Mounds State Park

Location:  Anderson, Indiana

Description:  Mounds State Park is an ancient Earthworks complex in central Indiana.  It is believed to have been built by the prehistoric Adena culture and was also used by the Hopewell culture that followed.

An article from the Lima Daily News (Lima Ohio), dated July 27, 1892 titled “May Buy The Mounds, Congress To Purchase Prehistoric Works” states the following:

“Recently, while making an excavation near the mounds, workmen who did not appreciate the find suddenly came upon a composition, which resembled a baked cement or clay. It was round and secure. They broke into it and found they had opened a hermetically sealed cave, which resembles greatly our cisterns of the present day. It was dry as a powder-house, and the air, which came from its recesses, was sickening and tainted with great age. Here in this small receptacle, scarcely large enough to hold more, were found six skeletons in a sitting position. All six skeletons in a sitting position. All were propped up evidently when first put in. When the fresh air came rolling in they crumbled to pieces and but for a few bones which remain no trace is left of this remarkable find. The bones that are saved, however, indicate a people who were very large-decidedly larger than those of the present day. Parts of the skulls showed that the heads were very large also-the foreheads were very large.”

“There can be little doubt that this find is closely connected with the mounds and that the skeletons were those of mound builders. It is claimed a similar discovery was made some years ago near the mounds, and that this proves convincingly that mound builders were the occupants of the cells. This mode of burial could not have been that of the modern Indians who occupied this part of the country at the time of the landing of Columbus.”

“Francis Walker of this city, who has long advocated the converting of the Indian mounds into a national park, says that the mound builders of this section were far advanced in the arts and sciences. If the mounds were as supposed, built upon the shales which underlie the alluvial deposits, a reference to geological data would place the existence of these aborigines back as far as the time of the Pharaohs.”

A Goshen Daily News article from Saturday, November 26, 1892 stated the following:

“ANDERSON, Ind., Nov. 26 – John Beal, a farmer living in the north part of this county, found some giant human skeletons while digging a hole in his field Friday. There were a half dozen skulls of gigantic size. The skeletons were those of men who in their lifetime must have been at least 9 feet in height.”

The Book of Mormon tells us the following regarding the Jaredite culture that inhabited the land of North America:

Ether 1:8 – “And the Brother of Jared being a large and a mighty man, and being a man highly favored of the Lord, for Jared his brother said unto him. Cry unto the Lord, that he will not confound us that we may not understand our words.”

Ether 6:99 – “And they were large and mighty men, as to the strength of men.”

Mosiah 5:65 – “And behold, also, they have brought breastplates, which are large; and they are of brass, and of copper, and are perfectly sound.”

The Book of Mormon therefore eludes to the Jaredites as being men of great stature.

Large skeletal remains have been found throughout the American midwest.  The skeletons found at Mounds State Park is just one example.

The Earthworks at Mounds state park includes large ditches and heaps up earth.  In addition, Wikipedia tells us the following:

“Post hole remnants were dated to 60 BCE and 230 CE. Radiocarbon dates from excavated material of the Great Mound established 160 BCE +/- 90 for the embankment.”

The Book of Mormon tells us the following:

Alma 21:170-171 – “170 Now behold, the Lamanites could not get into their forts of security, by any other way save by the entrance, because of the highness of the bank which had been thrown up, and the depth of the ditch which had been dug round about, save it were by the entrance. 171 And thus were the Nephites prepared to destroy all such as should attempt to climb up to enter the fort by any other way, by casting over stones and arrows at them.”

Alma 22:1-3 – “1 And now it came to pass that Moroni did not stop making preparations for war, or to defend themselves against the Lamanites; for he caused that his armies should commence in the commencement of the twentieth year of the reign of the Judges, that they should commence in digging up heaps of earth round about all the cities, throughout all the land which was possessed by the Nephites; 2 And upon the top of these ridges of earth he caused that there should be timbers; yea, works of timbers built up to the height of a man, round about the cities. 3 And he caused that upon those works of timbers, there should be a frame of pickets built upon the timbers, round about; and they were strong and high; and he caused towers to be erected that overlooked those works of pickets;”