Collosus Conus: Miamisburg, Ohio Adena Burial Mound

Miamisburg Burial Mound

The largest burial mound in Ohio is located in Miamisburg, Ohio.

Ohio's Largest Mound at Miamisburg, Ohio

Miamisburg, Ohio Adena Burial MoundOhio's Largest Mound

The Mamisburg Burial Mound is Ohio's largest.  Within a few miles of this site are some of the best serpentine hill top works in Ohio.


The Miamisburg mound is the second most important one of 
its character perhaps in the United States. It is of perfect conical 
shape, some seventy feet high with the circular base of 300 feet in 
diameter. It is located just outside the city on one of the highways. 
In 1869 a number of citizens sunk a shaft in the Miamisburg mound from the top to two feet below its base. So far as startling revelations are concerned, the exploration was not a success. About eight feet below the sum- 
mit a human skeleton was discovered in a sitting posture. A cover 
of clay several feet in thickness and a deposit of ashes and char- 
coal seemed to be the burial. At a depth of twenty-four feet was 
found a number of flat stones, set at an angle of forty-five degrees, 
and overlapping like shingles on a roof, and this may have been 
the top at one time. Several theories have been advanced regard- 
ing the object of the builders of this mound. It is thought to have 
been a place for sacrifice, or a burial mound. The failure to dis- 
cover a large number of human bones within it seems to disprove 
these theories. It was in all probability used as a place of signaling, 
as it is one of a chain of similar earthen structures through this part 
of Ohio. Fires on its summit, which rises above the top of the 
surrounding forests, could be seen at a great distance. The trees 
which now cover it have grown since the settlement of the country 
by the whites. 

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