The Adena Legacy: Founders of Native American Religion

Beginning about 10,890 BP, a succession of people settled, flourished, and then faded from the Ohio River Valley–perhaps drawn to its diverse range of vegetation, terrain, water sources, and wild game–leaving numerous rock shelters, flint knapping sites, hunting camps, agricultural hamlets, and mound-oriented ceremonial centers in their wake.  Slowly evolving from a big-game hunting society into one based on foraging and smaller game, a dynamic culture of the so-called “moundbuilding” tradition emerged from the upper Ohio River Valley about 2,700 BP known as the Adena, a group that shaped the cultural and geographic landscape of Northeastern America as no group had before.  Read more . . .