By Kristy Eckert
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
Mon. Oct 4, 2004
CHILLICOTHE, Ohio -- Archaeologists have long-known more about how the
Hopewells died than about how they lived.
Now, some worry that the clues needed to unearth details of the mysterious
people are being washed away.
The North Fork of Paint Creek, winding near a mound in the Hopewell Culture
National Historic Park, is slowly chiseling its way to the buried artifacts
that historians hope will help tell the story.
"This is part of our heritage,'' said Dean Alexander, superintendent of the
Hopewell Culture National Historical Park.
The park last year acquired the land where the erosion has occurred. Now,
Alexander is working with engineers to decide how to best fix the problem.
Rather than spend more than $1 million building a wall to stop the erosion,
which also would have ruined part of the land, Alexander has requested
$360,000 from the government to excavate before the artifacts are swept
away.
The cost will be worth the knowledge, Alexander said.
Not a lot is known about the Hopewells, "but we know that these people did
some pretty amazing things,'' he said.
The park, about 50 miles south of Columbus, includes many of the largest
earthworks by various ancient cultures scattered between the Great Lakes and
the Gulf of Mexico.
Archaeologists say American Indians created the dirt mounds about 2,000
years ago. At the Hopewell Mound group, a 5-mile wall encircles more than 20
mounds in an area large enough to hold more than 100 football fields. Its
largest mound at one point was more than 30 feet high.
The mounds were used as ceremonial burial grounds, and human remains have
been found inside. Other materials brought from all over what is now the
United States have been discovered there as well, including effigy pipes and
copper carved into bird shapes, shark teeth from Florida and volcanic glass
from the Yellowstone National Park region.
But while archaeologists know a lot about the burial grounds -- in
particular, how the Hopewells cared for them -- "Their daily life away from
the earthworks remains a mystery,'' said Kathy Brady-Rawlins, an
archaeologist at the park.
The park may yield clues.
But Alexander and Brady-Rawlins are nervous.
This spring, they unearthed two pieces of unworked copper near the mound --
a rare find, Alexander said.
But as they worked the site, trees slipped from their moorings into the
creek, Brady-Rawlins said.