Preservationists try to save Ohio Indian site

Associated Press - June 13, 2007 8:35 AM ET

BOURNEVILLE, Ohio (AP) - A coalition has agreed to buy and preserve an ancient American Indian site in southern Ohio.

The coalition signed an agreement yesterday to buy the 238-acre Spruce Hill Works 50 miles south of Columbus. The price: $600,000.

The groups will create a nature preserve and turn it over to the National Park Service.

The location near Bourneville has earthworks with 30-foot mounds of stone. It apparently was used for religious ceremonies by the Hopewell people and perhaps Shawnee Indians.

Thanks to Teresa Anahuy for the above report.

Why are Native American Eastern Earthwork Sites so Important?

The indigenous history of the Eastern North American continent IS THE MOST UNDER-RATED AND UNDER-APPRECIATED story in American history. Archeology and anthropology in the western half of the United States have often taken precedence in the hearts and minds of the American public. In the East, Native American earthworks were usually destroyed before our culture awakened to their importance. Of the many people inhabiting the Eastern Forest, the culture knows as the Hopewell, living between 2,200 and 1,500 years ago, were one of the most artistic and geographically influential to have ever lived on the entire continent.

If those of us living in the East are ever to establish a deep sense of place and pride in our landscape, we would do well to commit to recovering and honoring the history of our land, and the long history of people who lived upon it.

Spruce Hill as a Natural Area
Located in the Arc of Appalachia
Ohio's most intact bioregion

Spruce Hill lies in the five county area of southern Ohio called the Arc of Appalachia. This geographic region contains the densest canopied forests left in all of Ohio. The Arc region contains more zoological and botanical diversity than any other equal sized region in the state. Spruce Hill lies in the exceptionally scenic ARC region known as Paint Valley -- ten miles west of Chillicothe. Together with the nearby lower Scioto River, Paint Valley has more prehistoric mounds and geometric earthworks than any other place in Ohio and quite possibly the world.

Spruce Hill is not only an earthworks site, but a natural area worthy of protection, including over 70 acres of wild-flower strewn Appalachian hardwood forests, open fields sheltering rare grassland birds such as Grasshopper Sparrows and Henslow's sparrows, and a swamp white oak wetlands where native salamanders, wood frogs, and wood ducks breed.

Visit here for a wonderful story and photographs of this beautiful nature area.

Link to Website

See Earlier reports on Spruce Hill in June's Contents

Contents

June 2007 Reports

Last updated on June 15, 2007