Wright-Patterson Air Force Base Mound
The Wright-Patterson Air Force Base Mound, also known as 33GR31, is a Native American earth mound near Dayton, Ohio. It sits on a bluff and measures about 86 feet (26 meters) across and a little over 8 feet (2.4 meters) tall. It’s believed to have been built by the Adena culture, who lived in southwestern Ohio from around 500 BC to AD 400. Limestone pieces near the surface suggest the mound may have been covered with limestone that later became buried by soil.
The mound is on Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and was added to the National Register of Historic Places on February 23, 1972 (NRHP reference number 72001015). It lies roughly 0.6 miles (1 kilometer) south of the Wright brothers’ Huffman Prairie memorial.
The site has never been excavated. In 1996, geophysical surveys, including ground-penetrating radar, were used to study its structure and nearby features, helping to map the mound’s layers. Future excavations could reveal more about Adena death customs and daily life. The mound was the fourth Greene County location placed on the National Register, after Huffman Prairie and two earthworks at Indian Mound Reserve near Cedarville.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 20:19 (CET).