"There's peace here"

HEATH, Ohio – The waxing crescent moon still hung over Licking County as a UNESCO committee 6,887 miles east in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, voted Tuesday to give world heritage status to the Great Circle and Octagon Earthworks in Newark and six other Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks in Ohio.

The Ohio earthworks in Newark, Chillicothe and Warren County join about 1,000 sites worldwide and a group of only 24 other U.S world heritage sites, including the Statue of Liberty, Independence Hall, Yellowstone National Park and Mammoth Cave National Park.

Presentation of Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks to UNESCO, Tuesday, September 19, about 5 a.m. EST.

Presentation of Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks to UNESCO, Tuesday, September 19, about 5 a.m. EST.

Soon after the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization committee vote was tallied early Tuesday, Lori Miller was taking a walk at the Great Circle Earthworks, just off Hebron Road across from the Giant Eagle grocery store and Coughlin Ford in Heath.

“It’s like being dropped into a different world here,” Miller said, the hum of cars on Route 79 behind her. “Even though there’s all this city around us, we come into a site that’s ancient. There’s peace here.”

Lori Miller makes a morning pilgrimage to the Great Circle in all kinds of weather. Photo by Doug Swift.

Lori Miller makes a morning pilgrimage to the Great Circle in all kinds of weather. Photo by Doug Swift.

When her husband died two years ago she struggled, but something drew her here. She started coming almost every morning. On her walks, she has seen a red fox, a bald eagle, a Cooper’s hawk, an osprey, and about 20 other species of birds.

“It has really helped me work through a lot of things,” Miller said. “I’m grateful that it’s here and protected and cared for the way it is.”

It’s amazing that the site was recognized, Miller said. “It’s kind of overwhelming really. I wish more people could partake in the peacefulness that is here.”

More people are likely to travel here and experience that feeling after Tuesday’s UNESCO designation.

“Inscription on the World Heritage List will call international attention to these treasures long known to Ohioans,” said Megan Wood, Executive Director and CEO of the Ohio History Connection.

The Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks, which include five locations managed by the National Park Service and three managed by the Ohio History Connection, were built by Native Americans between 1,600 and 2,000 years ago, the History Connection said in a release. “The earthworks are complex masterpieces of landscape architecture and are exceptional among ancient monuments worldwide in their enormous scale, geometric precision and astronomical alignments,” the organization said.

The National Park Service’s Hopewell Culture National Historical Park in Chillicothe includes the Mound City Group, Hopewell Mound Group, Seip Earthworks, High Bank Works and Hopeton Earthworks.

The Ohio History Connection's Great Circle Earthworks and Octagon Earthworks are in Heath and Newark, respectively, and Fort Ancient Earthworks & Nature Preserve is in Oregonia.

According to Jeff Gill of Granville, who volunteers as a tour guide at the Great Circle Earthworks and worked on the nomination to UNESCO for world heritage status, said he first talked with archaeologist Brad Lepper and Dick Shiels, emeritus associate professor of history at Ohio State University-Newark, about seeking the designation in1999. The formal process began in 2006.

“Now, there’s global recognition of something that should have happened long ago,” said Gill, a retired pastor who has a passion for history and writing.

“It started around here with those folks, but over the years, it developed into a cohort that includes Chief Glenna Wallace, of the Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma, and leaders from the Ohio History Connection, among others,” he said.

The site was nominated under two specific criteria:

“The Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks are Masterpieces of Human Creative Genius. And the Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks bear a unique testimony to the tradition of the Indigenous Hopewell culture of two millennia ago.”

From a purely pragmatic perspective, Gill said, “We already get people from around the world who have learned about it. But the thing is that we’re getting most of our national and international visitors as daytrippers. … But what we should be able to do is to say, ‘Don’t just stop here, but stay a few nights.’” And, he said, they will begin to learn about the greater context that links the Earthworks to places such as nearby Blackhand Gorge and Flint Ridge, which were important sites for ancient Native Americans.

Gill said that the Earthworks were places of gathering, and may have been places of pilgrimage.

“Stuff was brought here from all over the continent – people were brought together to this space,” Gill said.

It is happening again, he said, and because of the UNESCO decision, it will happen even more.

Marcus Boroughs, creative director with local nonprofit Great Circle Alliance, which is working to raise awareness of the importance of the sites with programs that bring Native American artists and the public to the sites.

“It’s a huge moment for Ohio, because the designation does not come easily,” Boroughs said. “It tells us a lot about these sites, because they’ve been recognized internationally.”

He hopes that it will bring a deeper understanding, not just for the sites but also for the cultures of the people who lived here. “They were not just abstract thinkers and engineers, but I think we can learn a lot from these people who were right on our doorsteps.”

The Great Circle Alliance will be bringing “Native American artists to Ohio so that they can respond to the sites through the same lens as the people who lived here. I can’t do that,” Boroughs said.

Gill said the earthworks help us better understand this place Ohioans call home – and to reflect on the people who were here who have been displaced.

“I think the more we can understand the landscape,” Gill said, “we can become better rooted in that place and in the flow of history. If you have no history or sense of belonging in the place where you live, then you are going to be adrift.

“One thing that to me is so important is to just get grounded in the fact that it is a remarkable place, and the hilltops around us and the sun and the moon above us and what has been built here,” he said. “You just get more connected to where you live.”