May 8. 2015

New Research at the Moorhead Circle

New research published in “Building the Past: Prehistoric Wooden Post Architecture in the Ohio Valley — Great Lakes” edited by Brian Redmond and Robert Genheimer includes new research on the Moorhead Circle, the center of the Fort Ancient Earthworks built 2000 years ago. The entrance to the circle was through a gap in a ring of posts paved with limestone slabs. Older pavements are below it. There is a central pit filled with blood-red clay. And there is a central structure 50 feet long and 40 feet wide which may have been a ritual sanctum. There are concentric rows of 15 trenches filled with gravel and sand, which may have been for an audience. The circle went through a sequence of termination rites, and the large posts around the site were removed at 150 CE. The main structure was in use till 250 CE, and then was buried under tons of gravel. The Hopewell must have believed that these sanctums contain enormous power and it takes enormous efforts to terminate them.
(my note, through the Ancient Americas, ritual termination of sites and structures is a recurring phenomena).

The great Bradley Lepper has the report here;
http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/science/2015/05/03/1-author-examines-ceremonial-heart-of-earthworks.html

Mike Ruggeri’s Adena, Hopewell, and Fort Ancient Cultures Magazine
http://bit.ly/1966ruf
(click on titles or pictures to open articles)