Turner Earthworks
Turner Group Earthworks · Turner Site (33HA395)
Middle Woodland (Hopewell)·Hopewell (Ohio Hopewell)·🇺🇸 Ohio, Hamilton County, United States
About
About Turner Earthworks
Major Hopewell hilltop/terrace earthworks (c.200 BCE–400 CE) on Little Miami River, with Great Enclosure 3 m-high embankment 300 m diameter, borrow ditch, Conjoined Mound and Great Mound burial mounds. Excavated by Ephraim Squier & Edwin Davis 1840s and by Charles Metz 1880s; famed for pipestone platform pipes, copper earspools, mica, pearl beads and obsidian bifaces — Hopewell Interaction Sphere exotics. Type-site for Turner effigy pipes and Havana Hopewell ceramics, within 5 km of Mariemont and Fort Ancient clusters.
Why it mattersHopewell Interaction Sphere exemplar for pipestone art and pan-regional exotic trade; defined Ohio Hopewell mound morphology.
Open questions
Mysteries & theories
Mysteries
- 01Pipestone source Colorado distant 1500 km — direct procurement vs down-the-line exchange
- 02Meaning of effigy platform pipe fauna cosmology
Theories
- 01Turner as pilgrimage aggregation center for Interaction Sphere artisan exchange
Theories are interpretations, not findings. The seal above tells you how much scholarly weight the place carries.
History
How it came to be
- Built
- c.200 BCE–400 CE
- Period
- Middle Woodland (Hopewell)
- Culture
- Hopewell (Ohio Hopewell)
- Builders
- Hopewell (Little Miami)
- Purpose
- Hilltop ceremonial earthworks, burial mound plaza and Interaction Sphere aggregation
- Abandoned
- c.400 CE
- Rediscovered
- Squier & Davis 1846; Metz 1882
- Excavation
- Partially excavated
On the ground
Structures & features
39.1310° N · 84.3320° W · 168 m · 2 mapped features
Great Enclosure
earthwork300 m circular embankment 3 m high flanking plaza and Great Mound
39.1315° N · 84.3320° WGreat Mound (burial mound)
mound5 m high burial mound within Great Enclosure with log tombs and pipe cache
39.1307° N · 84.3315° W
Gallery