Was Fort Ancient in Ohio a Nephite Fort in North America? – Part I

We recently received a series of questions from a visitor to our site that felt North America was the setting for Lehi’s landing. Though we have written about this numerous times, his questions or comments seem to cover a wider and different range of comments. Consequently, we are listing hem below.
    Comment: “Unlike the Mayan and Moche of south America the hopewell archeology dates are more in align with the Book of Mormon.”

A breakdown of North America in its descriptive geographical terms

Response: First of all, the Moche culture is believed to have been from 100 AD to 700 AD, certainly overlapping 500 years of the Nephites, while the Hopewell tradition culture of the Eastern Woodlands existed from 100 BC to 500 AD., also overlapping 500 years of the Nephites. Second, the Eastern Woodlands was a cultural area of the indigenous people of North America which extended from the Atlantic Ocean to the eastern Great Plains, and from the Great Lakes region to the Gulf of Mexico, which id now occupied by the eastern U.S. and Canada (Mir Tamim Ansary, Eastern Woodland Indians, Capstone Classroom, North Mankato, MN, 2001, p4).
    It should be noted that the Nephites were in the Land of Promise for almost 1000 years, from about 589 BC to 385 AD. They were not in the land to the south (south of the narrow strip of wilderness), called the Land of First Inheritance (Alma  22:29) and the Land of Nephi (2 Nephi 5:8), from about 200 BC to 385 AD. These dates and location do not match the Eastern Woodland peoples.
    In addition, the Plains Indians culture area is to the west of the Woodlands area; but in the Book of Mormon, to the west of the Nephites was the Sea West. Also, the subarctic region was to the north—again, this does not match Lehi’s Land of Promise, which north of the Land Northward was the North Sea. These indigenous peoples of the Eastern Woodlands spoke languages belonging to several language groups, including Alonquian, Iroquoian, Muskogean, and Siouan, as well as apparently isolated languages such as Calusa, Chitmacha, Natchez, Timucua, Tunica and Yuchi.
    It should be noted that in all the different names and cultures claimed within the Andean region—Peru and parts of Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, and Ecuador—they spoke one language, today called Quechua.
    According to The earliest known inhabitants of the Eastern Woodlands were the Adena and Hopewell, who inhabited the Ohio and Mississippi river valleys between 800 BC and 800 AD (Steve Avery, Ed., “Eastern Woodland Culture,” U.S. History, Florence Oregon).
    Again these dates do not match the Nephite period of 600 BC to 385 AD.
    It should also be noted that these indigenous Woodland peoples were mound builders—a process, as we have covered extensively in our blog (nephicode.com). While mounds have been found over much of the earth, the Middle East is not one of those areas. The Hebrews never built mounds, so why would the Nephites build mounds in the Land of Promise?
    They also relied on farming to produce food because of the fertile land in the Ohio and Mississippi river valleys. Because of this reliance on farming, these tribes did not migrate like the more northern Eastern Woodlands tribes and instead stayed in one place.
    Again, this does not match the Nephite history, which shows them ever migrating northward (2 Nephi 5:5, Jarom 1:8; Alma 63:4-9; Hebrew 3:8).
Comment: “You have a major river Mississippi which head waters are near the west great lake. Many large lakes to be the Sea west, East, North, and South.”
Response: The River Sidon of the Land of Promise flows from the south to the north. Lakes are not seas. But even so, the seas of the Land of Promise are not in one central location as the Great Lakes, but scattered to the south and north of the entire Land of Promise; as well as from the east to the west of the Land of Promise. The Great Lakes, under any arrangement, simply does not match the seas around the Land of Promise.
Comment: “As to fortifications. Most ancient cities of the Hopewell in Ohio was fortified. They even had forts (see Fort Ancient in Ohio) with earthen burns.”

Outline of Fort Ancient one the east bank of the little Miami River; the drawing does little to show a fort structure, nor are there walls or evidence of walls, only low lying mounds

Response: First of all, there is no way to know if this or other ancient sites were fortified. There are mounds of dirt, but according to Robert Patrick Connolly, Anthropologist and Director  at the University of Memphis, and Bradley Thomas Lepper, archaeologist of earthworks and Ice Age peoples in Ohio, and Curator of Archaeology Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society have written extensively, that based on the total corpus of archaeological research—that is, all that has been learned and written about—the walls around this ancient settlement were designed for social, economic, political and ceremonial purposes—not for defense (Robert P. Connolly and Bradley T. Lepper, eds., “Time, Space, and Function at Fort Ancient,” The Fort Ancient Earthworks: Prehistoric Lifeways of the Hopewell Culture in Southwestern Ohio, Ohio Historical Society Press, Columbus, 2004). Connolly also stated that very few of the mounds contained burials, again suggesting they were used for spiritual or mystic purposes.

One of the many small mounds at Fort Ancient showing no defensive purposes whatsoever

In addition, Ephraim George Squier and Edwin Hamilton, Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley, comprising the results of extensive original surveys and exploration, Smithsonian Institution, provides descriptions of sites across much of the Eastern United States, as the title indicates, primarily involves the hundreds of earthworks surveyed and sketched were located primarily in and around Ross County in southern Ohio. This area includes Serpent Mound, Fort Ancient, Mound City and Seip Earthworks (both now part of Hopewell Culture National Historical Park.

The Great Serpent Mound near Fort Ancient, is a 1,348-foot-long, three-foot-high prehistoric effigy mound on a plateau of the Serpent Mound crater along Ohio Brush Creek in Adams County, Ohio

It might be of interest to know that the age of Fort Ancient and the nearby Serpent mound ar not nearly as old as has been claimed.  It is said that thousands of years ago, Native Ohioans populated the landscape with mounds and massive earthworks. In the late 19th century, Harvard University archaeologist Frederic Ward Putnam excavated Serpent Mound, but he found no artifacts in the Serpent that might allow archaeologists to assign it to a particular culture. Based largely on the nearby presence of Adena burial mounds, later archaeologists attributed the effigy to the Adena culture that flourished from 800 B.C. to A.D. 100. This theory on the site’s origin was accepted until a 1991 site excavation used radiocarbon dating to determine that the mound was approximately 900 years old. This would suggest that the builders of the Serpent belonged to the Fort Ancient culture 1000–1500 AD). In 2014, another team of archaeologists presented new radiocarbon dates for the Serpent suggesting that it was built by the Adena culture at around 300 B.C.

An approved Fort Ancient replica, of which it does not take much to see, including the serpent mound (built in 1000 AD), that they were not defensive, but were simply designs made on the ground that evidently were used for sacred or public purposes 

It should be noted that Fort Ancient is the name used for a Native American culture that flourished from 1000-1750 AD (Kelli Carmean, “Points in time: Assessing a Fort Ancient triangular projectile point typology,” Southeastern Archaeology, Winter 2009, p2). This culture was predominantly in the near Ohio River valley in areas of modern-day southern Ohio, northern Kentucky, southeastern Indiana and western West Virginia; although a contemporary of the Mississippian Culture, they are often considered a "sister culture" and distinguished from the Mississippian Culture (Bradley T. Lepper, 2005), Ohio Archaeology: An Illustrated Chronicle of Ohio's Ancient American Indian Cultures, Orange Frazer Press, February 2005, pp198–203). 

    It should also be noted that the name of the culture originates from the Fort Ancient, Ohio, archeological site. However, the Fort Ancient Site is now thought to have been built by Ohio Hopewellian people. It was likely occupied later by the succeeding Fort Ancient culture. Despite its name, most archaeologists do not believe that Fort Ancient was used as a fortress by either the Ohio Hopewell culture or the Fort Ancient culture—it was likely a ceremonial location (Deb Twigg, The Builder of the Mounds, Spanish Hill, 2008, pp9-12).

Numerous small rock mounds are found in the area

    Also, it should be noted that the earth burns were not connected to any fort, but considered to be signal fires lit on top of small mounds made of rock.
(See the next post, “Was Fort Ancient in Ohio a Nephite Fort in North America? – Part II,” for additional comments and our responses)