Delegates from around the world are in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia this month to decide on the newest additions to the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites. These are locations considered of outstanding universal value such as the Pyramids, the Great Wall of China, the Historic Sanctuary of Machu Picchu, the Great Barrier Reef and the Grand Canyon.
They must meet at least one of 10 criteria such as representing "a masterpiece of human creative genius" or containing "exceptional natural beauty and aesthetic importance."
Of just over 1,100 sites worldwide, only 24 are in the United States. That's about to change as Ohio's Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks are added to the UNESCO World Heritage List.
Ohio really was the 'Heart of it All'
Ohio may not top your list of greatest destinations, but 2,000 years ago people from across North America converged here to build giant earthen walls and mounds in precise patterns like squares, circles, octagons and large enclosures. Their design and construction indicate these early peoples had a clear understanding of geometry, architecture, and solar and lunar patterns and alignments.
"'Hopewell' is an American Indian religious movement that 2,000 years ago really swept over half the continent, and for a period of about 400 years many different native communities all across eastern North America were sort of linked together by common ideas about the cosmos and their relationships to one another in the cosmos," explains Bret Ruby Ph.D., archaeologist and chief of resource stewardship at Hopewell Culture National Historical Park in Chillicothe, Ohio.
"These earthworks in southern Ohio were sacred centers in this continent-wide religious movement."
The Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks encompass eight sites:
- Fort Ancient Earthworks and Nature Preserve
- Hopewell Culture National Historical Park (5 geographically separate elements)
- Mound City Group
- Hopewell Mound Group
- Seip Earthworks
- High Bank Earthworks
- Hopeton Earthworks
- Newark Earthworks
Breaking down racist stereotypes
The earthworks were built by the ancestors of America's modern-day First Nations.
Glenna Wallace, chief of the Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma, has been involved in the World Heritage process. She says two words come to mind when she thinks about the earthworks: ancestors and sophistication.
By ancestors she says she means not just direct ancestors of the Eastern Shawnee, but all Indigenous peoples in North America who came before them.
"Unfortunately, a word that I hear too often, particularly in the state of Ohio, that is associated with our people is the word 'savages,' and they were anything but savages," she says.
The people who built the mounds were highly intelligent. The designs indicate they understood mathematics, architecture and astronomy.
"They had to be extremely intelligent, extremely sophisticated, extremely knowledgeable, extremely versatile, and extremely cooperative to have shared all of that information to come up with those aspects that we know are true today. And then, in addition to that, of the genius, I always have to think of their respect, their culture, their reverence they had for those places."
Wallace says it's disturbing to not see these places get the reverence and respect they deserve.
That's one thing inscription on the World Heritage List aims to change. To qualify for World Heritage status, a site must meet at least one of 10 criteria. The earthworks are nominated under two criteria: they're considered "a masterpiece of human creative genius," and bear "exceptional testimony to a cultural tradition or to a civilization which is living or which has disappeared."
What does a World Heritage designation get you?
Inscription on the UNESCO World Heritage List takes years of research and work. The payoff doesn't include a monetary gift.
"There's not a pot of funding at the end of this rainbow," says Jennifer Aultman, Chief Historic Sites Officer at Ohio History Connection, which worked with the National Park Service on the nomination. "But World Heritage is the world's highest designation for cultural and natural sites for heritage sites, and that's the reason to do it."
Like Wallace, Aultman sees inscription as a way to help tribes elevate their heritage. There are no federally recognized tribes in Ohio today. They were forcibly removed in the 1700s and 1800s.
Aultman says a World Heritage designation can be expected to help drive tourism, reaping economic benefits for the state and cities near the earthwork locations.
World Heritage is another beginning
After spending more than a decade working toward inscription, efforts will now pivot to planning inscription celebrations and thinking about what it means to be a World Heritage site.
"We're working on what does it look like to manage a World Heritage site. We learn from our World Heritage colleagues in the United States — What did it mean for their visitation when they got the inscription? What things did they do they wish they had known right before they got it," Aultman says.
Other considerations are updated marketing plans, exhibits, curriculum along with additional staffing, tours and signage.
But really, she says, "It's all about preserving and protecting and sharing these places, and learning how to live World Heritage."
What about Serpent Mound?
There are two other proposals on the U.S. Tentative List for World Heritage inscription: Serpent Mound and Dayton Aviation Sites.
Serpent Mound is arguably Ohio's most recognizable and widely known earthen mound, so why isn't it part of this World Heritage nomination? After all, it is the "largest documented surviving example of an ancient effigy mound in the world," points out World Heritage Ohio.
The answer is actually pretty simple: the impressive serpentine structure is believed to have been built several hundred years after the Hopewell era. Therefore it would be historically inappropriate to include it in this grouping.
It is being considered for its own nomination.
