The Old Stone Fort

The Old Stone Fort. A Hilltop Enclosure Mound Site. The Old Stone Fort is a type of prehistoric Native American mound site. , American Indians built numerous types of mounds. These included burial mounds, ceremonial platform mounds, animal effigy mounds and mounds creating enclosures. The long wall-like mounds of the Old Stone Fort form a hilltop enclosure. This is a typical, though by no means plentiful, type of construction for the Woodland Cultural Tradition or first mound building period or some 2000 years ago. Sites such as this were mistakenly identified and called forts by early settlers., Hilltop enclosures are made up of long wall-like mounds that appear to mark limits or boundaries of special places. The people who built and used this site did not live here, but probably gathered here for ceremonial or ritual purposes. The walls of the enclosure were maintained and modified over a portion of 500 years: indeed, the site kept its significance for many generations., The long mounds are mostly stone inside. They are composed of two parallel stone cores, sandwiching an earthen fill, and probably capped with additional earth. The stone cores are not visible today because of the accumulation of forest humus and the spillover of soil from the original cap., Before the actual raising of the mounds, the planned path of the new mound was cleared, leveled and had a new surfacing prepared. A trench was cut the length of the new construction. This trench separated the two stone cores and defined the limits of the earth "sandwich" between the cores. Slabs of black shale often lined this area, placed vertically in the ground in line with the mound wall and trench. , Middle Woodland sites of this category share elements and patterns of construction, an "architectural grammar". Remarkable similarities between these enclosures can be noted, even when the sites are hundreds of miles apart. Many occur in what is now southern Ohio. These far-reaching architectural and cultural influences are known as the "Hopewell phenomenon", named for the Ohio farm where this type of Middle Woodland site was first identifed and investigated. , Ceremonial Entranceway , The complex of mounds now considered the entrance to the Old Stone Fort begin with two conical mounds flanking the pathway. These mounds are attached to the long wall-like mounds that form the outer perimeter. The remains of the wall mounds come into the conical mounds from the sides facing the two rivers, behind the conical mounds was once a ditch some 6 to 8 feet deep. This is only a shallow dip in the trail now, in line with the two conical mounds but never connected to them are two in-turned parallel mounds. One of these mounds makes a 90 degree turn at the back of this "entrance complex". These mounds form an in-turned box shape structure with its open sides facing the sunrise. In fact, the two long parallel mounds are oriented within one degree of the summer solistice sunrise, indicating a possible use for seasonal ceremony.