USA - Ohio - Hopewell Culture National Historic Park (Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks)

Hopewell Culture National Historic Park
Chillicothe, Ohio
From about AD1-400, the Ohio River Valley was a focal point of the prehistoric Hopewell Culture. The American Indians of the Hopewell culture left behind great geometric earthworks and burial mounds. Many of these sites were built to a monumental scale, within earthen walls up to 12 feet high, outlining geometric figures more than 1,000 feet across.

Sent by Tammy from Dayton in Tennessee, USA.

This property is a series of eight monumental earthen enclosure complexes built between 2,000 and 1,600 years ago along the central tributaries of the Ohio River. They are the most representative surviving expressions of the Indigenous tradition now referred to as the Hopewell culture. Their scale and complexity are evidenced in precise geometric figures as well as hilltops sculpted to enclose vast, level plazas. There are alignments with the cycles of the Sun and the far more complex cycles of the Moon. These earthworks served as ceremonial centres and the sites have yielded finely crafted ritual objects fashioned from exotic raw materials obtained from distant places (read more).