Ancient American Indian Trails on Watersheds of Ohio
Mound builder trails
Map showing the locations of the Ohio Mound Builders Ancient Indian Trails
Some of these remains are undoubtedly of no later age than the Indians whom the first whites knew; many of them are of far earlier times. It is now held by the most prominent archæologists that there are works of the mound-building Indians which do not date back far from the time Columbus discovered America. Thus any work which gives evidence of having been in existence five hundred years may belong to the mound-building era. And throughout all these five hundred years there is hardly a time when there is not evidence of Indian occupation. So the line between the mound-building Indians and the later Indians, among whom the building of mounds was a lost art, is exceedingly hard to draw.
These quotations give some evidence that the mound builders of our earliest archæological works were well acquainted with the high grounds. It is not apparent now that in any signal instance there exists evidence of a reliable character that any watershed was a highway; all we are seeking to show now is the very general fact that these people lived and moved and had their being often far inland on the heads of the little streams which never in historic times have served the purpose of navigation, and that here many of their works are found on the high grounds where it is sure all previous races have made their roads.
Map shows the paths of the ancient Indian trails in Ohio. Many of these trails are thousands of years old. It is of interest the trails converge in south central Ohio where the greatest concentration of Adena Hopewell burial mounds and earthworks are located.
Muskingum Indian Trail located in Tuscarawas County, Ohio. About 8 sections of old Indian trails were investigated for "The Nephilim Chronicles: A Travel Guide to the Ancient Ruins in the Ohio Valley," with only one photographed at South Bend Indiana.
Another section of the Muskingum Indian Trail located near Stockport, Ohio
