The Wright-Patterson Air Force Base Mound, designated 33GR31, is a Native American mound near the city of

Dayton Dayton () is a city in Montgomery County, Ohio, United States, and its county seat. It is the List of cities in Ohio, sixth-most populous city in Ohio, with a population of 137,644 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. The Dayton metro ...

in Greene County,

Ohio Ohio ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Lake Erie to the north, Pennsylvania to the east, West Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Indiana to the ...

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

. Named for its location on an

Air Force An air force in the broadest sense is the national military branch that primarily conducts aerial warfare. More specifically, it is the branch of a nation's armed services that is responsible for aerial warfare as distinct from an army aviati ...

facility,

Wright-Patterson Air Force Base Wright-Patterson Air Force Base (WPAFB) is a United States Air Force base and census-designated place just east of Dayton, Ohio, in Greene County, Ohio, Greene and Montgomery County, Ohio, Montgomery counties. It includes both Wright and Patte ...

, the mound is an

archaeological site An archaeological site is a place (or group of physical sites) in which evidence of past activity is preserved (either prehistoric or recorded history, historic or contemporary), and which has been, or may be, investigated using the discipline ...

. The mound lies on a bluff sitting above generally flat terrain; it measures in diameter and slightly more than tall.Owen, Lorrie K., ed. ''Dictionary of Ohio Historic Places''. Vol. 1. St. Clair Shores: Somerset, 1999, 548. Located about south of the memorial to the

Wright brothers The Wright brothers, Orville Wright (August 19, 1871 – January 30, 1948) and Wilbur Wright (April 16, 1867 – May 30, 1912), were American aviation List of aviation pioneers, pioneers generally credited with inventing, building, and flyin ...

on Huffman Prairie, it is believed to have been built by people of the prehistoric

Adena culture The Adena culture was a pre-Columbian Native American culture that existed from 500 BCE to 100 CE, in a time known as the Early Woodland period. The Adena culture refers to what were probably a number of related Native American societies sharin ...

, who inhabited southwestern Ohio approximately between 500 BC and AD 400. Pieces of

limestone Limestone is a type of carbonate rock, carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material Lime (material), lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different Polymorphism (materials science) ...

are present near the mound's surface; this may indicate that the builders covered it with limestone and that natural forces such as wind have since covered the stone with the soil that now forms the mound's surface. In 1972, the mound was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

because of its archaeological importance; it was the fourth Greene County location to be added to the Register, following Huffman Prairie and the two earthworks sites at Indian Mound Reserve near Cedarville. While it has never been excavated, it was subjected to a range of

geophysical Geophysics () is a subject of natural science concerned with the physical processes and properties of Earth and its surrounding space environment, and the use of quantitative methods for their analysis. Geophysicists conduct investigations acros ...

survey methods in mid-1996. Hoping to discover the locations of buried bodies and to learn about the soil within the mound, the surveyors used techniques such as

ground-penetrating radar Ground-penetrating radar (GPR) is a geophysical method that uses radar pulses to image the subsurface. It is a non-intrusive method of surveying the sub-surface to investigate underground utilities such as concrete, asphalt, metals, pipes, cables ...

and found evidence of the mound's

stratigraphy Stratigraphy is a branch of geology concerned with the study of rock layers (strata) and layering (stratification). It is primarily used in the study of sedimentary and layered volcanic rocks. Stratigraphy has three related subfields: lithost ...

, as well as revealing evidence of unidentified features in and around it. Future excavations, if conducted, are expected to increase knowledge of Adena

death customs Death is dealt with differently in cultures around the world, and there are ethical issues relating to death, such as martyrdom, suicide and euthanasia. Death refers to the permanent termination of life-sustaining processes in an organism, i.e. wh ...

and daily life.

References

{{Authority control Adena culture Archaeological sites on the National Register of Historic Places in Ohio Buildings and structures in Greene County, Ohio National Register of Historic Places in Greene County, Ohio Wright-Patterson Air Force Base Mounds in Ohio