MILLS— THE TREMPER MOUND 



The mound marks the site of a sacred structure wherein its 

 builders cremated their dead, deposited the ashes in communal 

 receptacles, made similar disposal of the personal artifacts of the 

 dead, and observed the intricate ceremonies incident to mortuary 

 rites. 



The builders of the Tremper mound had reached a cultural stage 

 in which united or communal effort in great part replaced individual 

 endeavor, and in so doing had reached a degree of efficiency probably 

 not equaled by any other people in the stone-age period of its develop- 

 ment. This fact is attested most strongly by their customs, in which, 

 by the use of communal depositories for cremated remains and 

 personal artifacts, they effected a plan for the disposal of the dead 

 unhampered by the limitations displayed by the Seip mound and 

 Harness mound plans, the next highest noted in the Ohio mounds. 

 In these latter mounds individual graves soon exhausted the avail- 

 able floor space; while in the Tremper mound plan, burial was limited 

 only by the size of the communal depositories, the number of which, 

 moreover, easily could be increased if needed. 



The high development of sculptural art by the builders of the 

 Tremper mound is a striking feature of their versatility. While 

 artistic achievement is not always an index to the culture status of a 

 people, the fact that in this respect they probably surpassed any other 

 strictly stone-age people is significant, and taken together with other 

 pertinent facts, places them very well along toward the upper stage 

 of barbarism, with civilization waiting but a short distance away. 

 The great number of admirably executed carvings of birds, mammals, 

 and other life-forms, taken from the mound, many of which would 

 be worthy the efforts of modern artists, can but excite wonderment 

 and admiration for the primitive artisans of prehistoric Ohio. 



The presence of large fireplaces showing evidences of long-con- 

 tinued use and significantly situated with respect to the communal 

 deposits of ashes and artifacts, seems to indicate the use of sacred 

 fires, so important an adjunct of religious observances among early 

 peoples of the Old World. The great depth to which the earth below 

 these fireplaces was affected by the heat suggests that they were 

 kept perpetually burning, while the charred contents of the fireplaces 

 indicate that the fires were extinguished only when the earth com- 

 posing the mound was heaped over them. 



Of scarcely less importance than the exploration of the Tremper 

 mound, per se, is the light it sheds on the great Mound City group 

 of northern Ross county. Owing to the methods employed by Squier 

 and Davis in examining the mounds of this group in 1846, their char- 



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