Nephites in the Heartland of USA - Part 3

Day 4 was Fort Ancient is located in Lebanon, Ohio. This another hilltop fortress with miles of embankments and trenches.  This Fort was started by the Adena (or Jaredite people) about 1000 BC. [See photo below, the purple bottom half] Apparently the Hopewells (or Nephite people) found the structure and added the connecting link and expanded the Fort [see photo below, top half].  Once again these had huge ditches around the entire Fort with stone walls very, very high.  Interestingly is there were no long term settlements found here. It was used for a very short time as a Fort and not a city.

           Alma 48:8 Yea, he had been strengthening the armies of the Nephites, and erecting small forts, or places of resort; throwing up banks of earth round about to enclose his armies, and also building walls of stone to encircle them about, round about their cities and the borders of their lands; yea, all round about the land.

 In the upper portion of the Fort (according to photo above) is where the "place of Entrance" was. There was only one way in and one way out and through several barricades.

So the picture above: Brown lines show fort "place of entrance", Red lines are the enemy entering, Blue Lines or Blue Dots would be those defending their Fort.
      Alma 49: 20 Thus they were prepared, yea, a body of their strongest men, with their swords and their slings, to smite down all who should attempt to come into their place of security by the place of entrance; and thus were they prepared to defend themselves against the Lamanites.

              The photo below is the open field in this Fort. There they introduced us to the Atlatl weapon. Wow! I love this weapon. We took turns throwing it, and each time I got better and could throw it farther than before. Two young 18 year old's on our tour work at a Boy Scout camp and teach scouts how to throw these and they were able to throw them the length of a football field with accuracy!

 So the photo above is me with my Atlatl. The photo below shows how this works.  The actual arrow/spear is about 5' long. The wooden stick that attaches to the end of the spear is about 18" long. With the flick of the wrist you propel the arrow/spear farther than with a bow and arrow. You can add weights to the spear and it will even go farther.  They found a woolly-mammoth with a 6" arrowhead in its chest. They figure the animal could only have been taken down with an Atlatl.

 The photo below are a few of the artifact they found at the fort.  Amazingly they have copper bracelets, shells, etc.. for jewlery.

 We then drove to Miamisburg Mound in Montgomery County, Ohio.  This is a burial mound that dates back between 1000 BC and 400 AD. which would have been the Jaredite time period. See sign below.

 Here is the actual mound.  The stairs are a modern addition so people can get to the top. There are a lot of steps!

What an amazing day it was!