Saving SPRUCE HILL, 238 acres in south-central Ohio
 

Native American Earthworks & Appalachian Cove Forest

Total cost:$611,020   Balance needed: Zero!!!!!
 

Spruce Hill wasn't built in a day--but it could have been lost in a matter of minutes on the auction block.

Wonderful News!!

A grant from Clean Ohio has enabled The Arc of Appalachia Preserve System and Ross County Park District to purchase Spruce Hill in full!!! The Spruce Hill land acquisition project was completed in June, 2008. Read the entire dramatic story of how Spruce Hill was saved from the auction block in just six weeks, and eventually paid for in full!
 

Four Helpful Reference Maps

Who Were the Hopewell?

Spruce Hill Worthy Natural Area

Coming up for sale too fast for the National Park Service to Save.

The Hopewell Culture National Historical Park based in Chillicothe, Ohio had been hoping to incorporate Spruce Hill Earthworks into the park system ever since the 1980's. Unfortunately, time ran out for the National Park Service. In the spring of 2007, when Spruce Hill was scheduled to be sold at auction on June 14, 2007, strict laws prevented the Park Service from diverting the slow Congressional process of park expansion, procedures that often take many years before consummating in a sale. The reality was -- without immediate action from the public sector -- the historically significant site would have been permanently lost – like most of our nation’s Hopewell sites before it. Fortunately three non-profits stepped up to the plate to do something about it. Fortunately a fund-raising drive put together by the Arc of Appalachia and Wilderness East --begun just six weeks before auction -- raised half of the property's purchase with cash and loans. The Archaeological Conservancy, with a loan from The Conservation Fund, provided the other half of the funds, allowing the property to be purchased just days before the auction. Finally, in 2008, Clean Ohio funding gave the Arc of Appalachia Preserve System to financial means to buy the property free and clear, in partnership with Ross County Park District.
 

What was so critical about saving the Spruce Hill Earthworks?

   The earthworks at Spruce Hill are nearly as intact today as they were back in 1848, when the site was described by early Ohio historians, Squire and Davis. Of the major ceremonial sites identified in the Hopewell heartland of southern Ohio, most were geometrical earthworks built in the level fertile floodplains of rivers and creeks (precise squares, octagons and circles). Of the 41 primary Hopewell earthwork enclosures that were found intact 200 years ago (the vast majority of them in southern Ohio)-- nearly every one has since been obliterated by agriculture or development.  
  Spruce Hill belongs to a category of unusual sacred enclosures known as large hilltop "fortresses" (though likely ceremonial as opposed to defensive), of which less than a dozen have ever been found of similar scale. These large hilltop enclosures are non-geometrical in shape, their walls following  the natural contours of flat-topped hills having steep sides. Spruce Hill earthworks encloses an astonishing 150 acres -- acreage which for the most part has never been investigated archeologically.
   The Spruce Hill site is unique in that it's walls are made entirely of stone. The site is furthermore unique because of the clear evidence that high-temperature fires once burned along sections of its walls. Findings of molten slag and glazed bedrock have led to controversial debates as to whether metal-smelting furnaces might have operated on the property, either in historic or prehistoric times, debates which beg for additional research. (consider googling ancient blast furnaces to tap into the controversy) Lastly, Spruce Hill lies in the same region as two lowland geometrical earthworks -- Baum Earthworks and Seip Earthworks, and is the only hilltop enclosure in the Chillicothe Hopewell heartland.  Spruce Hill is one of the nation’s most important intact archeological treasures that is currently unprotected, likely hiding the answers to many longstanding questions currently posed by Hopewell archeologists.

Why are Native American Eastern Earthwork Sites so Important?
 

The indigenous history of the Eastern North American continent IS THE MOST UNDER-RATED AND UNDER-APPRECIATED story in American history. Archeology and anthropology in the western half of the United States have often taken precedence in the hearts and minds of the American public. In the East, most of our Native American earthworks were destroyed in the fifty years following settlement. Of the many people inhabiting the Eastern Forest, the culture known as the Hopewell, living between 2,200 and 1,500 years ago, were one of the most artistic and geographically influential to have ever lived on the entire continent. 

    If those of us living in the East are ever to establish a deep sense of place and pride in our landscape, we would do well to commit to recovering and honoring the history of our land, and the long history of people who lived upon it.

Spruce Hill as a Natural Area
Located in the Arc of Appalachia
Ohio's most intact bioregion
   Spruce Hill lies in the five county area of southern Ohio called the Arc of Appalachia. This geographic region contains the densest canopied forests left in all of Ohio. The Arc region contains more zoological and botanical diversity than any other equal sized region in the state. Spruce Hill lies in the exceptionally scenic ARC region known as Paint Valley -- ten miles west of Chillicothe. Together with the nearby lower Scioto River, Paint Valley has more prehistoric mounds and geometric earthworks than any other place in Ohio and quite possibly the world.

    Spruce Hill is not only an earthworks site, but a natural area worthy of protection, including over 70 acres of wild-flower strewn Appalachian hardwood forests, open fields sheltering rare grassland birds such as Grasshopper Sparrows and Henslow's sparrows, and a swamp white oak wetlands where native salamanders, wood frogs, and wood ducks breed. Click here for more information on Spruce Hill's natural history.

Supportive Organizations: In addition to the organizations listed above, financial support was received from the following entities : Ohio Archeological Council, the Archaeological Society of Ohio, Shawnee Indian Tribe of Oklahoma, SunWatch Indian Village, the Scioto Valley Bird and Nature Club, the Tri-Regional Indian Organization, the Appalachian Front Audubon Society, and the The Ohio Chapter and the Miami Group of the Sierra Club. Endorsements have been received from the Hopewell Culture National Historical Park, the International Crop Circle Research Association, and the Society for American Archeology. Media reporting on Spruce Hill has been covered by Native American media: the Native America Calling radio show, and  Indian Country newspaper (for news article click here), the local Chillicothe Gazette, NPR and the Cleveland Plain Dealer.
 

Access to the site for Gatherings

     Site managers are committed to welcoming small-scale gatherings who wish to visit the site for personal, spiritual, and scientific purposes, so long as the native earthworks and natural landscape are preserved, undisturbed and respected. For more information on visiting Spruce Hill, please call Larry Henry, Co-Director of the Arc of Appalachia Preserve System, at 9374-402-7309.

Blog for Field Reports--Please contribute your sightings and impressions!
 Katharine Parks, Spruce Hill neighbor and volunteer caretaker for the site, walks the boundaries and the trails on Spruce Hill on a frequent basis, reporting natural history observations, field conditions, and boundary issues. You can view her reports and share you own at  www.ohsprucehill.blogspot.com. For an overview of the botanical and zoological history of Spruce Hill, please click here.

****Though convenient and widely used, the word Hopewell is an unfortunate term for a number of reasons. One, the name Hopewell is of English descent rather than Native American, coming from the name of a Euro-American family who owned a famous and extensively excavated earthworks site. Hopewell is therefore not the name these peoples called themselves, as that knowledge has been lost to time. Secondly, we don't know if Hopewell peoples were one tribe, clan, or nation; or if they even all spoke the same language. Nevertheless, the words Hopewell Culture is currently understood to represent one important chapter of our country's first people, our indigenous ancestors. We hope that one day an alternative name will emerge for this chapter of history that is more appropriate and respectful to the lineage of these Native Americans.