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Fort AncientFort Ancient is a name for a native American culture that flourished from 1000-1550 among a people who predominately inhabited land along the Ohio River in areas of southern modern day Ohio and northern Kentucky. The Fort Ancient culture was once thought to be an expansion of the Mississippian cultures, but is now accepted as an independently developed culture that was descended from the Hopewell (100 BC-AD 500), who were also a Mound Builder people. The name of the culture originates from their biggest fort, Fort Ancient. The fort is located on a hill above the Little Miami River, close to Lebanon, Ohio. The fort has earthen walls that are 20 feet (6 m) high and 3 miles (5 km) long. The fort surrounds a plot of 100 acres (0.4 km²). Fort ancient settlements lacked political centralization and elite social structures. Settlements were composed of circular and/or rectangular homes situated around an open plaza. The Fort Ancient people are noted for their earthen structures, forts, triangular arrow points and pentagonal flint knives. The Fort Ancient people may have built the largest effigy mound in the United States, Serpent Mound. The Fort Ancient are also thought to be responsible for hundreds of burial mounds in the shape of birds and other animals found in Wisconsin, Minnesota and Iowa. The Fort Ancient also created small burial mounds for the dead, but eventually this practice faded and only the effigy mounds continued to be built. Also see
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