Hopewell Tradition - Mounds

Mounds

Today, the best-surviving features of the Hopewell Tradition era are mounds built for uncertain purposes. Great geometric earthworks are one of the most impressive Native American monuments throughout American prehistory. Eastern Woodlands mounds have various geometric shapes and rise to impressive heights. The function of the mounds is still under debate. Due to considerable evidence and surveys, plus the good survival condition of the largest mounds, more information can be obtained.

Several scientists, including Dr. Bradley T. Lepper, Curator of Archaeology, Ohio Historical Society, hypothesize that the Octagon earthwork at Newark, Ohio, was a lunar observatory oriented to the 18.6 year cycle of minimum and maximum lunar risings and settings on the local horizon. Dr. John Eddy completed an unpublished survey in 1978, and proposed a lunar major alignment for the Octagon. Ray Hively and Robert Horn of Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana were the first researchers to analyze numerous lunar sightlines at the Newark Earthworks (1982) and the High Banks Works (1984) in Chillicothe, Ohio. Christopher Turner noted that the Fairground Circle in Newark, Ohio aligns to the sunrise on May 4, i.e. that it marked the May cross-quarter sunrise. In 1983 Turner demonstrated that the Hopeton Earthworks encode various sunrise and moonrise patterns, including the winter and summer solstices, the equinoxes, the cross-quarter days, the lunar maximum events, and the lunar minimum events.

William F. Romain has written a book on the subject of "astronomers, geometers, and magicians" at the earthworks.

Many of the mounds also contain various types of burials.