Along the Way: Kent State professor celebrates Hopewell's UNESCO designation

The ancient earthworks of Hopewell in Chillicothe and Newark achieved designation as a World Cultural Site in 2023.

The designation was granted by the United Nations Educational, Scientific & Cultural Organization, and retired Kent State University anthropology professor Mark Seeman says it’s a major honor.

“It places the earthworks, attributed to people of the Hopewell Culture who flourished in southern Ohio between 1 CE and 350 CE, in a class reserved for the Egyptian pyramids and Stonehenge in England,” he said.

The United States has only 25 other World Heritage Sites. Others include Mesa Verde National Park, the Grand Canyon, and Yellowstone and Yosemite National Parks.

Seeman said the UNESCO designation recognizes the “outstanding universal value” of Hopewell.

“(It) recognizes these places as part of our common world heritage – as irreplaceable sources of life and inspiration from the past, what we live today, and what we pass on to future generations,” Seeman said.

The retired professor emeritus’ career as a research scholar focused on the people of the Hopewell Culture. As a teacher, he inspired many others, including National Park Service archaeologist Bret Ruby, Ph.D., and Kent State graduate who took a leading role in writing the nomination.

Seeman was not involved in the nomination process, but his work is cited.

Located primarily in the Chillicothe area, the sites consist of the Mound City Group, the Hopewell Mound Group, Seip Earthworks, High Bank Earthworks, Hopeton Earthworks, the Great Circle Earthworks, the Octagon Earthworks and Fort Ancient Earthworks.

The UNESCO designation is projected to have a major impact on tourism in the region.

The earthworks are huge geometric constructions of conjoined circles, squares, octagons and parallel walls that show shared dimensions and arrangements. Their earthen walls, built one basket-load at a time, can extend for several miles. Some contain large burial mounds as well as platform mounds for other purposes. Some earthworks line up with the sun at the summer solstice.

“By aligning their earthworks to the sun and moon, Hopewell peoples sought to bring to bear the powers of the cosmos to the ceremonies and feast conducted within these sacred precincts,” Seeman said. “The Hopewell earthworks of southern Ohio show a sophistication not found elsewhere in North America at that time. We know based on artifacts that people from as far away as Florida, Georgia and Illinois regularly visited and participated in the Hopewell rich ceremonial life.”

Ohio’s Hopewell people lived in large square homes, scattered throughout the main river valleys, capable of housing 20 or more extended family members. They hunted, fished and gathered wild plants and nuts, but they were also farmers growing crops such as pumpkins, sunflowers, little barley and high-nicotine tobacco.

The first Europeans who penetrated southern Ohio in the 1700s knew of the Hopewell earthworks but thought they were the remains of an ancient race of “Moundbuilders” that were not the ancestors of the American Indians they kept encountering. “It was racist thinking that these people were not capable of having achieved what these earthworks represented,” Seeman said.

The name Hopewell dates back to the 1880s and refers to Mordecai Hopewell on whose farm some of the largest and most complex mounds and earthworks were built nearly 2,000 years ago. Professional excavations revealed exotic materials brought to the site: Obsidian from as far as Yellowstone, conch shells from Florida, and silver and copper from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Artifacts found included beautifully carved animal-effigy smoking pipes, large spool-shaped earrings of copper, silver and meteoric iron, decorative breastplates made out of copper, and elaborate costumer elements made of mica and copper.

Artifacts from the early Hopewell excavations were exhibited in the Chicago World’s Fair of 1898 and subsequently went to Chicago’s Field Museum. Hopewell Culture artifacts and records from other southern Ohio sites are curated at Harvard’s Peabody Museum, the British Museum, the Ohio History Connection (formerly known as the Ohio Historical Society), and the Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa.

Many Native Americans feel the ancient Hopewell Earthworks are sacred and that excavators have disrespected their heritage.  They want to be involved in future interpretations and excavations.

In 1990, Congress approved the Native American and Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. It requires federal agencies and institutions that receive federal funds, such as museums, universities and governments, to repatriate or transfer Native American human remains and other cultural items to the appropriate parties.

All of the UNESCO Hopewell Ceremonial Earth work sites are owned by the National Park Service, the Ohio History Connection or the state of Ohio. One site, leased to the Newark Country Club as an 18-hole golf course of the Newark Country Club, is the subject of a court dispute. The Mound City Group Site, which had been used as training grounds for the Ohio National Guard, fell under the protection of the federal government in 1923 when President Warren G. Harding signed the Mound City Group National Monument Act.

It remains unclear why people of the Hopewell Culture faded from existence after 350 CE. Seeman said the best evidence is that people lost their belief in the value of such large-scale public practices and became more involved in local expression of community identity. Although many federal, state, university, and tribal groups pushed for UNESCO World Heritage status, the Shawnee – former Ohio residents – have become leading advocates for their preservation.  Seeman said the best interpretive exhibits regarding Ohio Hopewell culture are at the Ohio History Connection in Columbus and at the Fort Ancient Earthworks near Lebanon, Ohio. Chillicothe has a tourist center.

Retired, Seeman remains affiliated with the Society for American Archeology.  Active in historic and archeological preservation, he served as president of the Ohio Historic Site Preservation Advisory Board.  Along with several others, he was instrumental in securing the site of the Kent State May 4,1970 shootings being named on the National Register of Historic Places and as a National Historic Landmark. Seeman and his wife, Linda, reside in Kent.  She is retired from Portage County Job and Family Services and now volunteers with the Socially Responsible Sweatshop, the Portage Park District, and the Retired Senior Volunteer Program.

David E. Dix is a retired Record-Courier publisher.

This article originally appeared on The Repository: KSU professor Mark Seeman knows value of Hopewell UNESCO site honor