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The Adena culture was a Pre-Columbian Native American culture that existed from c. 1000 BC to 100 BC, in a time known as the early Woodland Period. The Adena culture probably refers to a number of related Native American societies sharing a burial complex and ceremonial system. The Adena Moundbuilders lived in a variety of locations, including: Ohio, Indiana, West Virginia, Kentucky, and parts of Pennsylvania and New York. The Adena culture is seen as the precursor to the cultural traditions of the Hopewell culture which are sometimes thought as an elaboration, or zenith, of Adena traditions. They are notable for their agricultural practices, pottery, artistic works and extensive trading network that supplied the Adena with a variety of raw materials such as copper from the Great Lakes to shells from the Gulf Coast. Once Adena mounds numbered in the thousands but only a number of Adena earthen monuments still survive today. Some of these mounds generally ranged in size from 20 to 300 feet in diameter, and served as burial structures, ceremonial sites, historical markers and possibly gathering places. The Adena were also known for their complex earthworks which are thought to mark places where important buildings or ceremonial sites once existed, although few of these sites are extant. These mounds were built using hundreds of thousands of basket-fulls of specially selected and graded earth. The Adena often included the remains of their honored dead in the mounds, sometimes enclosed in tombs of wood or stone. Adena culture's most lasting artifacts were substantial earthworks, a number of which still survive and can be studied by archaeologists. According to archaeological investigations, Adena mounds were usually built as part of burial ritual, in which the earth of the mound was piled immediately atop a burned mortuary building. These mortuary buildings were intended to keep and maintain the dead until their final burial was performed. Before the construction of the mounds, some utilitarian and grave goods would be placed on the floor of the structure, which was burned with the goods and honored dead within. The mound would then be constructed, and often a new mortuary structure would be placed atop the new mound. After a series of repetitions, mound/mortuary/mound/mortuary, a quite prominent earthwork would remain. In the later Adena period, circular ridges of unknown function were sometimes constructed around the burial mounds. - The Grave Creek Mound, at 62 feet high and 240 feet in diameter, is the largest conical type burial mound in the United States. It is located in Moundsville, West Virginia. In 1838, much of the archaeological evidence in this mound was destroyed when several non-archaeologists tunneled into the mound.
- The Criel Mound, a 35-foot high and 175-foot diameter conical mound, is the second largest of its type in West Virginia. It is located in South Charleston, West Virginia. P. W. Norris of the Smithsonian Institution oversaw the excavation. His team discovered numerous skeletons along with weapons and jewelry.
- Several mounds attributed to the Adena culture can be found between Charleston and Institute in West Virginia.
- The Rock Eagle and Rock Hawk Effigy Mounds, in Putnam County, Georgia are sometimes attributed to members of the Adena or Hopewell cultures, but may have been created by a distinct group.
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