Hopewell — America’s Newest World Heritage Site

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The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, or

UNESCO, is the group responsible for designating the world's most treasured

places as World Heritage Sites. Places as unique and diverse as the wilds of

East Africa's Serengeti, the pyramids of Egypt, Machu Picchu in Peru, the Great

Barrier Reef in Australia, and the Baroque cathedrals of Latin America. The

United States is home to a couple dozen such sites, so it's a list more exclusive

than even the list of America's national parks. U.S. sites include the San Antonio

Missions, the Great Smoky Mountains, Yellowstone, and Yosemite, the Statue of

Liberty, Carlsbad Caverns. The most recent session of the World Heritage

Committee is taking place right now as I record this in Saudi Arabia, and it was

just announced that they are inscribing the 25th World Heritage Site in the

United States, a group of eight ancient earthwork sites in southern Ohio. I'm

Jason Epperson, and today on America's National Parks, Ohio's Hopewell Culture

National Historical Park.

After World War I wrapped up, folks around the world started thinking about

the destruction that befell some of the world's most cherished places, and

decided, hey, why not come together and protect our global treasures?

Unfortunately, it didn't happen before World War II or dozens of other major

conflicts, but in 1972, UNESCO stepped up and launched the World Heritage

Convention. Think of it as a mash-up of two ideas, one about saving cultural

spots and the other about keeping nature's wonders safe. The big goal? To

get countries to team up and look after places so special that everyone, now and

in the future, should get to enjoy them. The dream is to keep these spots safe

forever. These are places that belong to all of us, no matter where they are. It's a

true worldwide partnership, with over 1,000 of these incredible sites all over

the world. The first step towards gaining entry into the World Heritage

List is to be placed on a country's tentative list. The Hopewell Ceremonial

Earthworks was placed on the US tentative list back in 2008. The United

States can select one cultural site from the tentative list each year and

prepare a full World Heritage nomination. A formal advisory body, the

International Council on Monuments and Sites, evaluates the nomination to

determine whether the property has outstanding universal value. To meet the

test, the property must meet one or more of the ten World Heritage criteria, six

cultural and four natural. It must possess integrity and authenticity, and

must meet requirements for protection and management. On the basis of this

evaluation, the Council submits a recommendation to the World Heritage

Committee. The World Heritage Committee includes representatives of 21 nations

and meets once each year to render final decisions. 2,000 years ago, American

Indians of the Hopewell culture lived in scattered hamlets throughout the South

Central Ohio Valley. They would often come together to celebrate feasts,

funerals, and rites of passage. It's unclear how or exactly why they came

together, but when they did, they would construct monumental earthworks that

would span hundreds of acres of land. These earthworks were constructed

outward, since there was no means to construct upwards at the time. In doing

so, they created perfect geometric shapes, circles, squares, and octagons

throughout the current Ross County area. These complexes would encompass

hundreds of acres of land, with their massive earthen walls.

While earthworks were constructed throughout the area, one spot located on

the northern edge of present-day Chillicothe wound up being the most

significant of the culture, even though it was likely one of the smallest

earthworks ever created by the Hopewell. Mound City, located on Ohio Highway 104,

approximately four miles north of Chillicothe, is a group of 23 earthen

mounds. Each covers the remains of the cremated dead, along with artifacts such

as copper figures, arrow points, shells, and pipes. They didn't build all of the

mounds at once, but they were constructed individually and gradually. Long before a

mound was built, a small wooden frame building was fabricated. Once complete,

the building would host ceremonial funerals, where culturally significant

people were interred. The bones of these chosen few were cremated in a small,

shallow, clay-lined pit. Afterwards, the ashes were swept up and then placed on

the floor within the building, and then adorned with burial items made of exotic

natural materials that often came from long distances. Multiple ceremonies and

burials would take place within each building before the structures were

either taken down or burned down. After it was removed or burned, mound building

would commence, and all about 100 cremated remains were interred before

mounds were built over them. Not all of the mound areas contained human burials,

though. One mound covered the remains of several hundred pipestone effigy pipes

that were all broken inside of a bag before being interred. Objects left with

burials consist of flint from the Knife River in North Dakota, galena from the

southern shores of the Mississippi River, mica from the Blue Ridge Mountains in

Tennessee and North Carolina, copper from Lake Superior, and obsidian from the

Yellowstone area of Wyoming. Evidence shows that many of these materials were

brought to the site and area they were likely not traded for.

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After the Hopewell concluded their use of the site, it existed in a relatively

untouched state for nearly 18 centuries. With the influx of settlers into the

region in the 19th century, land that was once barren of human life started

teeming with activity to tame the land. New settlers cleared acres upon acres of

land and then utilized the fertile soils for large-scale farming. When farmers

encountered mysterious earthworks and mounds, they were often plowed under to

make room for a booming agriculture business. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of

earthworks and mounds met their demise by the farmer's blade. In the mid-19th

century, two amateur archaeologists saw the rapidly declining state of these

American Indian wonders and set out to document what was left in order to

preserve it for history. Dr. Edwin Davis and Ephraim Squire began a

partnership in the 1840s that would document hundreds of Hopewellian

earthwork sites in detail, including Mound City Group. Together, these men

would conduct surveys and limited excavations throughout the region and at

Mound City in an effort to learn about the mysterious people of the Hopewell

culture. Their survey maps were proven to be so useful and well done that they

are still in use by archaeologists today. When the Civil War broke out in 1861,

local militia utilized the land for drilling and training and referred to it

as Camp Logan. After the Civil War, the lands of Mound City and those

surrounding it would revert back to farming until the early part of the 20th

century. As farmers set their plow blades back into the soils in and around Mound

City Group, mounds once again began to shrink in size. By the time the army

purchased the lands in 1917, many of the mounds of Mound City Group were only

shadows of what they once were. In June of 1917, Mound City Group would be

relegated to memory, as mostly all of the remaining visible mounds would be

concealed by massive two-story wooden buildings for the next five years.

Many of these sites were built to a monumental scale, with earthen walls up

to 12 feet high, outlining geometric figures more than a thousand feet across.

Conical and loaf-shaped earthenworks up to 30 feet high are often found in

association with the geometric earthworks. The people who built them had

a detailed knowledge of the local soils, and they combined different types to

provide the most stability to the works. It required the organized labor of

thousands of hours, as people carried the earth in hand-woven baskets. During World

War I, the United States Army constructed a military training base,

Camp Sherman, on the site. After the war, they razed the camp. The Ohio Historical

Society conducted an archaeological excavation from 1920 to 1922, followed by

a reconstruction of the mounds. The Department of the Interior declared the

Mound City Group a national monument to be administered by the federal

government. In 1992, Mound City Group was renamed and expanded as Hopewell

Culture National Historical Park. Its definition included remnants of four

other nearby earthwork and mound systems. Two Ross County sites are within a few

miles of Mound City and open to the public. Another is about 17 miles west of

Chillicothe on U.S. Route 50. Hopewell Mound Group is the site of the 1891

excavation on the land of Mordecai Hopewell, for whom the culture is named.

Three of the Hopewell Ceremonial Earthwork sites are managed by the Ohio

History Connection, while the other five are managed by the National Park Service

as a part of the Hopewell Culture National Historical Park. Fifteen mound

complexes, earlier identified in the county, have been lost to agriculture or

urban development. The National Park Service manages all or part of 19 of the

25 World Heritage Sites in the United States. It's also the principal U.S.

government agency responsible for implementing the World Heritage

Convention in cooperation with the Department of State. The selection of the

Hopewell earthworks is particularly special this year, as it's the 100th

anniversary of its dedication as a national park.

This episode of America's National Parks was hosted by me, Jason Epperson. If you

enjoyed the show, please consider leaving us a rating and a review. If you're new

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your feed. If you're looking for photos and tips about visiting national parks,

check out our America's National Parks Facebook group, and if you're interested

in RV travel, we hope you'll also check out our RV Miles podcast and YouTube

channel. Today's show was sponsored by L.L. Bean. Follow the hashtag be an

outsider and visit LLBean.com to find great gear for exploring the national

parks. And by Solo Stove. Use promo code Parks20 to get $20 off your next

purchase of $200 or more at Solostove.com