WRITTEN HISTORICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE DATA

HALS OH-10HALS OH-10

SEIP EARTHWORKS AND DILL MOUNDS DISTRICTHopewell Culture National Historical ParkSouth side of U.S. Route 50, 3 miles east of BainbridgeBainbridge vicinityRoss CountyOhio

HISTORIC AMERICAN LANDSCAPES SURVEYNational Park Service

U.S. Department of the Interior1849 C Street NW

Washington, DC 20240-0001

HISTORIC AMERICAN LANDSCAPES SURVEY

SEIP EARTHWORKS AND DILL MOUNDS DISTRICT (Seip Mound)

HALS NO. OH-10

Location: South side of U.S. Route 50, 3 miles east of the village of Bainbridge and 14

miles southwest of Chillicothe - Bainbridge, Paxton Township, Ross County, Ohio The property was listed on the National Register of Historic Places as Seip Earthworks and Dill Mounds District (#74001611) on August 13, 1974. The Ohio History Connection owns the central section of the earthworks complex including the restored mound, the remnants of the conjoined mound, and major portions of the circular and square enclosures. The National Park Service owns the surrounding property, including the remaining portions of the enclosure and manages it as a unit of the Hopewell Culture National Historical Park. Latitude 39.237890, Longitude -83.220100 (Center of central mound, Google Earth, Simple Cylindrical Projection, WGS84)

Significance: Two thousand years ago, the twenty mile long Paint Valley that stretches from

Bainbridge to Chillicothe was one of the most important prehistoric cultural centers in North America. Giant geometric earthwork complexes were constructed by prehistoric people referred to as the Hopewell Culture at nearly equal intervals along the Paint Creek. An extraordinary blossoming of cultural development occurred between 200 B.C. and 400 A.D. in southern Ohio. The Hopewell Culture made amazing advances in the fields of mathematics, engineering, art, trade and astronomy. Even though they did not live in villages or practice large scale agriculture, they built many enormous earthwork complexes that appear to have been designed for large ritual gatherings, perhaps determined by astronomical cycles.

Description: Seip Mound Earthworks is one of the most magnificent engineering feats of

them all. Two miles of earthen embankment wall enclose 120 acres in the shape of two circles and a precise square with astronomical alignments. The enclosing wall was ten feet high. Built on prime floodplain agricultural land, the earthworks have been plowed over for the past two centuries, leaving only a remnant of the magnificent ancient monument. Seip Mound is the reconstructed mound in the center of the Seip Earthwork great circle enclosure. It is the third largest burial mound known to have been constructed by the Hopewell culture. Within the enclosure are this large elliptical mound, remnants of three smaller conjoined mounds, several small mounds, and

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several structure outlines found through excavations. It is estimated that the large mound was originally 240 feet long, 160 feet wide and 30 feet high. As large as the central mound is, it is only a small part of the enormous Seip Earthwork complex. Seip Earthworks was the result of a landscape architectural design of geometric shapes. The earthwork complex so is similar to four other complexes around the Chillicothe area that makes it apparent these were produced by the same group of people using a common plan of precise mathematical relationships. Baum, Frankfort, Works East, Liberty and Seip Earthworks each are comprised of a small circle, a large circle and a square 1,080 feet to a side enclosing 27.2 acres, and all connected enclosing 121 acres.

History: Ephraim George Squier (June 17, 1821 – April 17, 1888), an American

archaeologist and newspaper editor, surveyed the Seip Earthwork Complex in 1846. He described the large elliptical mound set “not far” from the center within the great circle. Considerably larger than any other single mound in the Paint Valley, its surface was covered with stones and pebbles. He described the low embankment that surrounded the mound. There also was a group of three conjoined mounds within the enclosing walls of the great circle. There was another mound about a mile away, which he described as very large and beautiful, composed entirely of clay. The entire earth work was surrounded by numerous deep pits, from which the materials for the mounds and embankments were procured. The Ohio Historical Society (Now the Ohio History Connection) excavated the three conjoined mounds from 1906 to 1909, and Seip Mound from 1925 to 1928. The remains of 112 people were interred in and around the Seip Earthworks. 106 men, women, and children had been cremated. An interior sepulcher or vault was discovered in the Seip Mound. The tomb was constructed of logs and contained four adult skeletons, placed side by side on their backs, and at their heads were the skeletons of two infants. This culture had a highly developed trade and craft industries, as is evidenced by artifacts found with the skeletal burials, including thousands of pearls, ornaments of Isle Royale copper, Carolina mica, tortoise-shell and silver. Over the ceremonial copper axe weighing 28 pounds were placed twelve large copper breastplates. There also were five Tennessee River Valley effigy pipes of the Lower Mississippi culture (1,000 AD to 1,500). In 2014, the National Park Service partnered with the Ohio History Connection in co-owning and co-managing the Seip Earthworks site. All of the land that was once encompassed by this massive earthwork has been purchased and plans are being considered on the best way to preserve the site for future generations.

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PAGE 3   Sources: Byers, A. Martin. The Ohio Hopewell Episode: Paradigm Lost and Paradigm

Gained. Akron, OH: University of Akron Press, 2004. Carr, Christopher, and D. Troy Case, eds. Gathering Hopewell: Society, Ritual, and Ritual Interaction. New York, NY: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, 2005. CERHAS. EarthWorks, Virtual Explorations of the Ancient Ohio Valley. The Center for the Electronic Reconstruction of Historical and Archaeological Sites (CERHAS). Cincinnati, OH, 2006. Case, D. Troy and Christopher Carr, eds. The Scioto Hopewell and their Neighbors: Bioarchaeological Documentation and Cultural Understanding. New York, NY: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, 2008. Pangea Productions. Searching for the Great Hopewell Road. N.p.: Pangea Productions, 1998. Lepper, Bradley T. Ohio Archaeology: An Illustrated Chronicle of Ohio's Ancient American Indian Cultures. Wilmington, Ohio, Orange Frazer Press, 2005. Earthworks Virtual Explorations of Ancient Newark, Ohio. The Center for the Electronic Reconstruction of Historical and Archaeological Sites. Cincinnati, OH: Center for the Electronic Reconstruction of Historical and Archaeological Sites, 2005. Warriner, Gray, producer. Legacy of the Mound Builders. Seattle, WA: Camera One for the National Park Service and the Hopewell Culture National Historical Park, 1994. Woodward, Susan L., and Jerry N. McDonald. Indian Mounds of the Middle Ohio Valley: A Guide to Mounds and Earthworks of the Adena, Hopewell, Cole, and Fort Ancient People. Lincoln: The University of Nebraska Press, 2002. Mills, William C., "Explorations of the Seip Mound," Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly, Vol. 18, 269-321, 1909. Shetrone, Henry C. and Emerson F. Greenman, "Explorations of the Seip Group of Prehistoric Earthworks." Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly, Vol. 40, 343-509, 1931. Squire, Ephraim G. and Edwin H. Davis. Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley (Classics in Smithsonian Anthropology) originally published 1848.

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PAGE 4   Historian: David Driapsa, FASLA

Historical Landscape Architect David J Driapsa Landscape Architect Naples, Florida March 28, 2016

2016 HALS Challenge Entry: Documenting National Register Listed Landscapes

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Diagram of the Seip Earthworks. National Park Service, “Hopewell Culture,” https://www.nps.gov/hocu/learn/historyculture/upload/Seip-Earthworks-Site-Bulletin-NON-EN-Revised.pdf

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Seip Earthworks. Delineator: Squire and Davis, and published in the book Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley, 1848.

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Seip Mound. Photographer: David Driapsa, 2016.

Seip Mound State Memorial Park Weather Shelter. Photographer: David Driapsa, 2016.