Hopewell Culture National Historical Park
| Hopewell Culture National Historical Park | |
|---|---|
|
IUCN category V (protected landscape/seascape)
|
|
Restored Indian mounds in the Mound City Group site of Hopewell Culture NHP in 2006
|
|
 
|
|
| Location | Ross County, Ohio, United States |
| Nearest city | Chillicothe, Ohio |
| Coordinates | 39°22′33″N 83°00′23″W / 39.37583°N 83.00639°WCoordinates: 39°22′33″N 83°00′23″W / 39.37583°N 83.00639°W |
| Area | 1,170 acres (4.7 km2) |
| Established | March 2, 1923 |
| Visitors | 33,834 (in 2011) |
| Governing body | National Park Service |
| Website | Hopewell Culture National Historical Park |
Hopewell Culture National Historical Park is a United States national historical park with earthworks and burial mounds from the Hopewell culture, indigenous peoples who flourished from about 200 BC to AD 500. The park is composed of six separate sites in Ross County, Ohio, including the former Mound City Group National Monument. The park includes archaeological resources of the Hopewell culture. It is administered by the United States Department of the Interior's National Park Service.
In January of 2008 the Department of the Interior included Hopewell Culture National Historical Park as part of the "Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks", one of 14 sites on its "tentative list" from which the United States makes nominations for the UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
From about 200 BC to AD 500, the Ohio River Valley was a central area of the prehistoric Hopewell culture. The term Hopewell (taken from an the land owner who owned the land where one of the mound complexes was located) culture is applied to a broad network of beliefs and practices among different Native American peoples who inhabited a large portion of eastern North America. The culture is characterized by its construction of enclosures made of earthen walls, often built in geometric patterns, and mounds of various shapes. Visible remnants of Hopewell culture are concentrated in the Scioto River valley near present-day Chillicothe, Ohio.
The most striking Hopewell sites contain earthworks in the form of squares, circles, and other geometric shapes. Many of these sites were built to a monumental scale, with earthen walls up to 12 feet (3.7 m) high outlining geometric figures more than 1,000 feet (300 m) across. Conical and loaf-shaped earthen mounds up to 30 feet (9.1 m) 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 man hours, as people carried the earth in handwoven baskets.
...
Wikipedia