An estimated profile shows a common attribute of “Adena” mound construction: vertical super-positioning of additions.
A small mound covered the original activity floor and features built and used on it. Later, tombs and features are piled on the primary mound in small additions. Here there were apparently two separate stages of mound construction. Burials were found in the upper stage.. Their exact locations are not known.
Two construction stages have also been identified in Story Mound. Similar in size to Adena Mound, Story Mound is part of a group of twelve mounds within 2.4 km of the Adena Mound. For convenience, I have called these, the Chillicothe Northwest Group (Greber 1991, 2005). Within this small area, variations in mound construction can be seen that illustrate possible differences in group relationships in the use of defined horizontal ritual spaces contrasted with vertical super positioning of burials and features as in the Adena Mound. There are also differences in relationships for horizontal defined ritual spaces that are single or conjoined. An end point of this range is seen in Hopewell Big Houses in the Scioto drainage (e.g. Greber 1979, Greber and Ruhl 1989).