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Workers discover ancient 'snake' An aerial view of the 4000 year old 'Rotherwas Ribbon' Diggers constructing a new access road have uncovered a mysterious serpent-shaped feature, dating from the early bronze age. The 197ft (60m) long ribbon of stones, found in Rotherwas, near Hereford, is thought to date from the same period as Stonehenge, roughly 2000 BC. County archaeologist Dr Keith Ray said as far as he is aware the stone feature is unique in Europe. "We can only speculate it may have been used in some kind of ritual," he said. 'International significance' The Rotherwas Ribbon, as it is...

On a lush hilltop deep in Southern Ohio, a giant snake slithers through the grass, its intentions a mystery. Despite more than a century of study, we still don't know who built the Great Serpent Mound, or why. That's part of what makes a visit here so fascinating, and also a little bit frustrating. There are still questions that can't be answered through a Google search or more than a century of research. This much is known: At 1,348 feet long, the serpent is the largest effigy mound in the world -- that is, an earthen creation in the shape...

A new interpretation of Serpent Mound, based on American Indian mythic stories portrayed in a remarkable series of pictographs from Picture Cave in Missouri, is offered by James Duncan, Carol Diaz-Granados, Tod Frolking and me in a paper published online last month in the Cambridge Archaeological Journal. We argue that images of serpents and other supernatural beings on the walls of Picture Cave help us make sense of those parts of Serpent Mound that weren't restored. One group of pictographs shows a serpent facing a humanoid female with her legs spread apart next to a large oval that might be...

There’s something new about the very old Great Serpent Mound, the earthen snake effigy that stretches a quarter of a mile along the terrain in Adams County in southern Ohio... What is new about Serpent Mound is that it might be far more ancient than currently thought. Some archaeologists have recently discovered evidence that it was constructed around 300 B.C. by the Adena culture. That contrasts with the prevailing school of thought that it is about 920 years old and was built by the Fort Ancient culture... For instance, the massive head of the snake effigy points to where the...

Authorities are seeking people they say vandalized an ancient snake-shaped Serpent Mound by burying what may be hundreds of small muffin-like resin objects at the southern Ohio earthworks. The Columbus Dispatch reports that the objects buried at the 63-acre Native American site in Peebles were embedded with aluminum foil and quartz crystal. Three have been found so far. The Ohio Historical Society says a YouTube video posted by a group calling itself Unite the Collective shows people running across the earthworks. It includes comments by individuals describing themselves as "light warriors" who say they planted the objects to "help lift...