The Fallacy About Ohio Valley Mound Building –Part I

One of the major issues with Great Lakes Theorists and people like Rob L. Meldrum with the idea that Nephites built the mounds found in the Ohio Valley and along the Mississippi Valley, etc., is that mound building is not unique in any way to the Americas or the Western Hemisphere. Mounds date back to 5000 B.C. and are spread all over Europe. According to archaeologists, “These monumental earthen mounds or barrows lie scattered across the European landscape from Poland to Ireland and represent one of the most tangible and enduring confirmations of Neolithic peoples’ funerary practices.”

They are found in Bahrain (3000 B.C.), the Balkans (2500 B.C.), Sweden, Europe, England, Ireland, and Scotland—the latter areas are quite littered with ancient earthen mounds of the Neolithic era. The best known of these are the standing stone circles. The passage graves at Newgrange, Ireland, have produced a 2845 BC date, and the average date for the Newgrange tumulus is 2500 BC.
Ostrusha is one of the thousands of mounds found through Europe, and a 2500 year old temple has been found buried with some well-preserved frescoes. Silbury Hill in England is the largest prehistoric man made mound in Europe, standing 40 meters high and 167 meters in diameter at its base. Built around 4,600 years ago, it has been calculated that 18 million man-hours were required to construct the hill in two distinct phases. According to all authorities on the subject of these worldwide mounds, they “were burial mounds and monuments to the dead—only important community or religious leaders were buried in the large mounds. Common people were buried in stone mounds that are often found on the hills and along the ridges overlooking the Kanawha Valley. The dead were sometimes cremated and their ashes were also buried in mounds.”
This cross-section of the Cotiga mound in West Virginia, shows the earthen levels of the mound. There was no construction of any kind, village, walls, structures, etc. Just dirt built atop a prepared base, and the 19 cremations.
These historic hillfort mounds are in Pajauta valley at Neris, Lithuania.
These mounds are found at Gamla Uppsala, Sweden.

The presence of all these mounds throughout the world should suggest to anyone that the ones found in northeastern United States are not unique, nor are they indicative of any particular culture.

(Next Post: More mounds from around the world in The Fallacy About Ohio Valley Mound Building – Part II)