Articles and Abstracts 2026

by Metin I. Eren, Michelle R. Bebber, Briggs Buchanan, Isabella Chismar, Frieda Geiger, and Charles Stephens.

We provide data and images on two fluted points found in Ohio: one from the Petersen site in Ottawa County and one from Fairview Park in Cuyahoga County. Our data and images may be useful to syntheses or meta-analyses, and our report serves as a marker for where, or by whom, these fluted points are currently curated.

by Bradley T. Lepper and Nathaniel F. Shoobs

The Licking County Historical Society has a small collection of ancient Indigenous American Indian artifacts said to have been excavated from Alligator Mound in 1925. The collection includes several artifacts that are typical of the Fort Ancient culture, and which appear likely to constitute a funerary offering. The presence of Fort Ancient culture artifacts buried in Alligator Mound adds further support to the conclusion of Lepper and Frolking (2003) that it was built in the Late Precontact period. In addition, the possibility that these artifacts were associated with a burial provides evidence for a stronger connection between Ohio and Upper Midwestern effigy mounds, since neither Serpent Mound nor Alligator Mound have previously yielded any evidence for burials; whereas most if not all Upper Midwestern effigy mounds contain one or more burials.

by Joseph E.B. Snider

While reviewing remote sensing data in Morrow and Knox counties, the author identified a pair of topographic anomalies consistent with precontact earthen enclosures found throughout much of southern Ohio. These anomalies were first identified in the National Elevation Dataset (NED) Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) raster while surveying along perennial streams. Following initial identification, additional publicly available remote sensing datasets, including the Ohio Geographically Referenced Information Program (OGRIP) III 2019 LiDAR, were reviewed. These data confirmed that these topographic anomalies are more than likely precontact earthworks. Despite their pronounced topography, these enclosures were never recorded in the Ohio Archaeological Inventory (OAI) maintained by the Ohio State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO). This paper summarizes a review of various remote sensing datasets including old and new LiDAR data, historical aerials, and plat maps that resulted in the identification of Morrow County’s newest-recorded earthworks.

Keywords: LiDAR, earthwork, superellipse, squircle, remote sensing.

by John Soderberg, Tod Frolking, and Brad Lepper

Development of a 320-acre parcel in Heath created an opportunity to examine sub-surface evidence for the Great Hopewell Road. The State Historic Preservation Office and the Ohio History Connection directed the excavation of three trenches bisecting the path of the road adjacent to the Van Voorhis Walls in November 2025. No clear signature of road construction was evident in meter-long profile drawings from any of the trenches. But examination of the entirety of each profile via photogrammetry revealed two features—an anomalously level B horizon across the center of the trenches and disturbances in the A/B transition near trench edges—that align with the trajectory of the roadbed and berms of the Great Hopewell Road. We propose that these features are products of mounding earth on either side of a roadbed and subsequent compaction of the road surface due to large numbers of people walking along the road.

Keywords: Hopewell culture, earthworks, roads, photogrammetry

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