Local residents know something about the importance of celebrating and educating about the earthworks that enhanced this region’s landscape long before the Ohio Company showed up. But even if many of ours are no longer fully visible, there are still spots in the Buckeye State where Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks have been protected. They are so important, the earthworks became Ohio’s first UNESCO World Heritage Site.

As part of Ohio World Heritage Week April 11-18, events in Newark, Heath, Columbus and Chillicothe will spotlight these treasures. There are still eight sites, managed by the Ohio History Connection and National Park Service that stand as monuments to the people who built them approximately 2,000 years ago.

“Every World Heritage Day is an opportunity to recognize the local, national and international significance of the Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks,” Ohio History Connection Executive Director and CEO Megan Wood said, according to a report by the Newark Advocate. “During World Heritage Week, we are pleased to showcase these masterpieces of ancient landscape architecture built by American Indians.”

Those include Great Circle Earthworks in Heath, Fort Ancient Earthworks in Oregonia, Octagon Earthworks in Newark, Seip Earthworks in Bainbridge, Mound City Group in Chillicothe and High Bank Works (between the Hopeton Earthworks and Mound City).

“The sheer scale of these structures, along with their meticulous alignment with the movements of the sun and moon, tells the story of a culture with sophisticated knowledge of geometry and astronomy that they build onto the land through earthworks and mounds,” according to Ohio’s Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks website.

During next week’s opportunity to showcase them, surely Ohioans and out-of-staters alike will be eager to learn more about that culture and the marks it made on the land and who we are as a country today.