The Hodgen's Cemetery Mound is a
Native American mound in the far eastern part of the
U.S. state of
Ohio. Located in the village of
Tiltonsville
Tiltonsville is a village in southern Jefferson County, Ohio, United States, along the Ohio River. The population was 1,259 at the 2020 census. It is a part of the Weirton–Steubenville metropolitan area.
History
Tiltonsville was laid out in ...
along the
Ohio River
The Ohio River is a long river in the United States. It is located at the boundary of the Midwestern and Southern United States, flowing southwesterly from western Pennsylvania to its mouth on the Mississippi River at the southern tip of Illino ...
shoreline of
Jefferson County,
the mound is a prehistoric
earthwork and
archaeological site, and it has been named a
historic site.
[Owen, Lorrie K., ed. ''Dictionary of Ohio Historic Places''. Vol. 2. St. Clair Shores: Somerset, 800.]
During the nineteenth century, white residents of the village of Tiltonsville founded a
cemetery around a small hill on the northern side of their village. A round, cone-shaped knoll with a tree growing from its top, the hill is surrounded by gravestones as old as the 1870s. At some point since that time,
erosion of the hillside revealed human bones, including a
skull with evidence of
artificial cranial deformation. This practice was common among the prehistoric
Adena culture; consequently, the bones allowed archaeologists to determine that the hill was a
burial mound built by the Adena,
who are believed to have inhabited the area at some point between 500 BC and AD 500.
[, Ohio Historical Society, 2007. Accessed 2011-04-13.]
Although the Hodgen's Cemetery Mound has never been
excavated, it is a significant
archaeological site — disproportionately large numbers of Adena burials with cranial deformation were societal élites who were typically buried with significant
grave goods, and the intact state of the mound means that its original contents are likely to remain in their place.
The mound has been disturbed by the digging of modern graves into its southwestern side,
but the graves have not deformed the mound's general conical shape significantly.
In 1975, the Hodgen's Cemetery Mound was listed on the
National Register of Historic Places,
qualifying because of its archaeological value in the local area.
It is one of two Jefferson County archaeological sites on the Register, along with the
Speedway Mound in nearby
Rayland.
References
External links
{{National Register of Historic Places
Adena culture
Archaeological sites on the National Register of Historic Places in Ohio
Cemeteries in Jefferson County, Ohio
National Register of Historic Places in Jefferson County, Ohio
Mounds in Ohio
Native American cemeteries