From the parking lot, walk on the lane (blocked to cars) that passes through the east walls, to gain a good view of the large Twin Mounds which frame the ancient North Gate, where today’s State Route 350 runs. These mounds are markers only, and seem to be a variation on the earthwork’s older gates which feature mound-like rises of the walls on either side.

From here, parallel walls once headed out to the northeast, for about a quarter of a mile. They followed the highest elevation of the plateau, to where a small mound once stood, just beyond Middleboro Road. Dr. Patricia Essenpreis discovered in 1990 that from each of the Twin Mounds, the Ancients dug deep trenches out toward the nearby streams: filling with spring water, they completed a “water boundary” for the entire earthwork.

In ancient times, the Twin Mounds framed the start of a long , stone-paved roadway toward the northeast.

Fort Ancient

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