The Fertile Earth and the Ordered Cosmos is a richly illustrated coffee-table book filled with nearly four dozen succinct chapters on the Newark Earthworks and the World Heritage process. It also contains over two dozen high-quality, full-page (8.5 × 11 in.) images. Most of the chapters began as columns in the Newark Advocate newspaper (published in Newark, Ohio) in the years leading up to the announcement in 2023 of UNESCO World Heritage status for Newark and seven other Ohio Hopewell Ceremonial Earthwork sites. Consequently, these are short pieces written for general audiences, each of which is meant to convey particular perspectives or important points about the Newark Earthworks and related topics. The collection brings together an impressively diverse set of authors, which, in addition to archaeologists, includes citizens and officials of numerous Tribal Nations; museum administrators; educators; authors; politicians; and faculty in architecture, physics, philosophy, English, and history. The chapters are organized into seven sections: (1) “What Are the Newark Earthworks?”; (2) “Uniting Earth and Sky”; (3) “What Is World Heritage?”; (4) “Experiencing and Remembering Earthworks”; (5) “The Ohio Phenomenon”; (6) “Ancient Communities Coming Together”; and (7) “Modern Communities Coming Together.” Each new section includes a brief description of the contents and themes that unite the chapters.
The opening chapter features Glenna Wallace, chief of the Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma, recounting the stunned amazement of a first-time visitor to the Newark Earthworks and the feeling of shock upon discovering them occupied by a golf course. This chapter is a microcosm of the book as a whole for many reasons, including the exploration of themes such as preservation and stakeholder communities. This chapter is also a version of the story presented in the foreword to the previous volume on Newark (Jones and Shiels, editors, The Newark Earthworks: Enduring Monuments, Contested Meanings, 2016). Most additional chapters are also brief general-audience summaries of previously published research either from the 2016 volume or elsewhere. All chapters could have benefited from including reference to additional resources for those interested in taking a deeper dive into the topics. Readers may also be familiar with even the most striking images, given that many were published in the 2016 book, although they are greatly enhanced here through printing on full pages.
Many authors summarize their emotional responses, or those of others, when fateful coincidence brought them face-to-face with the earthen monuments at Newark for the first time (e.g., John E. Hancock, John N. Low, Hope Taft, M. Elizabeth Weiser). Other authors provide anecdotes and behind-the-scenes stories about scholarly studies or other activities (e.g., Hancock, Ray Hively and Robert Horn, Bradley Lepper, Mike Mickelson, Richard D. Shiels, Bill Weaver). Several chapters describe the tactile experiences and the feast for the senses that comes from engaging with these earthworks (also Jennifer Aultman, Marti L. Chaatsmith, Jeff Gill, Stacey Halfmoon, Aaron Keirns, Christine Ballengee Morris, Lucy E. Murphy, Jay Toth, Jim Williams and Norita Yoder). Starting in Part 3, the chapters revolve around the World Heritage theme. Many of these chapters cover the listing requirements for World Heritage status and how these are present at Newark by way of integrity and universal value (Lepper). Others review the community effort it took to make World Heritage status a reality, providing a potential map for those who want to travel the World Heritage route (e.g., Aultman, Mary F. Borgia, Timothy R. W. Jordan, Halfmoon, Shiels, Weiser, Williams). Perhaps most obviously, the collection illustrates the broad coalition of interest groups needed to attain World Heritage status.
Overall, this book is a brief overview of the Newark Earthworks for a general audience. It is not for those looking for the latest data on radiocarbon dates, artifact tallies, or stratigraphic profiles. Perhaps it could also serve as an ethical case study for a course in public archaeology or historic preservation. My main takeaway is yet another humbling reminder that archaeologists are but one of many stakeholders in cultural sites that are not remnants of the past but that “live” very much in the present.
