Ball State to develop interactive 3D simulation of Newark Earthworks
The public will be able to explore the prehistoric Newark Earthworks in Ohio the way they appeared 2,000 years ago thanks to an interactive 3D simulation under development at Ball State University.
The Newark Earthworks comprise the largest set of geometric earthen enclosures in the world, built by the Hopewell People between A.D. 1 to A.D. 400 to serve a variety of cultural and spiritual purposes.
Ball State’s Applied Anthropology Laboratories (AAL) and its Institute for Digital Intermedia Arts (IDIA Lab) plan to create a web-based virtual world that shows the earthworks in their original condition, surrounded by a period-accurate environment, according to Kevin Nolan director and senior archaeologist at AAL.
The attention to detail will even include accurate celestial alignments using data from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
“The sky will be added with accurate celestial bodies to allow people to view the stars, planets, moon, and sun as they were 2000 years ago to be able to experience the alignments as they were intended by the builders.”
Nolan and co-project director John Fillwalk, senior director of IDIA Lab, recently received a $99,996 award from the National Endowment for the
Humanities (NEH) Digital Humanities Advancement Grant to fund their project.
The project is a collaboration between Ball State and the Ohio History Connection, with support and partnership from several federally recognized American Indian tribes, including the Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma and the Shawnee Tribe.
Already a National Historic Landmark, Ohio designated the Newark Earthworks as “the official prehistoric monument of the state” in 2006.
Spread across four miles in what is now present-day Newark, Ohio, mounds and walls are constructed to record significant celestial alignments on the landscape, including the 18.6-year lunar cycle. The earthworks created community for the Hopewell People and provided sacred spaces for religious rituals and ceremonies related to their society.
Chief Glenna Wallace of the Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma expressed her support for the project by sharing how it will reconnect her tribe with their Ohio homeland and stories from the past.
The government forcibly removed the Shawnee from Ohio in 1832 and relocated the tribe to Oklahoma.
“This project offers the possibility of ‘winding back the sky’ so we can see how these sacred earthworks and the heavens have danced together across these past 2,000 years,” she said.
Until a virtual version of these impressive wonders is available, you can learn more about the Hopewellian people by visiting the Hopewell Culture National Historical Park in south-central Ohio. You can learn more about the Newark Earthworks by visiting the Ohio History Connection, the Ancient Ohio Trail, and World Heritage Ohio.
