Thursday marks one year since Ohio's Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks were inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List, designating them as being of outstanding universal value. Tourism at the sites has seen a boost, according to Ohio History Connection.
Locally, at Fort Ancient Earthworks & Nature Preserve in Warren County, Site Manager Bill Kennedy says visitor numbers are up about 25%.
"We've had a lot of increased attention at Fort Ancient because of the inscription on the World Heritage List," says Kennedy, "which is great because a big part of why you want to do something like this is so that you can tell that story wider."
RELATED: Ohio's Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks are now a UNESCO World Heritage site
Kennedy says a lot of visitors are non-citizens who are living in the U.S. because they tend to be more familiar with World Heritage and what it means. There are only 26 World Heritage properties in the United States. The Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks were number 25 when added last year.
Visitors are also arriving better informed, Kennedy says.
"The visitors who are coming in are generally coming with a lot more questions. They're much more engaged," Kennedy says. "That's been very, very positive to see. They're coming in having done, usually, a little bit of reading before they come in, maybe not a lot, but they've at least familiarized themselves enough to kind of understand something about the Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks."
There are plans to upgrade the museum at Fort Ancient, which details the full expanse of American Indian prehistory in Ohio. The museum and its exhibits were largely built-out in the 1990s, Kennedy explains, and are in need of a refresh.
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"Fort Ancient is the largest and most comprehensive museum about American Indian prehistory [in Ohio] because it attempts to tell the entire story, beginning in the Ice Age and also going up to and after European contact," he says. "There's nowhere else in the state that attempts to tell that whole story."
Events marking the one-year anniversary are planned for Thursday at Fort Ancient and will run through the weekend. Highlights include a plaque dedication Sept. 19 at 3 p.m., guided site tours, and a presentation on ancient timber architecture.
Events are also planned at some of the other sites that comprise the Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks, many of which have also seen an increase in visitors over the past year. The sites are operated by Ohio History Connection and the National Park Service.
"The last year has been amazing," Jennifer Altman, chief historic sites officer at Ohio History Connection, which operates most of the Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks sites. "We have been doing a lot of a lot of sharing about the World Heritage sites and what World Heritage means. I think World Heritage is kind of a new idea for a lot of people in Ohio, so that's been really exciting to share that this is the highest designation in the world for cultural heritage."
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Altman says Ohio History Connection is focusing on three areas moving forward:
- Creating a trail of some sort that connects the eight Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks sites, which span southern Ohio from Fort Ancient in the west to Newark and Chillicothe. The plan is for a driving trail modeled on Hadrian's Wall in England, which would include restaurants, shops, accommodations, and activities linking the towns along the route.
- Improving on-site visitor experiences.
- The upcoming public opening of the Octagon Earthworks, set for Jan. 1, 2025. Those earthworks had been at the center of a years-long legal battle which concluded in August.
Matthew Allen/Ohio History Connection
What are the Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks?
Ohio may not top your list of greatest destinations, but 2,000 years ago people from across North America converged here to build giant earthen walls and mounds in precise patterns like squares, circles, octagons and large enclosures. Their design and construction indicate these early peoples had a clear understanding of geometry, architecture, and solar and lunar patterns and alignments.
" 'Hopewell' is an American Indian religious movement that 2,000 years ago really swept over half the continent, and for a period of about 400 years, many different native communities all across eastern North America were sort of linked together by common ideas about the cosmos and their relationships to one another in the cosmos," explains Bret Ruby Ph.D., archaeologist and chief of resource stewardship at Hopewell Culture National Historical Park in Chillicothe, Ohio.
RELATED: Southern Ohio's most sacred cultural sites are now on World Heritage List
"These earthworks in southern Ohio were sacred centers in this continent-wide religious movement."
The Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks encompass eight sites:
- Fort Ancient Earthworks and Nature Preserve
- Hopewell Culture National Historical Park (5 geographically separate elements)
- Mound City Group
- Hopewell Mound Group
- Seip Earthworks
- High Bank Earthworks
- Hopeton Earthworks
- Newark Earthworks
What about Serpent Mound?
There are two other proposals on the U.S. Tentative List for World Heritage inscription: Serpent Mound and Dayton Aviation Sites.
Serpent Mound is arguably Ohio's most recognizable and widely known earthen mound, so why isn't it part of this World Heritage nomination? After all, it is the "largest documented surviving example of an ancient effigy mound in the world," points out World Heritage Ohio.
The answer is actually pretty simple: the impressive serpentine structure is believed to have been built several hundred years after the Hopewell era. Therefore it would be historically inappropriate to include it in this grouping.
It is being considered for its own nomination.
