Birding at Fort Ancient State Memorial in Warren County, Ohio

I think I’ve found a new haunt—Fort Ancient! Located just 15 minutes up I-71 from where we live in Warren County, Fort Ancient is located on a gorgeous wooded plateau perched 245 feet above the Little Miami River. What makes it special? It is the largest prehistoric earthen hilltop enclosure in the United States. Built 2000 years ago by Mound Builders, the earth walls stretch 3.5 miles, enclosing over 100 acres of hilltop. Mound Builders used small baskets to move more than 553,000 cubic yards of soil to form the earthen walls that reach from 4 to 23 feet in height. Amazingly, most of the earthworks are still visible and retain the same form they had over 2000 years ago! Archeologists estimate it took about 400 years (100BC – 290AD) to build the entire complex.

A 2000 year old earthen wall at Fort Ancient State Memorial.

As you drive through the park, you can see earthen walls rimming the plateau. Believed to

be a gathering place and religious ceremonial complex, Fort Ancient has specific ties to the Summer and Winter Solstice.

Click here for a link to the Ohio Archaeology Blog for a post on the Winter Solstice celebration on Dec 20, 2008 and previous Summer Solstice celebrations.

I love these signs....thank goodness some of the mounds and earthworks in our state have been protected and preserved.

While I was there, I visited the bookstore (of course) at the museum and found two really nice books to help me learn about the Hopewell Culture and the Mound Builders of Ohio:

Ohio Archaeology, by Bradley T. Lepper

This book is fabulous. It chronicles all the earthworks in Ohio. It will be my primary reference as I learn more and more about these prehistoric sites scattered throughout our state. It's loaded with survey maps, photos, the most recent analysis of the purpose of the earthworks, and history. I already caught Matty reading it too. It's very interesting.

The Fort Ancient Earthworks, Prehistoric Lifeways of the Hopewell Culture in Southwestern Ohio, Edited by Robert P. Connolly and Bradley T. Lepper.

This book is specific to Fort Ancient and is a bit more technical. I don't think it was written for lay people because it was based on a symposium sponsored by the Ohio Historical Society, but I'm crazy for it!! It's loaded with survey maps and in-depth articles on all aspects of Fort Ancient.

To top it off, I heard and saw lots of birds and will definitely be back for more birding as well as studying the magnificent earthen walls. I'm sure Fort Ancient will be a jackpot during spring migration. Among the highlights of Sunday's birding was a huge flock of Cedar Waxwings hawking insects above the North Overlook of the South Fort. I've seen large flocks of Cedar Waxwings along the Little Miami River near where we live systematically moving from tree to tree and devouring insects on the wing, but this flock was larger than any I'd ever seen. A constant flurry of activity, the birds were thick in the air as they constantly dove out to nab insects, returning to the towering oaks for just a moment before launching back out for another snack! Tiny flakes of tree debris kept falling all around me as the birds disturbed the upper branches en masse. It almost appeared they were using the twigs for springboards to launch themselves back out into the sky...