A Celebration of Historic Proportion:
Newark Earthworks Center Receives Approval

Circles and squares, octagons and causeways
 --- the earthworks built by the Hopewell people of eastern North America bewilder the eye, especially when seen from the air.”

~ The Earthworks of Newark, Ohio, Ch. 29, Temples & Shrines, The Seventy Wonders of the Ancient World, pp. 132-133.  Published by Thames & Hudson.

Nearly two thousand years ago, the Newark Earthworks were built to be a place people gathered from a great distance – in short, a center.  For centuries it drew visitors from many hundreds of miles to pray, to exchange ideas, knowledge, and trade items.  The earthworks that remain attest to their knowledge of engineering, astronomy, and geometry.

Within the past decade, the Newark Earthworks was named one of the 70 wonders of the ancient world.  This fascinating historic site has also been featured in numerous other state and national publications, and at the Art Institute of Chicago a few years ago, according to Richard Shiels, Interim Director of the Newark Earthworks Center (NEC) and Associate Professor of History at The Ohio State University at Newark. 

Faculty and staff at Ohio State Newark are creating a center on the campus.  An official proposal for an interdisciplinary academic center was submitted to the Office of Academic Affairs in 2005.  Just since that time visitors have come from Asia, Europe and across the country to tour the site, to study, to teach, and to learn.

The Newark Earthworks Center received official approval from The Ohio State University Board of Trustees on December 8, 2006.  It was a lengthy undertaking, as there are very few official Centers among the regional campuses.  Dr. Shiels, Marti Chaatsmith, NEC Coordinator and Lucy Murphy, Oral History Project Director and Associate Professor of History, took the lead in establishing the NEC.   

According to Dr. Murphy, “Our projects are designed to improve research about native people.”  In addition, “We aim to improve interest in developing collaborative research methods that partner with native people in the process of designing projects, collecting and interpreting information, and creating ways to share that information with the general public, with K-12 teachers, with the native communities, and with our students, staff, and faculty at Ohio State Newark.”    

Annually, the NEC hosts “Newark Earthworks Day” which was held on October 22, 2005 and this year on October 14.  This public event was created to invite everyone to witness a natural, historic event, the Octagon Moonrise, a rare occasion when the moon rises as far north as it ever does, over the central axis of these geometric mounds (Earthworks) before moving southward again.  Newark Earthworks Day features Native people, fourth graders, archaeologists and others and is held on the Ohio State Newark campus.  Additionally, the NEC plans to continue hosting events, courses, lectures, and teacher training while adding new research projects and developing educational materials.

 Headquarters for the Ohio State Newark Earthworks Center are in Baker House, 950 Sharon Valley Road.  For more information, please email: earthworks@osu.edu or visit our website: www.octagonmoonrise.org.