The Great Hopewell Road is thought to connect the

Hopewell culture The Hopewell tradition, also called the Hopewell culture and Hopewellian exchange, describes a network of precontact Native American cultures that flourished in settlements along rivers in the northeastern and midwestern Eastern Woodlands from ...

(100 BCE-500 CE) monumental earthwork centers located at

Newark Newark most commonly refers to: * Newark, New Jersey, city in the United States * Newark Liberty International Airport, New Jersey; a major air hub in the New York metropolitan area Newark may also refer to: Places Canada * Niagara-on-the ...

and Chillicothe, a distance of through the heart of

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

, United States. The Newark complex was built 2,000 to 1800 years ago. In 1862, brothers Charles and James Salisbury surveyed the first of this road, noting it was marked by parallel

earthen Soil, also commonly referred to as earth or dirt, is a mixture of organic matter, minerals, gases, liquids, and organisms that together support life. Some scientific definitions distinguish ''dirt'' from ''soil'' by restricting the former term ...

banks almost apart and led from the

Newark Earthworks 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 BCE and 4 ...

. They said that the road extended much farther south from Newark in the direction of Chillicothe. Other 19th-century investigators, such as

Ephraim G. Squier Ephraim George Squier (June 17, 1821 – April 17, 1888), usually cited as E. G. Squier, was an American archaeologist, history writer, painter and newspaper editor. Biography Squier was born in Bethlehem, New York, the son of a minister, Joel S ...

and Edwin H. Davis, also documented the walls of the road near Newark. The 2.5-mile section from the Newark Octagon south to Ramp Creek is now known as the "Van Voorhis Walls". In the 1930s, the area was surveyed by plane, revealing traces of the road extended for toward the Hopewellian center of present-day Chillicothe. Additional examination of the area with the new sensing technology of LiDAR (Light Detection And Ranging) adds confirmation to this finding and suggests a way to gain more evidence. This technology showed the road was lower than the surrounding land, sunk between the walls. Dr.

Brad Lepper Bradley Thomas Lepper (born November 19, 1955) is an American archaeologist best known for his work on ancient earthworks and ice age peoples in Ohio. Lepper is the Curator of Archaeology and Manager of Archaeology and Natural History at the Ohi ...

, the present-day champion of the Great Hopewell Road, claims that traces of the road remain at four additional places along the line connecting Newark and Chillicothe. Parts of the road can be seen from the air and with infrared photography. There is precedent for such a sacred road at other complexes. More "ground truthing" needs to be performed but the evidence is suggestive. The first 2.5 mi south of the parallel-walled roadway of the Newark Earthworks is known as the Van Voorhis Walls. It is a confirmed earthwork. This portion of the earthwork terminates a Ramp Creek, in Heath, Licking County, Ohio. South of there, the projected path of the Hopewell Road passes through fields toward Millersport, Licking County, Ohio. Evidence from early accounts and 1930s aerial photography suggests that the Hopewell Road may continue south of Ramp Creek, and a cultural resource management study provides equivocal, yet suggestive evidence of the earthwork south of Ramp Creek. In 2016, an analysis of previous studies found enough evidence of the Great Hopewell Road south of Ramp Creek, to indicate that archaeologists should continue to search for evidence of i
Great Hopewell Road_New_Data_Analyses_and_Future_Research_Prospects

References

External links

"Newark Earthworks, The Ancient Ohio Trail"
-The Great Hopewell Road

''The Newsletter of Hopewell Archaeology in the Ohio River Valley''
William F. Romain and Jarrod Burks, "LiDAR Imaging of the Great Hopewell Road"
4 February 2008, Ohio Archaeological Council
"Kevin R. Schwarz, Great Hopewell Road: New Data Analyses and Future Research Prospects. ''Journal of Ohio Archaeology'' 2016"
Ohio Hopewell Native American trails in the United States Historic trails and roads in Ohio Native American history of Ohio {{Ohio-road-stub