The Nettle Lake Mound group consists of four low mounds overlooking a stream that runs into Nettle Lake. The mounds vary in height from one to three feet and in diameter from eighteen to thirty feet. They are composed primarily of reddish-brown sand in a secondary mound covering a layer of darker sand and loam in a primary mound. The mounds were partially excavated in the past by pot hunters searching for relics, and although the records of those excavations are vague and incomplete, pottery fragments, burials, and flint artifacts found there indicate that the mounds were constructed by the Hopewell Indians. The prehistoric Hopewell Indians inhabited Ohio two thousand years ago and were known for their large ceremonial earthworks and burial mounds and for their artistic abilities. Many of the artifacts they made, especially those manufactured from exotic materials such as copper, mica, obsidian, and marine shell, were evidently connected with their social organization and burial rites. They lived in small river valley communities where they hunted, fished, gathered food, and farmed, and they periodically traveled to large ceremonial centers to participate in religious and political activities. Although the Hopewell lived primarily in southern Ohio and in Illinois, their influence spread over much of the eastern United States.