Woodland Mounds in West Virginia

by Darla Spencer

The first Europeans to arrive in the Ohio Valley were intrigued and puzzled by the many conical earthen mounds they encountered there. They created wild theories about who the mysterious "mound builders" might be.


It was not until the 1880s that Smithsonian Institution investigations revealed that the mound builders were the ancestors of living Native Americans. More than four hundred mounds have been recorded in West Virginia, including the Grave Creek Mound in Marshall County, once the largest conical mound in North America. Join archaeologist Darla Spencer and learn about the Grave Creek Mound and sixteen additional Adena mounds and groups of mounds from the fascinating Woodland period in West Virginia.

144 pages, Paperback

Published July 1, 2019

About the author

Darla Spencer is a Registered Professional Archaeologist (RPA). She is Secretary/Treasurer of the West Virginia Archeological Society (WVAS), Vice President of the Council for West Virginia Archaeology, and a participant in the Native American History Council of West Virginia. She has given presentations throughout the state on the early history of Native Americans in the Ohio Valley as well as papers at archaeological conferences throughout the country. Darla has been published in the West Virginia Archeologist, the Quarterly Bulletin of the Archaeological Society of Virginia, and wrote several entries on West Virginia prehistory for the West Virginia Encyclopedia (2006). In 2003, she was awarded the Sigfus Olafson Award of Merit from the WVAS for contributions to the archaeology of West Virginia. Darla developed and taught Introduction to Mound Cultures in 2011 and has taught classes on the early Native peoples of what is now West Virginia and the Ohio River Valley region.

Reviews

[Paul Lunger · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rare is the book where even the author admits in the preface that a book is not going to be the definitive guide to a topic. In this case Darla Spencer is beyond accurate in "Woodland Mounds in West Virginia". This at times frustrating book is a basic overview of the mounds and the archaeologic research that is being done at the mounds throughout the state from how they are named to what was found to the potential origins of the peoples who created them. One thing that helps this book out are the pictures of the artifacts found in these 12 mounds, but it is also frustrating to see the desecration of these sites simply because they didn't know what they were. It's also interesting as someone who grew up across the Ohio River from the majority of the mounds in the Northern Panhandle (particularly the ones in Marshall, Ohio & Brooke counties) that they are a part of what I've been calling as of late the hidden history of the Upper Ohio Valley. This book though will hold the interest of anyone looking for an overview of these pieces of history but also as the author admits if you want more detailed reading look elsewhere.

[Meg · Rating 3 out of 5]

I bought this because of the photographs - the aerial picture of the Creel Mound in South Charleston is postcard - perfect; and I loved seeing the images of bifaces and pipes throughout the book.

It lost a star when she seemed to give Frank M. Setzler credit for reconstructing a large pot that was apparently put together by Elmer W. Fetzer instead. I was eager to see a photo of this pot, and while searching, I found reliable sources saying it was found by Fetzer at Half Moon Mound rather than Setzler at Welcome Mound, as Spencer wrote. Guess I'll need to wait for a trip to the museum at Grave Creek Mound, where the artifact is on display, to know for certain.