Fragments of Pilgrimage - Lower Scioto River, Ohio - Big Bottom

Chimney Rocks near Richmond Dale, Ohio [Pike Heritage Museum 2022]

Do you hear me?

Do you hear me?

All earth sounding,

On top, circles stomped.

On top, eagle down puffs,

Cloud enter.

O'odham Ant song #31 [Bahr et al. 1997]

Introduction

Two thousand years ago, in what is now the state of Ohio, the native peoples there constructed immense earthworks, some of which had precise geometric forms, including circles, squares, and octagons. These were built on flat ridges above major waterways; in some cases, the tops of ridges were manually flattened. Additionally, linear, curved, and irregular earthworks were constructed. Linear earthworks can come in pairs, forming walled walkways. For the most part, these are parallel, although some are not. They measure different lengths from a few feet to many miles. The pathways can act as gates into an earthwork, or they connect two earthworks, opening before the entrance, or directly connecting. The longer pathways can lead to water or perhaps to other sites, sometimes both.

The heterogeneity of the different forms each site can take is a feature in itself. An early Adena, middle Hopewell, and later Fort Ancient styles often coexist at the same location. This heterogenetic condition is what Edward Henry calls situational [Henry & Miller 2020], and Ann Wright calls regional globalism [Wright 2017], local forms of a regional belief system. Henry also stresses the need for a biography of a long-term site, something not possible for something that has been destroyed. What is biographical is the attempt of past antiquarians and archaeologists to document what remains through old maps, long-ago excavations, aerial photographs, and modern techniques.

My reason for this article is to pin down the known earthworks in about a 20-mile (32.2 km) winding stretch of the lower Scioto Valley in Ross and Pike Counties in southern Ohio, starting from just above the Ross County line. Four different earthworks are found here. By georeferencing old maps and using modern high-resolution DEMs and relief visualization, I intend to create, and in some instances, recreate, digitized providence models of the earthworks. These will be open for anyone to use. This is a first step. There is little information as to why they are placed where they are, but a great deal of labor was expended for specific reasons. Some answers may lie hidden in the landscape itself, and these spatial models are a beginning.

Fig. 1 - Overview of the lower Scioto Valley

The Scioto River, from a point near Centerville, Ohio, to where it empties into the Ohio River at Portsmouth, flows through a broad valley, the riverbed of an ancient river called the Teays. This river flowed north, and after the retreat of the Wisconsin ice sheet, the Scioto formed. The Scioto in the Teays Valley has no narrows, and the valley itself is never less than a mile wide. The river has done little lateral cutting into the old pre-Wisconsin terraces of the Teays and forms broad meanders. One reason for this is the gentle slope, 2 or 3 feet per mile.

As the Wisconsin ice sheet retreated, human hunter-gatherer groups gradually reclaimed the landscape. This is called the Archaic Period. They did not, for the most part, settle in the river valleys north of the Ohio River until the transition into mound building culture around 500 BCE. The current consensus is that the climate was too unstable then, and these regions were dangerous to live in. A study published in 2020 looked at the least-cost path between an Archaic camp on the Ohio River downstream from Portsmouth, and a source of Mercer flint northeast of Chillicothe. Using slope as a parameter, the path leads up the Scioto River, but adding the parameter of the location of known archaic camps, the path leads overland, a more difficult journey. Notice below that the only concentrations of Paleo sites on the Scioto River are at this bend in the Scioto.

Routes from Sandy Springs to flint deposits and known Paleo sites. [Purtill 2020, fig. 5, p.11]

Rivers are dynamic, ever-changing, and they have a history. A subgenre of hydrology is called paleohydrology. [Baker 2008] Paleohydrology primarily focuses on past flood events. Research began with rivers in hot, dry climates, such as the American Southwest [Greenbaum et al. 2014], and has since expanded to include rivers in humid climates. One important source of information comes from what are called slackwater deposits, deposits on higher terraces, where smaller streams entering the larger river are backed up. Meanders are studied using computational models, and calculating meanders back in time is a recent development. [Shan et al. 2018] [Amani et al. 2024] For purposes here, it would be useful to extrapolate flood pulses and changes in meanders back two thousand years. I have little information on the Scioto at this time. [Hubbard 1954] [Bergman 2016] A recent study of the lower Ohio River in extreme southern Indiana found slackwater deposits at two rock shelters. [Wiman et al. 2024] They identified a major historic 1937 CE flood and another around 1627. CE. Current research suggests that after 350 CE, flooding decreased until around 1000 CE, when it started increasing, and that the 1937 flood was a millennium flood event.

Programs Used

• Gimp 3.0.4

• QGIS 3.40.6

• Python 3.8, Anaconda3 Instance

• Relief Visualization Toolkit 2.2.1

Big Bottom Evacuation

Grade Ways [Squier & Davis 1847, p. 197]

Richmond Dale is a tiny village at a bend of the Scioto River in Ross County just north of the Pike County line.

In 1850, Charles Whittlesey published Descriptions of ancient works in Ohio. This is his map. It has been rotated so North is up.

Ancient Excavation, Big Bottom, Ross County [Whittlesey 1850, Plate I]

Whittlesey states that it is on the west bank of the Scioto River near the county line between Pike and Ross:

"The design appears to have been to form a cut or passage from the bottom land above 'Switzer's Point,' to the bottom land below; but what necessity there was for so expensive a road, is beyond conjecture. The Point (as it is called) is only eighteen or twenty feet above the bottom, and is easy of ascent and descent."

He also says that part of the excavation was used for the Ohio Canal. Notice that, despite what Squier & Davis write, this is not a graded way. It does not connect two or more terraces but is a passage through a terrace connecting two regions of bottom land. The walls of the passage do split into 3 with the left wall climbing a terrace to a mound, and after a gap, a third wall follows the evacuation. This passage to a higher terrace could be thought of as a graded way, but Whittlesey leaves this out of his description.

The Scioto Valley is generally the same width in this region, so anything named 'Big Bottom' would probably be located in the elbow of a wide turn. Also, there is a creek that runs into it called 'Sandy Bottom Creek.' This is at Richmond Dale, 1.5 miles north of the line in Ross County. So perhaps Squier & Davis and Whittlesey are talking about the same location.

The Ohio Department of Natural Resources has Plat Maps of the Ohio Canal, created in 1920. The Whittlesey map does not make full sense because nowhere does the canal turn northwest. However, one segment, O&E178-71, segment 7-8 [Ohio Department of Natural Resources 2026], has a feeder channel that runs in that direction. This is directly west of Richmond Dale. The Ohio Canal is mostly visible, and the parts not visible due to extensive plowing show up in the relief visualization. The plats are not georeferenced, but starting from the county line and working north, this looks like the optimal place:

O&E178-71, segment 7-8 Ohio Canal [Ohio Department of Natural Resources 2026]

Fig. 2: North end of site with Ohio Canal

The Ohio Department of Transportation has aerial maps going back to 1946. [Ohio Department of Transportation 2026] For this location, most of these are for the eastern side of the river. However, an aerial from 1962 does show the top of the site. This map confirms that the plat is placed correctly, as two corn cribs shown in 1962 and since removed match the 1920 plat.

Fig. 3: 1920 Plat and 1962 Aerial Compared. Only the dirt road remains as the area is now plowed over.

This area has been heavily plowed, and Whittlesey's map is sparse in detail, but this is what I believe to be the north entrance. The Ohio Canal may have followed the evacuation south, despite what Whittlesey says or not; at this point, it is impossible to tell.

Fig. 4 - Possible location of walls and evacuation

The Whittlesey map shows a mound at the top of the north entrance and a third wall. There is a very subtle, round feature with a flat, depressed top across the road from where the corn cribs stood. This could be a mound that was opened by digging down from the top, or the top was shaved off. A 1962 aerial shows usage in this area and possibly a parking area where the top of the mound could be:

Fig. 5 - Anomaly #1: possibly Whittlesey's mound

In addition, on this terrace, there are three other possible 'mound-like' features. They don't have very good profiles.

Fig. 6 - Profile of anomaly #2

Fig. 7 - Profile of anomaly #3

I think this is where the site is located, but I cannot say for sure. Whittlesey states that the site is 'near' the county line, and I looked at a region 1.5 miles on either side, and Richmond Dale fits more criteria than the others. One possible solution is to find documentation on the building of the canal and to match segment 7-8 to any mention of where the canal was built using an existing ancient passageway. This would confirm the location. Another source of confirmation is a map that actually shows Switzer's Point, or an earlier aerial than 1962.

In two other places, I found anomalous features; Anomaly #5 is the most 'mound-like' of the set.

Fig. 8 - Anomaly #5

However, I also found this:

Fig. 11 - Anomaly #4. Possible enclosed mound

Whittlesey mentions that there may be other sites in the area. There is a place called Small Mound Cemetery just north of Richmond Dale on the east side of the Scioto. Chimney Rocks are an unusual formation 2 miles south. If this is the correct location for Big Bottom, what was it about this spot that made it a place for ancient constructions? The evacuation or ditch is an unusual feature for Ohio, especially since it was not completely walled by earthworks. A cut between the bottom lands would flood when the river flooded, so perhaps this was sometimes a water entrance. Also, a northward journey up this ditch would bring one directly up the terrace to the mound, while going south, the entrance would be hidden. If it can be further established that this is the correct location, then this terrace needs to be more closely looked at and soon, as it has been seriously plowed.

I am continuing this article with a look at three earthworks in Pike County, Ohio.

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