Overview

Featuring the Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks Traveler’s Guide to Ancient Ohio is a compact, richly illustrated, and in-depth travel guide to the Indigenous earthwork wonders of southern Ohio-some of the most extraordinary ancient monuments in North America. Featuring the eight newly inscribed UNESCO World Heritage sites, this is the first publication to present these places from a traveler’s perspective, offering deeply informative site descriptions alongside curated routes to historical, scenic, and natural treasures across the region. Southern Ohio’s landscape is layered with millennia of human history. At its heart are the monumental Adena and Hopewell earthworks-vast ceremonial constructions that reflect the ingenuity and spiritual life of ancient Indigenous cultures. This guide helps readers understand these sites as rewarding architectural experiences, enriched by archaeological, historical, and Indigenous knowledge gathered over three decades of collaborative work. Organized into eight scenic driving routes-including the World Heritage Route and seven tributary paths-the book connects earthworks with nearby historic towns, nature preserves, waterways, and cultural landmarks. Each route emphasizes two-lane roads and includes road-tested site addresses, with links to local tourism resources for updated travel information. Introductory sections provide essential context on regional geography, Indigenous cultures, archaeological terminology, and travel logistics. The guide’s focus on on-site appreciation is rare among existing resources, making it invaluable for both pre-visit planning and on-the-ground exploration. Detailed route and trail descriptions are coordinated with all-new maps, plans, and photographs. The book links to multimedia assets, including animated flyovers that help visualize the earthworks and interview excerpts that deepen interpretive storytelling through Indigenous and interdisciplinary voices. For first-time visitors and seasoned explorers, Traveler’s Guide to Ancient Ohio offers a fresh, immersive way to experience the region’s ancient wonders and the landscapes that continue to tell their story.

Full Product Details

9780821426920

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Reviews

""On behalf of my Ancestors and their spiritual creations, I am thankful for this book. It will take you onto sacred grounds where time spent among monuments of profound and uncommon genius will inspire you to rethink your concepts about Indigenous America."" - Chief Glenna J. Wallace, Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma ""The Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks remind us that regional tourism is more than travel-it’s about connecting people to places and to the stories and cultures that shape us. This book presents those places and stories as well-organized and engaging experiences-honoring Indigenous legacies and strengthening our communities."" - Melody Young, executive director, Ross-Chillicothe Convention and Visitors Bureau ""Ohio’s ancient earthworks are one of the world’s most astonishing Indigenous architectural and landscape design traditions. In Traveler's Guide to Ancient Ohio author John Hancock presents these brilliant works, their makers, and their settings, to twenty-first-century audiences with rich interpretations, engaging images, and oral histories."" - Hope Taft, former first lady of Ohio and UNESCO Newark Earthworks nomination committee member ""It is really exciting to have Traveler’s Guide to Ancient Ohio published, especially during the 250th anniversary of the United States. Few people know this history and its international significance more than John Hancock, who has masterfully compiled 2,000 years of human history into this most useful guide."" - Todd Kleismit, executive director of the America 250 Ohio Commission

""On behalf of my Ancestors and their spiritual creations, I am thankful for this book. It will take you onto sacred grounds where time spent among monuments of profound and uncommon genius will inspire you to rethink your concepts about Indigenous America."" --Chief Glenna J. Wallace, Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma

Author Information

John E. Hancock has architectural degrees from the University of Nebraska and McGill University in Montreal. He taught architectural history and design at the University of Cincinnati from 1978 to 2015, directed the architecture graduate programs, and, since the late 1990s, has produced many multimedia programs about Ohio's earthworks. He also served as the principal author and photographer for the Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks UNESCO World Heritage nomination dossier. Since 2006, Glenna J. Wallace has served as Chief of the Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma—one of three federally recognized tribes descended from the Shawnee people who lived in southern Ohio before European settlement. With a long career as an educator, she was an inspiring advocate and eloquent contributor to the earthworks' World Heritage inscription process.

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