User:West Virginian/Romney Indian Mound

Romney Indian Mound

Geography and setting
The Romney Indian Mound is located within Indian Mound Cemetery in Romney, West Virginia. It is about 245 ft west-southwest from the cemetery's entrance gate, with a gravel access road located immediately to its north. Together, the eponymous mound and cemetery are located about 0.5 mi west of downtown Romney, atop the 150 ft-tall Yellow Banks promontory overlooking Sulphur Spring Run below and the South Branch Potomac River valley to the west. The Yellow Banks are covered in forests, which ring the cemetery's perimeter to the west and south. Mount Pisgah Benevolence Cemetery lies downhill and southwest of the mound. A West Virginia highway marker is located approximately 262 ft east of the mound along the Northwestern Turnpike (U.S. Route 50/West Virginia Route 28) and features a brief description and history of the mound. The Northwestern Turnpike traverses Town Hill to the mound's south.

The Romney Indian Mound is situated approximately 1 mi east of Mill Creek Mountain, a narrow anticlinal mountain ridge that rises westward from the South Branch Potomac River. The western foothills of South Branch Mountain rise to the east of Romney. Both mountains are covered with Appalachian-Blue Ridge forests of hardwoods and pine. Valley View Island, an island in the South Branch Potomac River just north of the mouth of Sulphur Spring Run, is approximately 1750 ft north of the mound.

Structure description
The Romney Indian Mound measures 7 ft in height, and 15 ft in diameter.

Hopewell culture
The Smithsonian Institution estimates the mound's origin to date from the Late Woodland period, which spanned from 500 to 1000 CE.

The Boston Globe referenced the eponymous mound and cemetery in a 2013 article on George Preston Marshall, the former owner of the Washington Redskins professional American football team. The article detailed Marshall's naming of the Redskins team and upon noting his burial in Indian Mound Cemetery, the article stated, "Something about Indians will be with him forever."

The mound has never been excavated.