An Athens Autumn: The Mound Builders in the Hocking Valley

In the Large Meeting Room.

The Hocking Valley had been occupied for thousands of years before the first Europeans ever explored it. An interesting part of that prehistory is the long period when Paleo-Indians built earthworks across the landscape in the Mississippi and Ohio Valleys and their tributary regions.  

These mysterious earthworks were for the burial of the dead, or symbolic effigy mounds, or raised geometrical ramparts. The inhabitants of the Hocking Valley belonged to this evolving trend through several distinct cultural periods. 

Our guest speaker, retired anthropologist and archaeologist Dr. Elliot Abrams, will discuss what he discovered in his long career as the founder and leader of the Field School of Archaeology at Ohio University.