Newark Earthworks
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Newark Earthworks
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View along the main wall and the moat from the outside of the Great Circle. The break in the wall - the traditional entrance - is visible in the far distance.
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| Location | Roughly bounded by Union, 30th, James, and Waldo Sts., and OH 16,Newark, Ohio |
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| Coordinates | 40°2′31.8″N 82°25′48.4″W / 40.042167°N 82.430111°WCoordinates: 40°2′31.8″N 82°25′48.4″W / 40.042167°N 82.430111°W |
| Architectural style | Hopewell culture |
| NRHP Reference # | 66000614 |
| Added to NRHP | October 10, 1966 |
The Newark Earthworks in Newark and Heath, Ohio, consist of three sections of preserved earthworks: the Great Circle Earthworks, the Octagon Earthworks, and the Wright Earthworks. This complex, built by the Hopewell culture between 100 AD and 500 AD, contains the largest earthen enclosures in the world, being about 3,000 acres in extent. Today, the preserved site covers 206 acres (83 ha), and is operated as a state park by the Ohio History Connection. A designated National Historic Landmark, in 2006, the Newark Earthworks was also designated as the "official prehistoric monument of the State of Ohio."
This is part of the Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks, one of 14 sites nominated in January 2008 by the U.S. Department of the Interior for potential submission by the US to the UNESCO World Heritage List.
Built by the pre-European contact Hopewell culture between 100 AD and 500 AD, the earthworks were used as places of ceremony, social gathering, trade, worship, and honoring the dead. However, the primary purpose of the Octagon earthwork itself was believed to have been scientific. The Newark Earthwork site is the largest surviving Hopewell earthwork complex in North America. The culture built many earthen mounds. Over decades, they built the single largest earthwork enclosure complex in the Ohio River Valley. The earthworks cover several square miles. Scholars have demonstrated that the Octagon Earthworks comprise a lunar observatory for tracking the moon's orbit during its 18.6-year cycle.
The 1,054-foot (321 m) wide Newark Great Circle is one of the largest circular earthwork in the Americas, at least in construction effort. A 5-foot (1.5 m) deep moat is encompassed by walls that are 8 feet (2.4 m) high; at the entrance, the dimensions are even more grand.
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