On an early June morning, the grass at the Octagon Earthworks sways quietly as the wind sweeps through it. It’s longer than usual, but it’s not unmaintained.
Since that early summer morning, the grass has been mowed shorter.
Neil Thompson, public relations manager at Ohio History Connection, said the grass was taller than they wanted due to the amount of rain in the spring and delays in equipment arriving at the site along 30th Street in Newark.
Typically, the grass on the flat ground around the mounds will be maintained at about 3.5 inches. The grass on the earthworks, however, will be mowed less frequently and will be able to reach about 8 inches.
“We’re keeping the grass slightly longer on the earthworks themselves because that prevents erosion. It helps maintain preservation,” Thompson said.
He compared the grass management to that of a park. The Octagon Earthworks are managed the same as Ohio History Connection’s other site, the Great Circle in Heath.
Ohio History Connection has owned the Octagon Mound property since 1933, though it was under the management of Moundbuilders Country Club for use as a golf course until earlier this year. Ohio History Connection took sole possession of the land and opened it for full public access on Jan. 1.
“So if you were here in January, you would have a very delineated green,” Thompson said. “We’re starting to let it get that more natural look.”
Thompson also said the History Connection staff is in the process of removing the vestiges of the golf course – the sand traps, the tee boxes and other things not part of the natural topography. He estimates this will be a multi-year process. To prevent golfing, signs remain around the site.
“We’re just trying to make sure that that’s understood – for people who might not know the history of the place – until we are able to fully remove every part of the golf course,” Thompson said.
The Octagon Earthworks is one of eight Ohio locations that make up Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The eight locations are managed by the National Park Service and Ohio History Connection. They were built by Native Americans 1,600-2,000 years ago. The mounds align with the cycles of the sun and the moon and existed as gathering places and places of ceremony.
Read more: Newark Earthworks celebrates one year as a World Heritage site while planning for the future
“For a lot of questions people ask about what it was like 2,000 years ago, you have to speculate. It’s inference,” said Jeff Gill, a volunteer tour guide at the Newark Earthworks and columnist for The Reporting Project.
Gill explained that archeological evidence from a study of the soil in 1992 at the Great Circle indicates that the mound was built directly on the turf, unlike some other Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks where they cleared the ground prior.
From the soil samples, they also found tall grass and prairie-like plants. Yet, as other pollen samples indicate, Ohio was an oak, hickory climax forest. The tall grass and prairie plants would not have been present unless the site was managed.
“This whole area, while earthworks were first built, was pretty much devoid of trees. They didn’t have to cut down trees. It was a grassland they had created and managed for centuries,” Gill said. “You manage prairie grass by periodic burning.”
Bret Ruby, recently retired park archeologist and director of resource stewardship at Hopewell Culture National Historical Park in Chillicothe, explained that ideally, it would be best to present the sites as they looked 2,000 years ago.
“You would like to restore some kind of management regime that mimicked the way native people were managing these landscapes, but as you can imagine, using fire is a pretty tricky proposition today,” Ruby said.
With houses and modern infrastructure on the perimeter of the earthworks property, among other concerns, fire is not a feasible method of maintenance.
“We’ll never have a truly authentic grassland here because you can’t do it,” Gill said.
The goal, instead, is to balance authenticity while still maintaining a positive visitor experience. Plus, much of the current grass landscape is made of nonnative plants and grasses – plants they want to discourage.
“If we’re going to manage this grassland to make it look like a golf course, it takes herbicides, pesticides, and fungicides, which are carcinogens, which are just bad on so many levels, but it’s how you have a consistent landscape,” Gill said. “So if you commit to not using all those chemicals, and you commit to your neighbors that we’re not going to light fires, then how do you promote grassland but also discourage nonnative invasives?”
Gill explained they are looking for a “happy medium.” If it’s too short, it’s not promoting native plants, so they want to grow it taller, but not so tall that it becomes a habitat problem or prevents them from leading tours.
At Hopewell Culture National Historical Park, Ruby said that just letting the grass grow wild is not the best option because they are trying to provide a visitor experience. They want a balance.
“In the National Park Service, we have to balance cultural resource preservation with natural resource preservation. We’re trying to protect archeological resources, but we’re also charged with protecting and promoting the natural environment,” Ruby said.
“There can be a real tension there,” he said. “A golf course-type vegetation management is not good for most species. If you’re trying to promote biodiversity and protect threatened and endangered species, there’s a tension on that side to provide a more natural sort of a landscape.”
At Hopewell Culture park, the staff published a cultural landscape report in 2016. This is a standard planning document that details how the earthworks and the areas immediately around the mounds will be maintained in low-mown vegetation.
In some areas, if the earthwork has been plowed down by farming in the past and is less visible, they let the vegetation grow tall on those mounds to enhance their visibility.
“So that’s sort of the balance that we’ve struck, we’re using mowing in and around the earthworks to maintain an open landscape and then we’re restoring these natural grasslands outside,” Ruby said.
At the Octagon, they are searching for the same balance.
“There’s a fine balance with maintaining a place like this in respect and reverence for what it is. It’s a sacred place, it’s a historic place. That respect and reverence plays into how you manage it,” Thompson said as he walked along the pathway at the Octagon.
Gill was at the earthworks one morning when the grass was longer.
“You’d see a little ripple over here and it would stop, and then you’d see a ripple over there, and then you’d see a ripple come at you and you’d feel it, and you could see the wind,” Gill said. “I was just thinking, this is closer to what native people saw 2,000 years ago.”
There was a part of him that hated that they had to mow it.
“I hope that we can still have some patches and areas where we just let the grass grow out,” Gill said.
But the staff has to account for visitor experience and wildlife – it’s a balancing act.
Gill puts his hand against his chest. “But when you just see the long-stem grasses and watch the wind move through it, I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling it,” he said.
Ella Diehl writes for TheReportingProject.org, the nonprofit news organization of Denison University’s Journalism program, which is supported by generous donations from readers. Sign up for The Reporting Project newsletter here.