http://noahsage.com/2013/08/02/153-years-and-the-debate-still-rages-newark-mounds-and-decalogue-stone/
153 Years and the Debate Still Rages: Newark Mounds and Decalogue Stone
Newark Decalogue Stone, photo by J. Huston McCulloch
By B.L. Freeborn © 2013
If the Newark Indian Mounds of Newark, Ohio were not large enough to contain a golf course (which they do) they would have been declared a fraud and a hoax. The Decalogue Stone and Keystone, two stones with Hebrew inscriptions found at and near the site have been declared both a fake and real. The debate over the stones has raged 153 years.
Today’s greatest anti-stone debaters are: Kenneth L. Feder, Ph.D., Professor of Anthropology at Central Connecticut State University and Bradley T. Lepper, Ph.D., Affiliated Scholar at Denison University in Granville, Ohio and Archeology Education Coordinator at the Ohio Historical Society. They are joined by others who parrot their words such as Keith Fitzpatrick-Matthews, Archaeology Officer at North Hertfordshire District Council, England, educated at University of Lancaster and Letchworth Grammar School and is a former nightclub DJ who writes “Badarcheaology.”
Some of their arguments are logical. Some of them are not.
Keystone found near Octagon in Newark, Ohio,
Photo by J. Huston McCulloch
There is considerably less written on the Newark Mounds since there is just not as much to debate. They exist. They existed prior to European settlement so they are not forged. They have been altered but that work was either done in the interest of preserving them or removing them from existence, which is why three large portions of the mounds are in viewable park-like condition today and the rest has made way for us and Wallyworld. There is serious academic work being done on them with some pretty cool new instruments like LiDAR. William F. Romain, Ph.D. Archaeoastronomy, Research Associate for Newark Earthworks Center, Ohio State University leads in this field by far. He picked up where Ray Hively and Robert Horn of Earlham College, Richmond, Indiana left off in 1982. Joseph M. Knapp has written web-articles “Hopewell Lunar Astronomy: The Octagon Earthworks” and “On the Great Hopewell Road” which begins in Newark. He introduces us to James A. Marshall who has spent many hours actually surveying the mounds and has studied the geometry used in building them. This lovely image of the mounds is from James Q. Jacobs extensive site on the archaeoastronomy of ancient sites.
Newark Earthworks, Link to James Q. Jacobs Site and Photos.
No one can say academic archeologists are ignoring this topic. It is a mainstream debate and the arguments are becoming increasingly scientific … well…. except for Lepper’s and the Dj’s. To add to the topic at this point either good tools and/or observations are required.
There are a few gaffs in the arguments on the Stones on both sides. Perhaps the only way to really resolve the issue is to look at the Mounds themselves. Instead of debating endless rounds of “who is/is not guilty of faking them” perhaps we should change the question entirely. To do so we might have to throw out a lot of what we presume is actual fact. We need to see if there are any circumstances under which it would be appropriate for a “Jewish looking” stone to be found at the mounds pre-Columbus. In my mind their presence can only be logical and legitimate if they can be associated to the mounds themselves.
So we begin looking at the Stones by looking at some of the arguments of the current debaters and then I have a good deal of mathematical information about the mounds to share. The legitimacy of the stones aside, my geometric study proves a great intelligence lies behind the design and layout of the mounds. When I am done you will have a solid opinion …of some sort.
So we will pick up next with………… “They left no garbage!”
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Footnotes
- Newark Decalogue Stone and Keystone photos by J. Huston McCulloch. http://economics.sbs.ohio-state.edu/jhm/arch/decalog.html
- Knapp, Joseph M., “Hopewell Lunar Astronomy: The Octagon Earthworks,” 1998. http://www.copperas.com/octagon/oindex.html
- Knapp, Joseph M., “On the Great Hopewell Road,” 1998. http://coolohio.com/octagon/onroad.htm
- More photos and archaeoastronomy information by J. Q. Jacobs. http://www.jqjacobs.net/archaeo/octagon.html
