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BRADLEY T. LEPPER
The Newark Earthworks
A Monumental Engine of World Renewal
T represent the pièce de résistance of
the orescence of monumental architecture that is an import-
ant part of what archaeologists have referred to as the Hopewell
culture. I make this claim not simply because it is the largest complex of geo-
metric earthworks in the Hopewellian world but because it is an integrated
combination of functionally discrete architectural elements incorporating
astronomical and geometrical knowledge with uncanny precision and on
a scale that is overwhelming to on-the-ground observers. Elsewhere I have
compared the Newark Earthworks to “a North American Kaaba, Sistine
Chapel, and Principia all rolled into one,” but in some ways the site may
be more like a pre-Columbian Large Hadron Collider — a vast machine, or
device, designed and built to unleash primordial forces.
The principal surviving elements of the Newark Earthworks are the
best-preserved examples of geometric earthworks in North America. Until
rather recently, however, the site was conspicuous by its absence in most over-
views of the Hopewell culture. I think the most important reason for this was
that archaeologists had dened the Hopewell culture largely in terms of its
extravagant burial practices and especially the glittering array of mortuary
and other oerings craed from exotic materials obtained from across much
of the continent. Since Newark’s burial mounds had been leveled without
systematic study, it appeared to have nothing substantive le to contribute to
the corpus of Hopewellian iconography. As an example of the apparent dis-
ciplinary disappointment with Newark, when Emerson Greenman excavated
the so-called Eagle Mound within the Great Circle in , the absence of
burials and sumptuous mortuary oerings consigned the important results
of that excavation to a revealingly terse two sentences in Henry Shetrone’s
book The Mound Builders: “The so-called Eagle Mound, situated at the
center of the fair-ground circle, was explored by the Ohio State Museum in
• Bradley T. Lepper
and found to be without burials. It apparently was erected as a strictly
religious or ceremonial structure.”
Beginning in the s, a renaissance of research undertaken at Newark’s
wonderfully preserved enclosures has led to extraordinary insights about the
Hopewell culture generally and the structure and function of the Newark
Earthworks in particular, which have brought Newark to greater prominence
in Hopewell studies. The Newark Earthworks are now seen to incorporate
a sophisticated understanding of geometry and astronomy into their archi-
tecture, a fact that would not have been demonstrable had it not been for the
remarkable degree of preservation of the earthworks.
In contrast, the assumption that there is a nearly complete absence of data
from the lost burial mounds at Newark has led to a practical inability to de-
termine directly what role this component of the earthworks may have served
in the functioning of Newark’s monumental ceremonial machine. The pur-
pose of this essay is to review what is known about the Newark Earthworks
from an archaeological perspective with an emphasis on the Cherry Valley
Ellipse, the earthwork that encompassed the most important burial mounds
at this site. In so doing, I will argue that there are sucient data to shed some
light on the nature of Newark’s burial mounds and, indeed, to allow us to rec-
ognize the centrality of mortuary ceremonialism in the design and operation
of the Newark Earthworks.
An Archaeological Perspective on the Newark Earthworks
Archaeology provides the bedrock foundation upon which all interpretations
of the Newark Earthworks fundamentally must be based. Without knowl-
edge of the structure of the earthworks, the activities associated with them,
and the cultural context in which they were created and operated, all infer-
ences about their use and meaning (for the aboriginal builders in particular)
would be reduced to speculation. The only reliable clue to these aspects of the
site is the material evidence preserved in the archaeological record.
American Indian oral traditions have been sieved for insights into the an-
cient earthworks by numerous authors, including me, but with only indier-
ent success. The principal reasons for the absence of such traditions are the
relative antiquity of the architecture and the degradation of authentic historic
content in oral traditions over that much time. And, of course, the normal
process of loss of reliable content over time was catastrophically acceler-
ated by the impact of European contact on indigenous American societies,
A Monumental Engine of World Renewal •
including the loss of the oral archives of traditional knowledge, through such
factors as the premature deaths of elders and the forced assimilation of sub-
sequent generations of American Indians.
As a result, the only reliable source of information about the historical
context in which this orescence of extraordinary architecture, art, and cer-
emony emerged, the structure of the earthworks, and what transpired within
and outside the connes of the monumental walls, is the archaeological study
of the material traces of those aspects of ancient Newark. Many additional
disciplines can contribute vitally important insights, such as astronomy, eth-
nography, geology, geometry, and others, but ultimately, all claims relating to
the original purpose and meaning of the Newark Earthworks for its ancient
builders must rest upon the material evidence as revealed by archaeology.
It long has been accepted that the Newark Earthworks were built by the
Hopewell culture, sometime between and . The few docu-
mented radiocarbon dates associated with the Newark Earthworks suggest
this site belongs to the later portion of this period, between approximately
and .
The people of the Hopewell culture lived in small, scattered villages, or
hamlets, with little or no evidence of a political hierarchy. Their corporate
ceremonial lives were focused upon the great earthen enclosures, which must
have required the collective eort of scores of such dispersed communities to
construct, and whose vast interior spaces could have accommodated many
thousands of celebrants.
The great earthworks are concentrated in the principal river valleys of
southern Ohio—the Great and Little Miamis, Scioto, and Muskingum—but
these people were participants in a much broader “interaction sphere” that
extended from the Atlantic Coast to the Rocky Mountains and from the
Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico.
The extraordinary signicance of the Newark Earthworks has been recog-
nized widely. It is a National Historic Landmark and the State of Ohio’s o-
cial prehistoric monument, and it is on the US Department of the Interior’s
Tentative List for nomination to the UNESCO World Heritage List. Accord-
ing to Samuel Haven, Daniel Webster was so impressed with the Newark
Earthworks that he “desired to have [them] preserved in perpetuity at the
• Bradley T. Lepper
national charge.” If he had achieved his desire, the Newark Earthworks
would have become the rst of America’s National Parks and would have
been preserved nearly in their original grandeur.
Because of the massive scale and complexity of the Newark Earthworks,
the site has oen been featured as an illustration of the apogee of Hopewell
earthwork construction. Nevertheless, from the glory days of Warren
Moorehead, William Mills, and Henry Shetrone to the relatively recent
Chillicothe Conference, Newark appears to have been largely ignored. Its
location on the northern periphery of the classic Hopewell world usually was
explained as having something to do with the proximity of the Flint Ridge
int quarries.
The Newark Earthworks originally consisted of a series of monumental
geometric enclosures connected by a network of walled roads (g. ). The
primary enclosures included a circle, the so-called Observatory Circle (g. ),
connected to an octagon (g. ); a circle with an interior ditch — the Great
. Squier and Davis map of the Newark Earthworks. Based on an original survey
by Charles Whittlesey, the Squier and Davis map is not the most comprehensive map of
the Newark Earthworks, but it is the most historically signicant, as it appeared in
in the Smithsonian Institution’s rst scientic publication.
. Middleton map
of the Observatory Circle.
James Middleton’s surveys
represent the best data
available for the individual
components of the Newark
Earthworks. Unfortunately,
he never integrated these
data into a comprehensive
map of the Newark Earth-
works as a whole incorpo-
rating the other surviving
elements. (Thomas, Report
on the Mound Explorations
of the Bureau of Ethnology,
facing page )
. Middleton map
of the Octagon Earthworks.
(Thomas, Report on the
Mound Explorations of the
Bureau of Ethnology, facing
page )
. Middleton map
of the Great Circle Earth-
works. (Thomas, Report on
the Mound Explorations of
the Bureau of Ethnology,
facing page )
. Middleton map
of the Wright Square.
(Thomas, Report on the
Mound Explorations of the
Bureau of Ethnology, facing
page )
A Monumental Engine of World Renewal •
Circle (g. ); a square, oen referred to as the Wright Square (g. ); and an
ellipse surrounding a number of large and small, conical and loaf-shaped
mounds — the Cherry Valley Ellipse.
The Great Circle (g. ), sometimes referred to as the “Fairground Circle,”
since it was the site of the Licking County Fairgrounds between and ,
is a large circular enclosure ranging in diameter from between , and ,
feet (– m). The walls are between and feet (.–. m) in height and
between and feet (– m) in width.
In , excavations through the enclosure wall revealed a three-stage con-
struction sequence that utilized dierent colors and textures of soil for the in-
side and outside portions of the embankment. An intact, buried A-horizon
at the base of the embankment yielded a radiocarbon date of , ± years
BP (before present) on soil humates (Beta-). This date, however, does
not relate directly to the construction of the earthwork and only permits
the inference that the embankment cannot be older than about , years.
Pollen and phytoliths recovered from the paleosol indicate the environment
at the time the earthworks were constructed was dominated, at least locally,
by a prairie.
At the center of the Great Circle is a three-lobed mound that has been
named “Eagle Mound” for its supposed resemblance to a bird, although its
shape is amenable to numerous alternative interpretations and is not likely
to have been built as an egy mound. It was excavated in by Emer-
son Greenman for the Ohio Historical Society. At the base of the mound,
Greenman uncovered rows of postmolds from a large rectangular wooden
structure that occupied the site prior to the erection of the mound. This
building was almost feet ( m) long by about feet ( m) wide with
walls like wings extending outward on each side at a forty-degree angle from
the main axis. In the center of this structure there was a large, rectangular
prepared-clay basin, similar to crematory basins excavated at Mound City
and other Hopewell sites. The Eagle Mound basin, however, contained no
cremated human remains, although it exhibited clear evidence of repeated
episodes of intense burning.
The Great Circle has an interior ditch that is between and feet (.–
. m) wide and, in , ranged from to feet (.–. m) in depth. Caleb
Atwater, author of the earliest published description of the Newark Earth-
works, observed that when he saw the Great Circle, “the ditch was half lled
• Bradley T. Lepper
with water.” Since ditches of any sort were not used with any of the other
major earthworks at Newark, the presumably water-lled ditch at the Great
Circle must then reect the unique requirements of this structure.
The Wright Square (g. ) was a nearly perfectly square enclosure with walls
averaging feet ( m) in length. Little of the square has survived, but
a remnant is preserved at the Wright Earthworks, which includes a short
segment of one of the sides of the square and a segment of one of the parallel
walls that framed a passage leading from the square to the Cherry Valley El-
lipse. Another set of parallel walls led from the Newark Square to the Great
Circle, and yet another led to the Octagon. The Wright Square, therefore,
appears to be a key nexus for the site, as it is the only enclosure with direct
links to each of the other components with the exception of the Observatory
Circle, which only connects directly to the Octagon.
It is interesting to note that the perimeter of the square earthwork is pre-
cisely equal to the circumference of the Great Circle, and its area is equal to
the area of the Observatory Circle. These are indications of the remarkable
sophistication of the geometry incorporated into the architecture of the New-
ark Earthworks.
The Observatory Circle (g. ) is a nearly perfectly circular earthwork with
a diameter of , feet ( m). It is connected by a short set of parallel walls
to the Octagon, which encloses an area of acres ( hectares). The walls of
the octagonal enclosure were each about feet ( m) long and from to
feet (.– m) in height. There were gateways or openings at each corner of the
Octagon varying from about to feet (– m) in width. Each opening of
the Octagon is partially blocked by a rectangular or oblong platform mound
about feet ( m) long by feet ( m) wide at the base and between
and feet (.– m) high.
The circle is named for the Observatory Mound, a large, loaf-shaped plat-
form mound located on the outside of the circle opposite the gateway leading
into the Octagon. It appears to have been built across another opening into
the circle consisting of a short segment of parallel walls.
The Octagon Earthworks are a remarkable testament to the architectural
and engineering genius of the Hopewell culture, but scholars recently have
A Monumental Engine of World Renewal •
come to realize that there is an even more remarkable aspect to the archi-
tecture. Ray Hively and Robert Horn have shown that the Hopewell build-
ers aligned these earthworks to the cyclical movements of the moon across
the sky.
The Hopewell builders appear to have encoded these astronomical land-
marks into the architecture of the Octagon, not to create some kind of pro-
toscientic lunar observatory, but more likely to represent and reproduce the
larger cosmos — “to provide a context in which ceremonies could occur” al-
lowing participants to participate directly in cosmic rhythms.
In every culture, the sky and the religious impulse are intertwined. I lie back
in an open eld and the sky surrounds me. . . . And when I concentrate on the
stars, the planets, and their moons, I have an irresistible sense of machinery,
clockwork, elegant precision working on a scale that, however loy our
aspirations, dwarfs and humbles us. — Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision
of the Human Future in Space,
The remarkable degree of precision in the geometry and astronomy incor-
porated into the architecture of the Newark Earthworks, unequaled in the
Hopewell world, together with the high degree of functional and ritual in-
tegration of the various components of the complex suggest to me that the
entire complex was conceived, designed, and used as a ceremonial machine
with a particular primary purpose. Given the monumental scale and cos-
mological implications of the architecture, that purpose must have addressed
a need of profound signicance. Martin Byers makes a compelling case that
this purpose was nothing less than world renewal.
Byers posits that “the primary medium of these world renewal rituals was
the mortuary sphere” and that a complicated chaîne opératoire of mortuary
ceremonies was involved. I agree with this general formulation and propose
that the various components of the Newark Earthworks, such as the Great
Circle with its dual circle of earth and water and the Octagon with its lunar
alignments, all provided the necessary contexts for fullling some or all of
these various intentions in an intricate series of sequential steps from the
arrival of deceased persons at the site to their eventual interment in one of
the Cherry Valley mortuary facilities or their transfer to other locations.
Given the centrality of the Cherry Valley Ellipse in this conception of the
• Bradley T. Lepper
purpose of the Newark Earthworks, it is most unfortunate that so much of
the archaeological record of this component of the ceremonial machine has
been lost. Yet perhaps enough information can be salvaged or reconstructed
from archival sources to test the implications of this model.
The Cherry Valley Ellipse:
The Engine Powering the Newark Earthworks Machine
The Cherry Valley Ellipse takes its name from the fact that the Raccoon
Creek valley originally was known as Cherry Valley because of the profusion
of cherry trees encountered in the area by the earliest European American
settlers. The ellipse was approximately , feet ( m) long by , feet
( m) wide and enclosed approximately acres ( ha).
Within the Cherry Valley Ellipse there were at least eleven discrete mounds
of varying sizes and shapes, many or perhaps all of which contained inter-
ments of human remains. In addition, there was a small circular enclosure
with a diameter of about feet ( m), and a subrectangular platform
mound similar to the Hopewellian platform mounds at Marietta, but unlike
the Marietta mounds, the Newark platform apparently had no ramps. These
features do not all appear on any single map of the earthworks, so it is neces-
sary to consult several versions to gain this more comprehensive picture.
The earliest description of the Cherry Valley Mound Group appeared as a
footnote to Ephraim Squier and Edwin Davis’s description of the New-
ark Earthworks. It consists of excerpts from a letter written by Israel Dille,
a former mayor of Newark and an avid antiquarian. Dille refers to one of
these mounds that was destroyed in by excavations for a canal lock pit.
It was said to contain fourteen human skeletons, buried about feet ( m)
beneath the surface. Associated with these remains were a large quantity of
mica sheets, some of which measured “eight to ten inches long [– cm]
by four and ve wide [– cm], and all from half an inch to an inch thick
[–. cm].” Dille reported an estimate that “een or twenty bushels of this
material were thrown out to form the walls or supports of the lock.” Dille
also mentions the discovery of a large marine shell from a separate mound
located a short distance to the south.
The Cherry Valley Mound was the central and dominant mound of the
group. Most of the maps of this mound show it as a cluster of four or ve sep-
arate mounds. According to John Wilson, a local physician and antiquarian,
it was composed of four separate mounds “all joined together at their base.”
A Monumental Engine of World Renewal •
Wilson stated that three mounds “stood in a line north and south; the fourth
one was a little east and between the two northern ones.”
The size of the Cherry Valley Mound was impressive. It was about feet
( m) long and feet ( m) wide at its widest point. The original height of
the largest part of the mound was about feet ( m), but by the time of the
earliest recorded measurements it had been reduced to feet ( m). These
dimensions would have made it comparable to the Harness Mound ( .
long) and the Tremper Mound ( . long). The spectacular objects that
were excavated from these other large Hopewell mounds provide tantaliz-
ing hints at what might have been found if the Cherry Valley Mound had
been properly studied before it was obliterated. Byers suggests that Newark’s
mounds were relatively impoverished in mortuary oerings in comparison
to other great Hopewell mounds, but the meager available evidence does
not warrant a condent assessment of the extent of the wonders Newark’s
mounds did or did not hold.
According to Wilson, the southernmost of what he perceived as four con-
joined mounds “was included in the [railroad] embankment,” whereas “the
other three were greatly injured” by the removal of earth to add to the em-
bankment. In May of , the northern and largest section of the Cherry
Valley Mound “was leveled to form a site for a rolling mill.” Wilson evi-
dently was present to observe much of the destruction of this part of the
mound. He made some notes regarding the internal structure of the mound,
collected at least a few artifacts, some of which subsequently were observed
and described by Charles Whittlesey.
Based on Wilson’s sketchy observations, presented in a paper read at the
July , , meeting of the Licking County Pioneer, Historical and Antiquar-
ian Society, I have identied a minimum of ve strata in the mound repre-
senting apparently distinct episodes of construction, which I have designated
as strata through .
Wilson stated that approximately feet (. m) of material had been re-
moved from the top of the mound prior to its destruction by the railroad.
Nothing is known about the nature of this missing material.
Wilson noted a marked dierence between the upper feet (. m) of the
mound and the lower feet (. m). The upper portion, which I have desig-
nated stratum , was “composed almost entirely of black loam, which ap-
peared in layers.” The layers were discontinuous, lenticular “seams” and they
“oen overlapped.” Usually, the layers were separated by “marks of re.” In
one case, the band of charred material was – inches (– cm) thick and
• Bradley T. Lepper
extended “across the mound.” Wilson stated that “no human or other bones”
were noted in the black loam, but he observed “several sheets of mica” in
these layers, and Whittlesey recorded that “ copper uted ornaments” of
very thin “rolled copper” were found at a depth of feet (. m). The crudely
sketched cross-section of one of these copper artifacts in his notebook sug-
gests that these may have been panpipes. They were to inches (– cm)
in length. The lenticular bands of charcoal associated with a relatively high
frequency of artifacts craed from exotic materials may represent cremation
burials with funerary oerings. Considering the manner in which the mound
was being excavated it would not be surprising if small fragments of burned
bone went unobserved or unrecognized.
Stratum was a poorly described zone consisting of “layers of blue clay,
then sand,” which extended to a depth of about feet (. m) below the sur-
face. Whittlesey’s notebook includes a crude illustration of a bear canine
ornament from this stratum.
Stratum was a layer of cobblestones laid over an intensely burned surface
that extended continuously across the mound at a depth of feet (. m)
below the surface and feet (. m) above the base of the mound.
Stratum was an apparently undistinguished layer of ll between the cob-
ble layer and the base of the mound. Finally, stratum consisted of deposits
extending from the original ground surface to a depth of about feet (. m).
Wilson stated that “the whole base of this mound was of disturbed earth
four or more feet below the surrounding surface.” He referred specically
to several “human buryings,” including “a part of the lower jaw of a human
being with one tooth in it” recovered at a depth of feet below the base of the
mound in a pit dug for the rolling mill’s ywheel. This mandible fragment
may have been part of the poorly preserved remains of a burial or an orna-
ment craed from a detached human mandible.
In addition to the submound tombs, there were numerous “post holes” at
the base of the mound, most of which only penetrated to a depth of “a few
feet.” One, however, “on the east side was lled with ne charcoal and ashes,
and extended fully four feet below the surrounding surface.” Some postmolds
may have originated at higher levels of the mound. One in particular appears
to have originated in stratum . It was located “near the center” of the mound
and “was observed to continue down very near to the bottom of the mound.”
Wilson noted that “in some places” this postmold was “lled with sand dif-
fering from the earth around it.”
A Monumental Engine of World Renewal •
In subsequent years, discoveries relating to the submound tombs contin-
ued to be made. The most celebrated involved the recovery of the remarkable
stone gurine known variously as the Wray Figurine or the Shaman of New-
ark (plate ).
The earliest report of this discovery appeared in the Newark American on
August , . The rolling mill had been demolished, and workmen em-
ployed in excavating foundations for new buildings on the site encountered
“portions of a human skeleton and a stone image supposed to be of ancient
manufacture.”
A few additional details concerning the discovery of the Newark gurine
are included in some brief notes made by James C. Wright, who purchased
the sculpture from its original discoverer, Jacob Holler: “There were perhaps
other trinkets buried with him. A large conk [sic] shell was discovered but in
the excitement was covered up and lost.”
The Newark Daily Advocate for November , , referred to additional
material that had been recovered from the remnants of the Cherry Valley
Mound without mentioning any particular provenience within it. The ac-
count mentions “remains of an ancient altar,” “charred bones and embers,”
and “some int arrow heads, etc.”
In summary, a large Hopewellian big house, or renewal lodge, likely com-
parable in shape and size to the Harness Mound Big House originally stood
on the site of the Cherry Valley Mound. Numerous burials were interred in
submound tombs. At least one of these burials appears to have included an
oering of a marine shell, a stone gurine, and other unspecied artifacts.
At some point, the ceremonies having been concluded, the big house was
dismantled, and the site was buried beneath the approximately feet (. m)
of ll composing stratum . Apparently, some artifacts and possibly some
burials were interred in this mound ll. The end of this stage of construction
was marked by a major burning event over the entire surface of the mound,
followed by the emplacement of a layer of cobbles directly on the still-hot
surface. The cobblestone layer makes up stratum .
Aer an undetermined period of time, approximately feet (. m) of blue
clay and sand was added to the mound to form what I have designated as
stratum . Then, at least feet (. m) of black loam, possibly incorporating
many apparent cremation burials was added to the mound over an indenite
but probably relatively long period of time. This series of accretive deposits
denes stratum .
• Bradley T. Lepper
An unknown amount of material was removed from the mound prior to
Wilson’s observations. This missing material may have been a continuation of
stratum but may also have included other distinctive episodes of construction.
Conclusions
The Newark Earthworks complex is unprecedented in the Hopewell world
in terms of its scale and the precision of both its geometry and its embedded
astronomical alignments. The diversity of discrete earthwork components
suggests that each enclosure fullled a particular function, and the integra-
tion of all these components into a unied design expressed through various
geometrical, astronomical, and architectural elements suggests those sepa-
rate functions all were necessary to achieve a more comprehensive ultimate
purpose.
Byers argues that the culminating outcome of the chaîne opératoire of
Hopewellian mortuary ritual may have been nothing less than the regenera-
tion of the Earth. Such a grand goal certainly would be commensurate with
the magnitude of the architectural achievement embodied in the Newark
Earthworks. The operation of this ceremonial machine involved synchro-
nizing the architecture and the ceremonies to be performed therein with the
deep rhythms of the cosmos.
Hopewell priests may have used the calendrical capabilities of the archi-
tecture to determine the appropriate times for gatherings. The corps of
priests and shamans would have assembled the necessary regalia, while other
functionaries collected the food to provide for the needs of the participants.
Groups from varying distances came to the earthworks bearing oerings
along with the remains of their honored dead. In what likely was a highly
choreographed sequence, the bodies were carried through the ceremonial
spaces undergoing a series of sequential operations, including ceremonies of
mourning, spirit release, spirit adoption, and burial, each with their particu-
lar ritual and architectural requirements.
If this argument is valid, then the key elements of Newark’s architecture,
even if not directly associated with the Cherry Valley Ellipse, were dictated
to some extent by the requirements of mortuary ceremonialism. The Great
Circle’s water barrier, for example, may have contained the spirits of the dead
within the circle for the duration of the particular ceremonies performed
therein.
A Monumental Engine of World Renewal •
Finally, the creation of such a wonder of the world would have endowed
this valley with an immense spiritual magnetism. According to Preston,
spiritual magnetism is a consequence of “historical, geographical, social and
other forces that coalesce in a sacred center.” Quite apart from its intended
purpose, by its massive presence alone it would have become a place to expe-
rience the ineable magic and majesty of what must have been perceived as a
marvel of creative expression.
Elsewhere, I have described the Newark Earthworks as a pilgrimage center,
and I still argue that this is a vital aspect of the way the site was perceived
and used by its builders and the thousands of people who traveled sometimes
great distances to touch the mystery, leave oerings of thanksgiving or sup-
plication, and participate in the various ceremonies. Byers has criticized this
interpretation as being somehow ethnocentric in its reliance upon analogy
with Christian and Islamic religious traditions, but pilgrimage is a nearly
universal cultural practice. And thus it is not at all implausible to suggest
that it served the spiritual needs of ancient American Indians.
One of the lines of evidence that has led me to the interpretation of Newark
as a pilgrimage center is what I have called the Great Hopewell Road. The
Great Hopewell Road is the set of parallel walls that extended from the south-
eastern opening of the Octagon earthwork an unknown distance to the south-
west. The remarkably straight trajectory of this road and its length, which
has been determined by multiple independent observers to have exceeded six
miles ( km), is formally similar in many respects to Mayan roads that were
explicitly identied by Mayan people as sacred routes of pilgrimage.
Even aer the monumental Hopewellian earthworks ceased to function
as ceremonial machines, they likely continued to be pilgrimage destinations.
The so-called Intrusive Mound culture of the Late Woodland period possibly
reects a revitalization movement predicated on the hope that the ancient
ceremonial machinery still could be activated to send deceased loved ones
safely to the land of the dead. Historic Creek oral traditions refer to pilgrim-
ages northward in the spring and autumn to “special mounds.” Whether
the mounds in question were as far north as Ohio is an open question, but
Warren K. Moorehead recorded a story heard in his youth that the pioneer
Simon Kenton observed Shawnee Indians, in spite of having no traditions
concerning the builders of the Fort Ancient Earthworks, nonetheless visit-
ing “the place en route to the Ohio and [doing] homage to the spirits of its
makers.”
• Bradley T. Lepper
Today, heritage tourism brings many people, including American Indians
from diverse tribal aliations, to Newark and the other surviving Hopewell
centers. In this way, they continue to function as pilgrimage centers.
The Great Circle and Octagon Earthworks are justly celebrated as the
best-preserved remnants of Hopewellian geometric earthworks. Neverthe-
less, the vagaries of history have given us a truncated view of the Newark
complex. The aspect of Hopewell architecture that we know more about than
any other at the classic sites clustered around Chillicothe — that is, the burial
mounds — were among the rst parts of the Newark Earthworks to be oblit-
erated by the growth of the city of Newark and so are the least understood
aspect of Newark. The only sources of information on this component of the
site were scattered in forgotten newspaper articles and in other even more
obscure records. This essay represents an attempt to recover as much as pos-
sible of what was lost and to develop a more complete understanding of the
purpose and meaning of the entire Newark Earthworks.
What could we have learned if the various Cherry Valley mounds had been
systematically studied — even if only by archaeologists in the era of Moore-
head and Mills? For one thing, we could hope to have access to the remains
of the people that were buried at Newark with all the rich bioarchaeological
evidence of the lives of these individuals.
Human remains excavated from the Newark mounds and curated at
museums could have revealed biological relationships among the Newark
Hopewell, the Chillicothe Hopewell, other contemporary populations, and
modern American Indian tribes through a study of epigenetic traits as well
as DNA analysis. Isotopes of strontium and oxygen sealed in their teeth
could have revealed whether the people buried at Newark were pilgrims, mis-
sionaries, or migrants from other regions or were local people who had per-
haps traveled to Chillicothe to obtain the necessary knowledge or franchise
rights from the southern groups and returned to the Raccoon Creek valley
to synthesize and realize an even grander vision.
Another source of invaluable clues to the extraordinary events that trans-
pired at Newark two thousand years ago would be the panoply of material
culture that would have been associated with the human remains as well
as other nonmortuary oerings deposited in the Cherry Valley mounds.
Funerary objects and ceremonial regalia accompanying the burials would
have provided important clues to individual social status and clan aliations
and would have revealed the extent of Newark’s involvement in the broader
Hopewell interaction sphere. Were there mortuary deposits of obsidian and
A Monumental Engine of World Renewal •
other exotica to rival what was found at the Hopewell Mound Group and
Mound City? Byers assumes not, but the strong similarities between the
form and scale of the Harness Mound and the Cherry Valley Mound as well
as the recovery of between een and twenty bushels of mica plates from one
of the more nondescript mounds in the Cherry Valley Ellipse suggest that
Byers’s assumption is unwarranted.
Throughout my career of interpreting the Newark Earthworks, I have
emphasized to visitors that, contrary to their preconceptions, there were no
burial mounds preserved at Newark and the near total absence of burials at
the surviving components indicated that mortuary ceremonialism was only
one among many activities engaged in by the Hopewell people at this site. I
was not actually wrong in these assertions, but I now think the implication
that mortuary ceremonialism was simply one among many activities that
took place at Newark is misleading. Certainly, many other social and reli-
gious activities likely were conducted within Newark’s varied sacred spaces.
Ultimately, however, mortuary ceremonialism was the sine qua non of the
Newark Earthworks complex as it was for many of the other monumental
earthwork centers. The Newark Earthworks represent a kind of monu-
mental ceremonial machine, and the facilities and rituals associated with
the treatment of the honored dead, which culminated in the burial of their
remains beneath the Cherry Valley mounds, constituted the engine of the
machine.
Notes
I extend my sincere thanks to Dick Shiels for his eorts to organize the symposium of
which this book represents a culmination and for his broader eorts on behalf of the
Newark Earthworks. I thank Robert Horn, Ray Hively, N’omi Greber, Mary Borgia,
Je Gill, and my wife, Karen Lepper, for their support and encouragement through the
occasionally tumultuous process of getting from the presentation I gave at the sympo-
sium to this rather dierent contribution. The views expressed in this essay are those
of the author and do not necessarily reect those of the Ohio History Connection.
. Lepper, “The Ceremonial Landscape of the Newark Earthworks and the Raccoon
Creek Valley,” .
. Shetrone, The Mound Builders, .
. E.g., Byers, “Is the Newark Circle-Octagon the Ohio Hopewell ‘Rosetta Stone’?”;
Hively and Horn, “Geometry and Astronomy in Prehistoric Ohio”; Hively and Horn,
“Hopewell Cosmography at Newark and Chillicothe, Ohio”; Lepper, “An Historical
Review of Archaeological Research at the Newark Earthworks”; Lepper, “The New-
ark Earthworks and the Geometric Enclosures of the Scioto Valley”; Lepper, “The
• Bradley T. Lepper
Archaeology of the Newark Earthworks”; Lepper, “The Great Hopewell Road and the
Role of Pilgrimage in the Hopewell Interaction Sphere”; and Lepper, “The Ceremonial
Landscape of the Newark Earthworks and the Raccoon Creek Valley.”
. Lepper, “The Ceremonial Landscape of the Newark Earthworks and the Raccoon
Creek Valley.”
. E.g., Hall, “Ghosts, Water Barriers, Corn, and Sacred Enclosures in the Eastern
Woodlands”; Lepper, “Tracking Ohio’s Great Hopewell Road”; Lepper, “The Great
Hopewell Road and the Role of Pilgrimage in the Hopewell Interaction Sphere”; Lep-
per, “The Ceremonial Landscape of the Newark Earthworks and the Raccoon Creek
Valley”; Lepper, “Commentary on DeeAnne Wymer’s ‘Where Do (Hopewell) Research
Answers Come From?’ ”; and Wymer, “Where Do (Hopewell) Research Answers Come
From?”
. Mason, Inconstant Companions.
. The “Hopewell” designation has become a problematic label for some people. As
used by archaeologists, it is merely a handy name for those indigenous groups that
shared elements of material culture, architecture, and burial practices in various por-
tions of eastern North America, especially in southern Ohio, between about
and . Given the area encompassed, it is likely that many more or less diverse
“tribes,” whose names now are unknowable, are subsumed under the label. The name
comes from the “Hopewell Mound Group” in Ross County, Ohio, which is the “type
site” for the Hopewell culture. The site was named, by long archaeological convention,
for the owner of the land on which the site was located.
. Lepper, Ohio Archaeology, –.
. Haven, “Report of the Librarian,” .
. E.g., Fagan, Ancient North America, ; Jennings, Prehistory of North America,
; Prufer, “The Hopewell Cult,” ; D. Thomas, Exploring Native North America, ;
and Whittlesey, “Historical and Archaeological Map of Ohio.”
. Brose and Greber, Hopewell Archaeology.
. E.g., Bernhardt, “A Preliminary Survey of Middle Woodland Prehistory in Lick-
ing County, Ohio.”
. Lepper, “An Historical Review of Archaeological Research at the Newark Earth-
works”; Lepper, “The Newark Earthworks and the Geometric Enclosures of the Scioto
Valley”; Lepper, “The Archaeology of the Newark Earthworks”; Lepper, “The Newark
Earthworks”; Lepper, “The Great Hopewell Road and the Role of Pilgrimage in the
Hopewell Interaction Sphere”; Lepper, “The Ceremonial Landscape of the Newark
Earthworks and the Raccoon Creek Valley”; and Lepper and Yerkes, “Hopewellian
Occupations at the Northern Periphery of the Newark Earthworks.”
. C. Thomas, Report on the Mound Explorations of the Bureau of Ethnology, .
. Lepper, “The Newark Earthworks and the Geometric Enclosures of the Scioto
Valley,” .
. Lepper, “The Archaeology of the Newark Earthworks,” .
. Lepper, “An Historical Review of Archaeological Research at the Newark
Earthworks.”
A Monumental Engine of World Renewal •
. Atwater, “Description of the Antiquities Discovered in the State of Ohio and
Other Western States,” .
. Squier and Davis, Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley, .
. Hively and Horn, “Geometry and Astronomy in Prehistoric Ohio”; Hively and
Horn, “Hopewell Cosmography at Newark and Chillicothe, Ohio”; and Hively and
Horn in this volume.
. Deloria, “Power and Place Equal Personality,” .
. Lepper, “The Ceremonial Landscape of the Newark Earthworks and the Raccoon
Creek Valley.”
. Byers, Sacred Games, Death, and Renewal in the Ancient Eastern Woodlands. See
also Romain, “Hopewell Geometric Enclosures”; and Carr, “Social and Ritual Organi-
zation,” –.
. Byers, Sacred Games, Death, and Renewal in the Ancient Eastern Woodlands,
–.
. Squier and Davis, Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley, and plate ,
facing p. .
. Salisbury and Salisbury, “Accurate Surveys and Descriptions of the Ancient
Eart hworks at Newark, Ohio”; Squier and Davis, Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi
Valley; and Wyrick, “Ancient Works near Newark, Licking County, Ohio.”
. Squier and Davis, Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley, .
. Ibid., emphasis in original.
. Ibid.
. Wilson, “Mounds near Newark,” .
. Ibid.
. Salisbury and Salisbury, “Accurate Surveys and Descriptions of the Ancient
Earthworks at Newark, Ohio.”
. Wilson, “Mounds near Newark,” .
. W. Mills, “Explorations of the Seip Mound”; and W. Mills, “Exploration of the
Tremper Mound.”
. Byers, Sacred Games, Death, and Renewal in the Ancient Eastern Woodlands, .
. This note leaves open the intriguing possibility that a signicant portion of the
Cherry Valley Mound may be preserved intact beneath the railroad embank ment. The
irony of such a possibility is striking, but the potential for addressing our profound
lack of data for this component of the Newark Earthworks should be kept in mind as
opportunities for investigation present themselves in the future.
. Wilson, “Mounds near Newark,” .
. Ibid.
. Whittlesey, “Field book, July , .”
. Wilson, “Mounds near Newark,” .
. Whittlesey, “Field book, July , ,” .
. Wilson, “Mounds near Newark,” .
. Whittlesey, “Field book, July , ,” .
. Wilson, “Mounds near Newark,” .
• Bradley T. Lepper
. Ibid.
. Ibid.
. Dragoo and Wray, “Hopewell Figurine Rediscovered,” .
. Ibid., –.
. “Bones of an Ancient People Found by Henry Barrett Short Distance below
Earth’s Surface near His Home in West Newark on Tuesday,” Newark Daily Advocate,
Nov. , , .
. Greber, “Recent Excavations at the Edwin Harness Mound, Liberty Works, Ross
County, Ohio.”
. Byers, Sacred Games, Death, and Renewal in the Ancient Eastern Woodlands.
. Hall, “Ghosts, Water Barriers, Corn, and Sacred Enclosures in the Eastern
Woodlands.”
. Preston, “Spiritual Magnetism,” .
. Byers, Sacred Games, Death, and Renewal in the Ancient Eastern Woodlands, .
. Morinis, Sacred Journeys; and E. Turner, “Pilgrimage.”
. E.g., Malville and Malville, “Pilgrimage and Periodic Festivals as Processes of
Social Integration in Chaco Canyon”; Joy McCorriston, Pilgrimage and Household in
the Ancient Near East (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ); Silverman, “The
Early Nasca Pilgrimage Center of Cahuachi and the Nazca Lines”; and Silverman in
this volume.
. Lepper, “Tracking Ohio’s Great Hopewell Road.”
. Lepper, “The Great Hopewell Road and the Role of Pilgrimage in the Hopewell
Interaction Sphere.”
. David A. Freidel and Jeremy A. Sablo, Cozumel, Late Maya Settlement Patterns
(Orlando, FL: Academic, ), ; and Stanzione, “Walking Is Knowing.”
. Chaudhuri and Chaudhuri, A Sacred Path, .
. Moorehead, “Fort Ancient,” .
. E.g., Agarwal and Glencross, Social Bioarchaeology; and Buikstra and Beck,
Bioarchaeology.
. Pennefather-O’Brien, “Biological Anities among Middle Woodland Popula-
tions Associated with the Hopewell Horizon.”
. Bolnick, “The Genetic Prehistory of Eastern North America”; Shook, Schultz,
and Smith, “Using Ancient mtDNA to Reconstruct the Population History of North-
eastern North America”; L. Mills, “Mitochondria l DNA Analysis of the Ohio Hopewell
of the Hopewell Mound Group”; and L. Mills, “Mitochondrial DNA Analysis of the
Ohio Hopewell of the Hopewell Mound Group.”
. Byers, Sacred Games, Death, and Renewal in the Ancient Eastern Woodlands.
. Ironically, the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act
“nal rule” for the disposition of culturally unidentiable human remains, which
mandates the disposition of these remains to Native American claimants with no
demonstrable biological or cultural aliation to them, may result in the loss of the
rich biohistorical archives preserved in the bones of people excavated from the classic
A Monumental Engine of World Renewal •
Hopewell sites, which are, for now, curated at museums around the country. And this
erasure of history will be due, not just to the callous vandalism of European Americans
who did not value the American Indian heritage they wantonly destroyed at Newark,
but to the political maneuverings of a few activist bureaucrats in the Department of the
Interior who believe that scientic eorts to listen to and share these faint voices made
of bone, to use the evocative phrase of the Choctaw archaeologist Dorothy Lippert,
“In Front of the Mirror,” are a combination of colonialist exploitation and ghoulish
perversity. See Seidemann, “Altered Meanings,” for an analysis of these deeply awed
regulations.
. Byers, Sacred Games, Death, and Renewal in the Ancient Eastern Woodlands, .
. Squier and Davis, Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley, .
. Byers, Sacred Games, Death, and Renewal in the Ancient Eastern Woodlands,
–.
