Fortified with gluten-free donuts, we set off south from Columbus to visit three Scioto Valley sites dedicated to preserving earthworks built by pre-European peoples. We talked a lot about the “mound builders” when I was going to school as a boy in Ohio, but I can’t recollect actually visiting any of the sites.
The first two were built by what we know as the Hopewell culture, Mound City, north of Chillicothe (first capital of Ohio)…
…and the Seip Earthworks, southwest of town. This section of a circular wall has been reconstructed; original or not, it’s impressive.
The orderly groundskeeping by the NPS makes you wonder what the Hopewell did to keep these enclosing ceremonial walls tidy. Certainly they didn’t have access to golf course fescue for planting.
We continued southwest, and after recovering from a wrong turn in the town of Bainbridge and chasing the setting sun, we proceeded to Serpent Mound, near Peebles. Current scholarship now attributes this work to the Fort Ancient people. The two approaches could not be more different. Where the Hopewell sites are geometric and situated on level ground, the Fort Ancient construction is organic, undulating along a ridgetop. It reminds me of Andy Goldsworthy’s wall at Storm King. The one thing the sites have in common is proximity to a watercourse.