Debating the Age of Serpent Mound

Abstract

The debate over the age of Serpent Mound (33AD01) is important because without a cultural context it is impossible to make meaningful statements about what this monumental effigy mound might have meant to its builders. In this response to Romain and Herrmann’s rejoinder, we clarify the provenience of the samples, which yielded the radiocarbon dates that contribute to our argument for a post–Late Woodland age for the effigy. In addition, we extend our critique of Romain and colleagues’ arguments to include the results of an independent study of soil cores extracted from the Serpent and surrounding landscape, which fails to corroborate Romain and colleagues’ assertion that a buried A horizon underlies the mound. Finally, we suggest that the construction of Serpent Mound may be historically linked to droughts in the Mississippi Valley that began at around AD 1100, which resulted in an influx of Mississippian refugees into the region.