Possible Indian Burial Mound Discovered in Western Pennsylvania

[stalger]

Let me start by saying my knowledge of Indian Artifacts is limited. My teenaged son has recently become very interested in this and I have assisted him with research. He has an eye for these kinds of things and has already found artifacts. He is also a naturalist and is a very accomplished sportsman, hunter, trapper, and fisherman.

He showed me a site the other day that he has discovered, located in a very remote, mostly inaccessible, and undeveloped area along the river on a bank. Contained in this site are mounds that protrude from ground level to a height of maybe 2-3 feet. In the center is the largest mound and in a circular formation exist smaller mounds. The location appears to have been untouched and pristine. There does not appear to have been any presence of man or machine anywhere on or around the vicinity of the site.

My research shows this is typical of some Indian burial mounds and we are very excited as to his discovery. My question to you regulars is how do we proceed from here? The property is owned by a company that has little interest in the area. The property is not posted and locals regularly drive quads and ATV's in the vicinity. Do we start digging and possibly find remains? Should we notify a governmental entity? Should we apply for an archaeology permit?

Any assistance is greatly appreciated.

 

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[Tnmountains]

Not all mounds are burial mounds but if people ride atv's in the area and it is Indian related you should find flakes on the trails.Many of the mounds here are trash pits which they did bury in. Think summer heat and needing to get someone in the ground quick and the scrap pile is where they ended up and the mounds would grow and grow.Especially along the rivers where you have lots of shells.
We have a mound at my sisters farm and I have looked at that thing a thousand times. They tell me do what I want and I will probably just keep staring at it. I have found lots of points around the place but the mound still stands.

 

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[Mark Todd]

Digging on private property without permission is not advised. Digging up someones grave to get a few arrowheads is a karmic mistake in my mind. I wouldn't want someone digging up mine or my families graves so I wouldn't do it to an Indian either. You'd have to dehumanize them to justify digging them up in my mind. On another note, a burial ground is not likely to be located near a river or a floodplain as the possibility of flooding would wash out the bodies one day. The bank would have to be high enough to stay dry even in a 100 year flood, the Indians weren't totally ignorant of geology. I'd just stick to looking for points on the surface in that area and the river banks and high areas that might have been camps.

This comment is only in response to the claim that N.A. Indians wouldn't place burials in a 100 year floodplain along a river or major waterway. I realize how unreasonable it would seem, if they did, but the " documentable fact " is that they did so hundreds of times.
However there is a caveat, consider how much has changed since the time of the aborigines and today?
There were no levees along the major waterways a hundred years ago, so when heavy rains fell rising waters had hundreds or thousands of acres to spill over into without raising the water level much. It is not so these days. The levees constructed by the army corps of engineers since the 1930's has created a new effect to heavy rainfall. In Illinois alone there are scores,perhaps hundreds of mounds or mound groups that are listed in the state registry as threatened and being eroded away by natural waterways, many of them are only several feet or yards away from the river waters edge today. Many others have already given up most of their artifacts as recorded in so many books.
Just last night I attended a lecture by Archeologist Ferrel Anderson who made note of how many hopewell mounds and mound groups are endangered due to flooding because they are located within meters of Mississippi River just north of the Quad Cities

 

[stalger]

Any chance of seeing pics of the mounds ?

I did take some pics but they did not turn out well. The pics I took with my iPhone do not show the elevation in the mounds.

 

[tamrock]

In the 1980s I came upon two rock piles sitting side by side. What was unique was the rocks used we're from a seem of rhyolite that protruded though some granite bluffs. This rhyolite was much lighter in color then the grey granite. The mounds of this rhyolite was maybe a mile from the source the rhyolite came from. I could tell the piles had to have been hauled and stacked a very long time ago as the surrounding sands and dust had filled in around the rhyolite rocks and the vegetation such as a large Pinõn tree had all ready grown quite large from the side of one pile. I instantly thought these are Graves and left them be. It's been years now since I've discovered those and I still can't shake the thought of maybe they where markers to be distinctly identified by the much lighter color of rock then all the surrounding ones? Could someone have buried something other than a corpse under those rhyolite piles.

 

[Tnmountains]

TVA impounded hundreds of thousands of acres of land. They had archeologist digging as fast as they could. But they flooded hundreds and hundreds of mounds cemeteries and towns in the Tennessee Valley. I had all the original maps before impoundment because I tournament bass fished the old cedar groves rock walls springs. The maps show many many mounds under water and at winters pool you can stop at them and wade on top of them they are so big. You will see many boat props and if you look close you can find an arrowhead or two.You cant walk for the broken pottery on them. I cannot count the times we have seen human remains sticking out the side of a river bank that gets pounded by boaters and jet ski's.These are just miden or trash heaps.
Rivers change course as do streams and sometimes they whip right through an ancient site. We have hundreds of little islands in the rivers and they are full of mounds but most have been dug through years ago leaving nothing but pottery. Shell mounds . We even have areas on maps named shell mound recreational park. Everything is washing to deep water and gone now days. You cant hunt the rivers here they used to not mind but big Gov has kinda grown so I stay clear.

 

[Nitric]

I don't know anything about mounds....But knowing some about Eastern Ohio and growing up there... After reading the thread.....There could be some other possibilities... We always found mounds in the middle of "untouched" woods. So we thought! At the time my great grandfather was still alive and had farmed those "untouched" areas. A lot of those "mounds" that we found were rock piles that the farmers put there from the horse plow days, to get them out of their field. They fill in with stuff over time and really look like it might be a burial mound. Or at least did to us as teens.

Another thing...There was a lot of mining and reclaiming the land in eastern Ohio and Western PA. Now, a lot of those areas look like they haven't been touched. But there were old holes and mounds from previous mining in some places.

What makes me think this stuff is there is a place on the Ohio side along the river where there is hundreds of acres of land where people ride quads, jeeps, and bikes. It doesn't look like it now, but it was reclaimed.

Not saying, these are the things you found, just throwing out things that I've run into. Seems like there wasn't much untouched land if any on eastern Ohio, Western PA, over the past few hundred years.

 

[crj1968]

Good point Nitris- I am amazed at the "modern" stuff I find (rusted cans, broken ceramic, etc...) in seemingly remote areas.