Newark Earthworks | |
Location | Roughly bounded by Union, 30th, James, and Waldo streets, and OH 16, [1] Newark, Ohio |
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Coordinates | 40°2′31.8″N82°25′48.4″W / 40.042167°N 82.430111°W |
Area | 190 acres (77 ha) (landmarked area) |
Architectural style | Hopewell culture |
NRHP reference No. | 66000614 [1] |
Significant dates | |
Added to NRHP | October 10, 1966 |
Designated NHL | July 19, 1964 |
The Newark Earthworks in Newark and Heath, Ohio, consist of three sections of preserved earthworks: the Great Circle Earthworks, the Octagon Earthworks, and the Wright Earthworks. This complex, built by the Hopewell culture between 100 BCE and 400 CE, contains the largest earthen enclosures in the world, and was about 3,000 acres in total extent. Less than 10 percent of the total site has been preserved since European-American settlement; this area contains a total of 206 acres (83 ha). Newark's Octagon and Great Circle Earthworks are managed by the Ohio History Connection. A designated National Historic Landmark, in 2006 the Newark Earthworks was also designated as the "official prehistoric monument of the State of Ohio." [2]
This is part of the Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks, one of 14 sites nominated in January 2008 by the U.S. Department of the Interior for potential submission by the United States to the UNESCO World Heritage List. [3] It was officially designated a World Heritage Site in September 2023 together with the earthworks at Hopewell Culture National Historical Park and Fort Ancient. [4]
Built by the Hopewell culture between 100 BCE and 400 CE, [5] the earthworks were used by the indigenous Native Americans as places of ceremony, social gathering, trade, worship, and honoring the dead. [1] [6] The primary purpose of the Octagon earthwork was believed to have been scientific. Scholars have demonstrated that the Octagon Earthworks comprise a lunar observatory for tracking the Moon's orbit during its 18.6-year cycle. [7]
While limited, the Newark Earthwork site is the largest surviving Hopewell earthwork complex in North America. The culture built many earthen mounds. Over decades, they built what is the single largest earthwork enclosure complex in the Ohio River Valley. The earthworks cover several square miles. [6]
The complex was one of hundreds of Native American ancient monuments identified and surveyed for the Smithsonian Institution in the mid-nineteenth century by Ephraim G. Squier and Edwin Hamilton Davis, from 1837 to 1847. The work that was published by a nascent Smithsonian Institution was titled Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley. [8] This study of the prehistoric Mound Builders of North America was a landmark in American scientific research and the early development of archaeology as a scientific discipline. The book was the first volume of the Smithsonian Institution's Contributions to Knowledge series and the Institution's first publication. Squier and Davis' detailed and measured plan of the site is shown on this page.
The 1,200-foot (370 m)-wide Newark Earthworks Great Circle (located in Heath, OH) is one of the largest circular earthworks in the Americas, at least in construction effort. A 5-foot (1.5 m) deep moat is encompassed by walls that are 8 feet (2.4 m) high; at the entrance, the dimensions are even more grand. [6]
Researchers have used archaeogeodesy and archaeoastronomy to analyze the placements, alignments, dimensions, and site-to-site interrelationships of the earthworks. This research has revealed that the prehistoric cultures in the area had advanced scientific understanding which they used as the basis of their complex construction.
The Octagon Earthworks consists of an Observatory Mound (connected at the southwestern edge of Observatory Circle), Observatory Circle (20 acres), and the connected Octagon (50 acres). The Octagon has eight 550-foot (170 m)-long walls, from 5 feet (1.5 m) to 6 feet (1.8 m) high. The Octagon is joined by parallel walls to Observatory Circle . [6]
In 1982 researchers from Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana concluded that the complex was a lunar observatory, designed to track motions of the moon, including the northernmost point of the 18.6-year cycle of the lunar orbit. When viewed from the observatory mound, the moon rises at that time within one-half of a degree of the octagon's exact center. The earthwork is twice as precise as the complex at Stonehenge (assuming Stonehenge is an observatory, which is a disputed theory). [7]
From 1892 to 1908, the state of Ohio used the Octagon Earthworks as a militia encampment. Immediately after this, the Newark Board of Trade owned the property, until 1918. In 1910, the property was leased to Mound Builders Country Club (MBCC), which developed the site as a golf course. As a result of a Licking County Common Pleas Court case, a trustee was named to manage the property from 1918 to 1933. [7]
In 1997 the Ohio Historical Society (now the Ohio History Connection) signed a lease until 2078 with the country club. MBCC maintains, secures, and provides restricted public access to the land. [9] Some citizens believe the country club is an inappropriate use of the sacred site. [10] There has been increasing public interest in the earthworks. Activists have pressed for more public access to the site to witness the moonrise, which observance was planned in the design and construction by the original native builders. [7]
The Wright Earthworks consist of a fragment of a geometrically near-perfect square enclosure and part of one wall that originally formed a set of parallel embankments, which led from the enclosure to a large oval yard. The Newark square's sides formerly ranged from about 940 feet (290 m) to 950 feet (290 m) in length, enclosing a total area of about 20 acres (8.1 ha). [6]
Much of the square enclosure and its associated mounds was destroyed during nineteenth-century European-American development: construction related to building the Ohio Canal, as well as the streets and houses of the city of Newark. Clearing and cultivation of fields for farming also destroyed much of the monument. The remaining segment of one wall of the square is less than 200 feet (61 m) long. [2]
The Wright Earthworks are named in honor of Mrs. Frances Rees Wright, who donated the site in 1934 to the Ohio Historical Society. [2]
Color photos are of the Great Circle, located in Heath. The black-and-white photos of the Octagon Earthworks in Newark were taken from the air in the 1980s, showing the interposition of country club golf sand traps and greens with the surviving parts of the ancient circles, walls, Observatory Circle and Octagon.
Newark is a city in, and the county seat of, Licking County, Ohio, United States; it is located 40 miles (64 km) east of Columbus at the junction of the forks of the Licking River. The population was 49,934 at the 2020 census, making it the 18th-largest city in Ohio. It is most known for having the world's largest basket, former headquarters of the now defunct Longaberger Company. The city is part of the Columbus metropolitan area.
The Hopewell tradition, also called the Hopewell culture and Hopewellian exchange, describes a network of precontact Native American cultures that flourished in settlements along rivers in the northeastern and midwestern Eastern Woodlands from 100 BCE to 500 CE, in the Middle Woodland period. The Hopewell tradition was not a single culture or society but a widely dispersed set of populations connected by a common network of trade routes.
In archaeology, timber circles are rings of upright wooden posts, built mainly by ancient peoples in the British Isles and North America. They survive only as gapped rings of post-holes, with no evidence they formed walls, making them distinct from palisades. Like stone circles, it is believed their purpose was ritual, ceremonial, and/or astronomical. Sometimes in North America they are referred to as woodhenge.
Fort Ancient is a Native American earthworks complex located in Washington Township, Warren County, Ohio, along the eastern shore of the Little Miami River about seven miles (11 km) southeast of Lebanon on State Route 350. The site is the largest prehistoric hilltop enclosure in the United States with three and one-half miles (18,000 ft) of walls in a 100-acre (0.40 km2) complex. Built by the Hopewell culture, who lived in the area from the 200 BC to AD 400, the site is situated on a wooded bluff 270 feet (82 m) above the Little Miami. It is the namesake of a culture known as Fort Ancient who lived near the complex long after it was constructed.
Many pre-Columbian cultures in North America were collectively termed "Mound Builders", but the term has no formal meaning. It does not refer to specific people or archaeological culture but refers to the characteristic mound earthworks that indigenous peoples erected for an extended period of more than 5,000 years. The "Mound Builder" cultures span the period of roughly 3500 BCE to the 16th century CE, including the Archaic period, Woodland period, and Mississippian period. Geographically, the cultures were present in the region of the Great Lakes, the Ohio River Valley, Florida, and the Mississippi River Valley and its tributary waters.
The Adena culture was a Pre-Columbian Native American culture that existed from 500 BCE to 100 CE, in a time known as the Early Woodland period. The Adena culture refers to what were probably a number of related Native American societies sharing a burial complex and ceremonial system. The Adena culture was centered on the location of the modern state of Ohio, but also extended into contiguous areas of northern Kentucky, eastern Indiana, West Virginia, and parts of extreme western Pennsylvania.
Hopewell Culture National Historical Park is a United States national historical park with earthworks and burial mounds from the Hopewell culture, indigenous peoples who flourished from about 200 BC to 500 AD. The park is composed of four separate sites open to the public in Ross County, Ohio, including the former Mound City Group National Monument. The park includes archaeological resources of the Hopewell culture. It is administered by the United States Department of the Interior's National Park Service. It was designated a part of Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks World Heritage Site in 2023.
Moorehead Circle was a triple woodhenge constructed about two millennia ago at the Fort Ancient Earthworks in the U.S. state of Ohio.
The Hopeton Earthworks are an Ohio Hopewell culture archaeological site consisting of mounds and earthwork enclosures. It is located on the eastern bank of the Scioto River just north of Chillicothe in Ross County, Ohio, about 1 mile (1.6 km) east of the Mound City Group and Shriver Circle on a terrace of the Scioto River. The site is a detached portion of the Hopewell Culture National Historic Park, along with the Mound City Group, Hopewell Mound Group, Seip Earthworks, Spruce Hill Earthworks, and the High Bank Works. The site is open to the public.
The Portsmouth Earthworks are a large prehistoric mound complex constructed by the Native American Adena and Ohio Hopewell cultures of eastern North America. The site was one of the largest earthwork ceremonial centers constructed by the Hopewell and is located at the confluence of the Scioto and Ohio Rivers, in present-day Ohio.
The Havana Hopewell culture were a Hopewellian people who lived in the Illinois River and Mississippi River valleys in Iowa, Illinois, and Missouri from 200 BCE to 400 CE.
The Mount Horeb Earthworks Complex is an Adena culture group of earthworks in Lexington, Kentucky. It consists of two major components, the Mount Horeb Site 1 and the Peter Village enclosure, and several smaller features including the Grimes Village site, Tarleton Mound, and Fisher Mound. The Peter Village and Grimes Village enclosures were mapped by Rafinesque and featured in Squier and Davis's landmark publication Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley in 1848 as Plate XIV Figures 3 and 4.
Highlands Sanctuary, Inc. is a nonprofit organization which operates under the dba of The Arc of Appalachia Preserve System. The Arc of Appalachia has been in operation since 1995, working to create and steward nature preserves in the forested Appalachian counties of southern Ohio. In 2016, The Arc of Appalachia had completed the protection of 4268 acres in 15 preserve regions.
The Marietta Earthworks is an archaeological site located at the confluence of the Muskingum and Ohio Rivers in Washington County, Ohio, United States. Most of this Hopewellian complex of earthworks is now covered by the modern city of Marietta. Archaeologists have dated the ceremonial site's construction to approximately 100 BCE to 500 CE.
Indian Mound Reserve is a public country park near the village of Cedarville, Ohio, United States. Named for two different earthworks within its bounds — the Williamson Mound and the Pollock Works — the park straddles Massies Creek as it flows through a small canyon.
Cedar-Bank Works is group of Adena culture earthworks located in Ross County, Ohio in the United States. It is located approximately five miles north of the town of Chillicothe, Ohio.
The Stubbs Earthworks was a massive Ohio Hopewell culture archaeological site located in Morrow in Warren County, Ohio.
The Shriver Circle Earthworks are an Ohio Hopewell culture archaeological site located in Chillicothe in Ross County, Ohio. At 1,200 feet (370 m) in diameter the site is one of the largest Hopewell circular enclosures in the state of Ohio.
Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks is a World Heritage Site in the United States preserving eight monumental earthworks constructed by the Hopewell Culture. The sites consist of large geometric shapes covering several acres in area. Constructed between approximately 0 and 400 AD, the earthworks lie along tributaries of the Ohio River in the present-day state of Ohio. They depict the richness and depth of pre-Columbian culture, science, astronomy, and sacred monumental architecture. Many sites were plowed and reduced in size during almost 200 years of agricultural use.