Thousands of ceremonial mounds dot the Mississippi and Ohio River valleys, built by people in the ancient past and used for purposes unknown. Many if not most mounds either house, used or house, likely used to house, or likely house human remains, so clearly they are sacred. The mounds intrigued Washington and Jefferson enough for them to include non-ceremonial mounds in their own domestic landscapes, with Washington even stationing his troops near a large mound compound and treating it like Rome’s Campus Martius, but most have been less interested throughout history. Countless mounds have been plowed, plundered, and otherwise pulverized, and many that still exist today are forgotten in the fringes of human settlement.
