Biggs site

Biggs site
15 Gp 8

Artists conception of the Biggs site
Location within Kentucky today
Location	South Shore, Kentucky, Greenup County, Kentucky,  USA
Region	Greenup County, Kentucky
Coordinates	38°44′2.7″N 82°56′4″W
History
Cultures	Adena culture, Ohio Hopewell culture
Site notes
Architecture
Architectural styles	earthworks, causewayed ring ditch
Responsible body: private

The Biggs site (15Gp8), also known as the Portsmouth Earthworks Group D, is an Adena culture archaeological site located near South Shore in Greenup County, Kentucky. Biggs was originally a concentric circular embankment and ditch surrounding a central conical burial mound with a causeway crossing the ring and ditch. It was part of a larger complex, the Portsmouth Earthworks located across the Ohio River, now mostly obliterated by agriculture and the developing city of Portsmouth, Ohio.^[1][2]

Description

The site was surveyed and mapped by E. G. Squier in 1847 for inclusion in the seminal archaeological and anthrolopological work Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley. They described the earthwork as being a causewayed embankment 5 feet (1.5 m) high by 30 feet (9.1 m) wide encircling a ditch 6 feet (1.8 m) deep and 25 feet (7.6 m) across. They encircled an area 90 feet (27 m) in diameter. In the center of the ditch was a conical tumulus 8 feet (2.4 m) high and 40 feet (12 m) in diameter.^[3]

Gallery

• 
  Squier and Davis illustration of the Biggs site
• 
  Squier and Davis map with Group D or the Biggs site
• 
  Scale aerial illustration of the Portsmouth Earthworks

See also

• Hardin Village site
• Lower Shawneetown
• Thompson site

References

1. Davidson, Matthew J. (September 28, 2019), "The Native American Farming Landscape of Eastern Kentucky: Part 2", 30 Days of Kentucky Archaeology, Kentucky Organization of Professional Archaeologists
2. Applegate, Darlene (2008), "Chapter 5:Woodland period" (PDF), in Pollack, David (ed.), The Archaeology of Kentucky:an update, vol. 1, Kentucky Heritage Council, pp. 524–525, ISBN 978-1-934492-28-4, archived from the original (PDF) on 2010-11-08 (author confused Biggs as being Group C, when it is in actuality Group D)
3. E. G. Squier and E. H. Davis (1848). Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley. Smithsonian Institution.

External links

Media related to Biggs site at Wikimedia Commons

• Black and white photo of site, Jan 23, 1939, The William S. Webb Museum WPA/TVA Photograph Archive
• Working with the EM38 Earth Conductivity Meter: Geophysical Survey at the Hopeton Earthwork, Chillicothe, Ohio, May, 2001
• Scioto Historical : Portsmouth Earthworks Tour