was built c. 320 BC (OxCal 2-sigma 381-44 BC) (Herrmann et al 2014;Romain 2019). Contrary to this, others (Fletcher et al 1996;Lepper et al 2018) argue that Serpent Mound was built more than one thousand years later, by people of the Fort Ancient culture.…”

Section: Serpent Moundmentioning

confidence: 99%

Observations Concerning the Milky Way, Serpent Mound, Newark and Mound City Earthworks

Romain

2022

JSA

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“…Serpent Mound is the preeminent effigy mound in North America yet the age of its original construction is the subject of on-going debate (Herrmann et al, 2014;Lepper, 2018Lepper, , 2020aLepper, , 2020bLepper et al, 2018Lepper et al, , 2019Monaghan and Herrmann, 2019;Romain, 2019;Romain et al, 2017;Romain and Herrmann, 2018). Attempts to obtain chronometric dates for the mound have, so far, yielded only terminus post quem dates, because none of the dated samples can be reliably linked to its original construction.…”

Section: Effigy Mounds Of the Ohio River Valleymentioning

confidence: 99%

Effigy mounds and rock art of midcontinental North America: Shared iconography, shared stories

Lepper

Boszhardt

Duncan

et al. 2021

North American Archaeologist

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The effigy mounds of the Upper Midwest and the Ohio Valley long have been regarded as distinct and independent cultural developments. A review of effigy mound iconography in both regions reveals similarities suggesting that they are elements of a shared cultural tradition. Comparisons with rock art imagery from the Upper Midwest and Missouri, the inferred centers of this artistic and ceremonial florescence, reveal co-occurrences of specific motifs and provide additional evidence of cultural connections among the Late Woodland to early Late Precontact societies inhabiting the lower Missouri, Mississippi, and Ohio river valleys. Oral traditions of Native American groups with documented connections to these regions allow this rich corpus of imagery to be understood as key episodes in their genesis stories.

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Serpent Mound in its Woodland Period Context: Second Rejoinder to Lepper

Cited by 4 publications

References 14 publications

Following The Milky Way Path of Souls

Following The Milky Way Path of Souls

Observations Concerning the Milky Way, Serpent Mound, Newark and Mound City Earthworks

Effigy mounds and rock art of midcontinental North America: Shared iconography, shared stories

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