Join us at the Octagon Earthworks Visitor Center on the third Thursday of each month as we welcome experts from multiple fields speaking on topics connected to how we understand and learn about Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks; from archaeological and indigenous perspectives to stories about how Earthworks have been preserved and protected.
This program is geared toward adults (ages 18+) although we encourage high schoolers to attend as well. The program will consist of a 45-minute talk given by an expert and a 15-minute question-and-answer session. Doors will open at 6:30 pm, the lecture will begin promptly at 7 p.m.
Admission: $10/adult; Free/Ohio History Connection member or student with ID. Tickets are purchased on site. No advance registration is available.
Thursday July 16th : St. Clair's Defeat
The traveling exhibit “St. Clair’s Defeat Revisited: A New View of the Conflict,” currently on display at the Octagon Visitor Center, introduces you to the complex history of St. Clair’s Defeat, on November 4, 1791, and its context and aftermath with respect to the nine Tribal Nations who orchestrated this great defeat of the U.S. Military. This presentation will follow the four themes of the exhibit, discussing the background of the Northwest Indian War, the battle tactics of St. Clair’s Defeat and the Native crescent strategy, the aftermath for Native Nations including broken treaties, removal, and boarding schools, and the persistence of Tribes today.
The presenter on this topic is Christine Thompson. She is Assistant Director and Archaeologist, Emeritus for the Applied Anthropology Laboratories, Ball State University, where she led grant-funded archaeology and anthropology projects in collaboration with Native Nations and community partners. She was the project manager for the traveling exhibit “St. Clair’s Defeat Revisited: A New View of the Conflict” which has been exhibited in over a dozen venues in three states since 2023. Thompson currently volunteers and is a tour guide for the Fort Recovery Museum & Monument, site of St. Clair’s Defeat.
Thursday Aug 20th
Join us for a special lecture on the preservation history of the Newark Earthworks with Jeff Gill! Learn how Licking County has been an exemplar and an outlier on preservation of earthworks; while like most of Ohio, a majority of Native American earthen structures are gone or degraded, but much more remains visible (if not always protected) here than elsewhere in the state or U.S. What happened in Licking County to make this possible? We will look at the historic record and meet some unexpected and under-appreciated characters in this preservation history narrative.
September 17th : The Newark Holy Stones
Join us on September 17, 2026, for a lecture presented by Brad Lepper and Jeff Gill on the topic of The Newark Holy Stones: “a mystery which time alone can dissipate”
The Newark Holy Stones consist of a number of carved stone objects engraved with Hebrew letters, which were found at various locations in Licking County, Ohio. They appeared at a time when archaeology was in its infancy, and the question of who built the ancient mounds in the Ohio Valley still had not been definitively answered. Some believed it might have been the Lost Tribes of Israel or some other European or Asian civilization, while others accepted that American Indian ancestors built them. To better understand the Holy Stones, Brad Lepper and Jeff Gill have immersed themselves in the historical context from which they emerged. In this presentation, they reveal how they established that the Holy Stones were scientific forgeries, the identities of the likely perpetrators, the possible motives of the forgers, and what it means for the issues raised by the Holy Stones to still be part of public discourse in the present day.
October 15th
