Cross Mound

Tarlton Cross Mound
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
Tarlton Cross Mound from the west
Show map of Ohio Show map of the US
Location	Tarlton State Park, northwest of Tarlton
Nearest city	Tarlton, Ohio
Coordinates	39°33′44″N 82°47′7″W / 39.56222°N 82.78528°W / 39.56222; -82.78528Coordinates: 39°33′44″N 82°47′7″W / 39.56222°N 82.78528°W / 39.56222; -82.78528
Area	Less than 1 acre (0.40 ha)
NRHP Reference #	70000489
Added to NRHP	November 10, 1970

Cross Mound (also called the Tarlton Cross Mound) is an earthwork located near Tarlton, Ohio in the United States. The culture who built it and the time it was built remains unknown. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Contemporary archaeologists have described it as "one of the many enigmatic effigy mounds in Southern Ohio."

The site is located in Cross Mound Park, near a tributary of the Scioto River. The site totals 29-acres. To access the site, visitors must pass over a suspension bridge that was built in 1936.

Ephraim George Squier and Edwin Hamilton Davis visited the site in the mid 1840s. They would discuss their survey in their 1848 publication Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley. They describe the location of the work as occupying a "narrow spur of land,". They describe the design of the work as a Greek cross. The work was three feet high and 90 feet apart on each end and closely matches the cardinal directions. A small ditch surrounded it, following the design of the cross. In the middle of the cross was a circle shaped depression. The depression was noted as being 20 feet in diameter and 20 feet deep. Towards what they describe as the "back" of the cross was "a small circular elevation of stone and earth." (Later to be described by contemporary surveyors as a "small stone mound".) They believed it to be an altar. Squier and Davis believed that this installation represented a connection with the Alligator Effigy Mound in nearby Granville, Ohio. Near the main site, they noted a collection of smaller mounds. A larger hill near the cross was described as having "several large mounds,".