CHILLICOTHE — For 400 years, Indigenous North Americans flocked to a group of ceremonial sites in what is present-day Ohio to celebrate their culture and honor their dead.
The sheer magnitude of the ancient Hopewell culture’s reach was lifted up to a new set of visitors from around the world Saturday.
Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma Chief Glenna Wallace says the Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks’ UNESCO World Heritage designation means the world now knows ancient Native Americans were “uncommon geniuses.”
“That means that this place was the center of North America, the center of culture, the center of happenings, the center for Native Americans, the center for religion, the center for spirituality, the center for love, the center for peace,” Wallace said. “Here, in Chillicothe. And that is what Chillicothe represents today.”
The eight earthworks sites are described as “part cathedral, part cemetery and part astronomical observatory.”
They stretch across 90 miles in central and southern Ohio, including Licking County.
World Heritage inscription commemoration events are scheduled for Sunday at the site of the Newark Earthworks, including the Great Circle Earthworks on Hebron Road in Heath and the Octagon Earthworks on N. 33rd Street in Newark.
Inscription events took place last weekend at the Fort Ancient Earthworks and Nature Preserve in Oregonia, in southwest Ohio.