Understanding Hopewell & Adena Earthworks in Ohio

Description

Author:
Rev. Richard D. Moats Avocational Archaeologist, & Archaeoastronomer

Richard D. Moats is a twenty-four-year veteran of the United States Air Force. In his career he received the Joint Service Commendation Medal, Two Meritorious Service Medals, and the Defense Meritorious Medal. His skill sets include aircraft accident, criminal, and forensic investigations, remote sensing imagery analysis, and instructor. With these skills, as applied to Native American Archaeology, Rich has investigated many Native American sites in Ohio. He has discovered a site unknown to Archaeology and another site which added significant understanding into the Archaeoastronomy and Religion of a people living 2000 years ago. He has authored many archaeology papers and articles published in the Ohio Archaeologist and Ancient American magazines. He is a member of the Midwestern Epigraphic Society, and the Archaeology Society of Ohio where he was the 2015 Converse Award winner for outstanding contributions to Ohio Archaeology. Rev. Richard D. Moats is an Ordained Evangelist in the Church of Jesus Christ International.

INTRODUCTION: TO YOST WORKS

The site known formally as the Yost Works is a Hill Top Geometric Earthworks constructed by a Hopewell Chiefdom sometime late in the Hopewell fluorescence. It is within three miles of the old Fort Glenford Hill Top Enclosure constructed by the earlier culture, the Adena. These two sites are about 8 miles south east of the Great Stone Mound where the Newark Holy Stones were found. All three of these sites are intervisible one to the other with an absence of foliage. This makes them related in ways we are only beginning to understand.

This paper will offer the scientific data of the Yost Works. The archaeoastronomical alignments associated with this site by sheer numbers makes it possibly the most important geometric earthwork in terms of gaining insight into the minds of those who constructed it. To endeavor to understand the minds of the Hopewell and what drove them to build such a plethora of geometric works is termed Cognitive Archaeology.

INTRODUCTION TO FORT GLENFORD HILL TOP ENCLOSURE

Fort Glenford is not a Fort in the definition of Military Forts of the 19th century in America. Its name was drawn from the early mind sets of the archaeologists comparing its structure to stockades and even castles of Europe which were defensive compounds. Fort Glenford is an Adena constructed mortuary complex from the late Archaic Period into the onset of the Woodland Period from about 1000 BC to 200 AD.

The structure is on a hill top in Ohio which is characterized by a stacked stone wall approximately 1.5 mile long enclosing approximately 23 acres of land. There were several entrances up the steep terrain through the natural bedrock and into enclosed space. Inside this enclosed space stood a stacked stone mound 18 feet high.

The mound stood opened until Mr. James Dutcher cleared away the stones and revealed the mound floor in the late 1980’s. Until Mr. Dutcher excavated to mound floor and discovered diagnostic artifacts consistent with the Adena Culture, no one knew for certain who constructed the site. No one knew how old the site was or when the wall and mound had been constructed.