Junction Earthworks—Honoring Our Past the Adena Man Effigy Pipe, Recovered in Chillicothe, Ohio; Recently Named Ohio’S State Artifact
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Junction Earthworks—Honoring Our Past The Adena man effigy pipe, recovered in Chillicothe, Ohio; recently named Ohio’s state artifact. If the ruins of a Roman bath two hundred years in Ohio, we’ve leveled thousands of earth- house in England, or the Temple works; building cities, housing developments and even golf of Artemis in Turkey, were to come courses right on top of them. The destruction continues today, up for sale today at public auction with no laws to protect them. The reason that Junction’s news as potential development sites, the didn’t reach us is simple. It wasn’t news. outrage would make international One of the most famous mounds in all of Eastern United news. But when Junction Works, State is the Adena Mound of Chillicothe, the type site for the an ancient ceremonial site of the Adena Culture and the place where the beautiful Adena Man same antiquity was listed for auc- Pipe was uncovered, recently named Ohio’s state artifact. tion in Chillicothe, Ohio, mention The Adena Mound stood 26 feet high, and was the burial site of the property’s historic earth- for thirty-three American Indians. Today you can still visit works didn’t even make the auc- Orange Street through a handsome suburban community, and It wasn’t until twenty days staythis moundalert. When in the you heart feel of yourself Chillicothe. going To over find a it,small travel bump down in tion flyer. before auction that the news even the road, you are there. That’s what’s left of it. trickled into the preservation com- Values are nevertheless evolving. For example, in England, munity. Ten days later, when Saving a country approximately the same size as Ohio, a tourist can the Junction’s Coalition members - were discussing the preservation cient rubble are now valuable artifacts, and ancient sites are dilemma with sympathetic sellers thevisit country’s thirty-five greatest preserved tourist Roman attractions. ruins. In There Italy, ispieces an increas of an- around a kitchen table, the fam- ing commitment on our side of the Atlantic to save our own an- ily members’ most pressing ques- cient monuments as well. Unfortunately, compared to Europe, tions were, “Why didn’t we under- we are still a bit of a frontier nation, and our sentiment for an- cient history lags behind that of the Old World. This is especial- own before now?” and “What took ly true in Eastern United States, where native monuments of youstand so the long significance to show up?” of what we antiquity are mostly constructed of earth, as opposed to stone, The answers to these ques- and are especially vulnerable to destruction. The groundswell tions are related. A few centuries of citizen support to save Junction Works is an inspiring and ago, Italians were rolling away sec- hopeful example of shifting attitudes. tions of marble columns from the Roman Forum, a convenient Here in the East, we owe it to future generations to be bet- quarry for their home foundations. Similarly, in Ohio, early set- ter caretakers of our past. American Indians have been living tlers plowed right over American Indian’s greatest ceremonial in Ohio for at least 16,000 years, ever since the melting glaciers earthwork complexes to increase their corn yields. In the last The Forest People The Arc of Appalachia has a penchant for including ancient monuments of American Indians within its nature preserve boundaries. Indigenous people knew our land when ridge tops were covered with chestnut trees and mighty rivers ran clear and wild; when the calls of the passenger pigeons greeted the dawn, and panthers and wolves still prowled the land. The Arc’s primary mission of reuniting Ohio’s broken forest fragments is wedded to a commitment to honor native cultures who knew the forest and its wildlife inhabitants more intimately than we can hope to resurrect today. The Hopewell ceremonial pipe insets shown here illustrate how their relationships with wild animals of the Eastern Forest inspired their artistic creations. Cultural Center for Ancient Cultures Hopewell Culture’s major geometric earthwork complexes retreated long enough for the land to rebound with life. That’s belonged to the now extinct eastern agricultural complex that 32 times longer than our land has been occupied by citizens of preceded the inclusion of beans and corn. Wild plants and European descent. wild game continued to be important food sources throughout the mound building era. The people responsible for these im- All eras of Native American inhabitation had some form mense architectural achievements lived in small family ham- of ritual burials, many of them incorporating mounds. How- lets scattered on river terraces. Judging from the relative lack ever, cultures living in Ohio from 1000 BC to 400 AD, including of skeletons exhibiting signs of violence, it is speculated they the Adena Culture, and their likely descendants, the Hopewell lived in a relatively peaceful era on earth. Culture, created burial mounds and other ceremonial mounds on an impressively large scale. When early European pioneers Relative peace may be one of the reasons both cultures moved into Ohio, they settled onto a landscape already dra- had an extraordinary geographical outreach. The Hopewell, matically altered by 10,000 mounds, most of which were built even more so than the Adena, apparently made epic journeys during the Adena-Hopewell cultural period of creativity. as far away as the Rocky Mountains, Michigan and Florida in search of valued exotic materials—copper, sea shells, mica and Although the Adena and the Hopewell were agricultural- obsidian—that were later crafted into inspired art pieces back ists and not strictly hunter-gatherers, their domestic crops in Chillicothe and other cultural centers. A Diversity of Earthworks Miamisburg: Solitary Mound Solitary Circular Enclosure Newark Earthworks: Large Geometric Complex More than mounds... The Adena Culture is known for engineering the tallest a mirroring promenade exited the river, leading to a second mounds of the moundbuilding era. The Miamisburg Mound in grand earthworks complex. How impressive these ceremonial Ohio is a stunning example at 68 feet high and 852 feet across. grounds must have been in their day! Constructing this feature would have taken over two million In Europe, notably in England, other early cultures sculpt- baskets of dirt. But mounds are only one of many types of Na- ed ceremonial grounds out of earth, but never on the scale tive American earthworks. Both the Adena and the Hopewell and grandeur employed by Eastern American Indians, making also built hundreds of small earthen walled enclosures in the shape of circles and rounded squares, most likely to outline sa- dozen large earthwork complexes were constructed by the cred spaces for family-sized ceremonial gatherings. Ohio’s ancient monuments of world significance. Over three The crowning expression of more ambitious earthwork construction, however, is credited to the Hopewell Culture. On the outer bluffs to demarcate immense gathering sites. Such loftyselected ridgetop flat ridgetops enclosures they are built well high preserved earthen at walls Fort outlining Hill and Fort Ancient, two of perhaps a dozen ever built. Even more - plains. Earthwork complexes include several components. Tall earthengrand, however, walls up were to 12 earthwork feet high complexeswere erected built in onthe the shape flood of precise circles and squares, commonly enclosing a few dozen acres of land and sometimes a collection of mounds. These geometric enclosures were in turn connected together with short earthen-walled gateways and long walled promenades, the latter often leading to a nearby river. The complexes were frequently aligned with major astronomical events. The resulting architectural groupings were so immense they could only be fully appreciated from the bluffs of nearby Fort Hill: hilltops. Newark Earthworks, the largest of the Hopewell com- Ridgetop Enclosure plexes, once covered 3000 acres—truly one of the wonders of the world. Hopewell Mound Group at Hopewell Culture Na- tional Historical Park had two miles of walls enclosing over 40 mounds. At what is today Portsmouth, an earthwork com- plex was built that included a walled promenade entering the Ohio River. On the opposite shore in what is now Kentucky, Hopewell Culture, almost every one of them in southern Ohio. damaged, and few above-ground features are visible today. Tragically, all of these floodplain complexes have been badly The Story of Junction Junction Earthworks was so named for its proximity to the - madeNorth ofFork’s raised confluence earthen wallswith Paintand ringed Creek. withAn arc ditches; of nine cover cere- ingmonial roughly earthworks 20 acres compose of land. theOne grouping—geometric of the mounds is in a figures shape unique to all moundbuilder architecture—a quatrefoil, other- wise known as a four leaf clover. Three earthworks enclose a mound, and a fourth mound is situated to the west, overlook- ing Paint Creek. When the early 19th century surveyors, Squier Aerial photograph of and Davis, excavated one of the mounds, they uncovered sev- Junction Works taken in eral burials below the plow zone as well as plentiful charcoal 1934. The same earth- and a clay basin used for ceremonially burning special objects, works are still visible possibly including the cremation of the dead. The surveyors from the air today. Photo - by Dache Reeves. ished with their studies, and here the bones of our land’s an- cestors,returned as the well human as possibly remains others, to the remain earth whento this they day. were fin Lacking the coherency of large geometrically shaped walls tion’s nine earthworks are intact below the plow zone, making framing the site, Junction Works is simpler than the greatest Junction the best preserved site of its class.