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Subject: Flint Ridge Hopewell Site
Date: Mon, 11 Oct 2004 20:42:31 -0500

October 10, 2004
An ancient quarry
Indians found high-quality, colored stones at Ohio site
By BOB DOWNING
Knight Ridder Newspapers

BROWNSVILLE, Ohio -- Little-known Flint Ridge may be the most important
historical site in Ohio, but it's a place that's unfamiliar to most
people.
Flint Ridge State Memorial in southeast Licking County marks the site
where ancient Indians quarried brightly colored flint, starting 11,000
or more years ago.
The Indians needed razor-sharp flint for tools, weapons, ceremonial
objects and jewelry, and Flint Ridge offered high-quality stone in a
rainbow of colors: pink, gray, white, black and copper.
The Ohio flint had a high quartz content, flecked with crystals that
made it shine when polished by the Hopewell Indians.
The 20-mile-long narrow ridge between Zanesville and Newark became the
center of prehistoric economy across the eastern United States.
Indian trails from other states led to Flint Ridge. Rock from Flint
Ridge was traded for copper from Upper Michigan, mica from the Carolinas
and shells from the Gulf of Mexico. Samples from Flint Ridge have been
found as far west as Kansas City, in Louisiana and on the East Coast.
Many experts say Ohio was the center of ancient Hopewell culture in
large part because of the proximity of Flint Ridge and its rocky
resources.
The irregular flint deposits are about three miles north-to-south and
nine miles east-to-west. They cover five to six square miles.
Today, the Flint Ridge site is a great day trip for families. It is only
132 miles from Akron, Ohio, via interstates 77 and 70.
The site, managed by the Ohio Historical Society, includes a small
museum that was built over one of the original quarry pits and provides
information on the digging and shaping of flint.
An Indian mannequin stands at the edge of the pit about 15 feet square
at the center of the museum.
Flint Ridge is known for both the quantity and the quality of the flint
that was quarried over the years.
The Indians found flint outcroppings at the surface and then dug through
the dirt and limestone to reach the hard and brittle flint. It was not
easy and was hard work.
You can see the remnants of hundreds of pits along the Quarry Trail that
runs one-third of a mile through the woods.
What you will see are a number of deep pits, filled with leaves and many
with pockets of water. That's because a layer of brown shale is under
the flint and keeps the water from sinking into the soil. You can also
picture ancient Indians excavating the rock.
Some of the pits are up to 20 feet deep and 60 feet across. Others are
smaller. They are scattered along the wooded and hummocky ridge.
It makes you realize the thousands of tons of dirt and rock that had to
be removed by hand just to get to the flint.
You will find flint outcroppings along the Creek Trail, and bits of
flint are scattered along the trails.
Taking any flint away with you is strictly prohibited, although you can
purchase pieces of flint in the museum gift shop. Flint is the state
stone of Ohio.
The museum includes a videotape of archaeology and displays of flint
weapons, tools and jewelry and flint geology.
About 200 million years ago, east central Ohio was at the bottom of a
shallow ocean. Silica-rich skeletons of tiny organisms settled to the
bottom, collecting in depressions. The deposits solidified into hard
flint. After the ocean receded, erosion wore away the layers of softer
rock, exposing the ridge of hard flint.
What the ancient Indians discovered is that flint on the surface that
was exposed to the elements was useless because it cracked too easily.
But high-quality flint -- in layers from 1- to 12-feet thick; with
averages about 5-feet thick -- could be quarried with large hammer
stones or mauls made of granite or quartzite and weighing up to 25
pounds. They were used to drive wood or bone wedges into natural cracks
in the flint.
The flint was quarried into smaller blocks that were easy to transport.
In workshops near the quarries, workers skilled with small antler
hammers and other tools pressed and chipped the rough flint into
leaf-shaped pieces from 3- to 12-inches long and from 2- to 5-inches
wide.
These blades with round or square bases could then be transported to
faraway villages or finished at workshops near the quarries by craftsmen
who formed drills, knives, scrapers and arrow and spear points from the
flint blades.
The first white pioneers coming into Ohio found their own uses for the
rock from Flint Ridge.
Rock from the western end of the ridge was ideal for making buhrstones
for water-powered mills on the Ohio frontier. Smaller pieces of flint
were used for hand-grinding smaller batches of corn or wheat at homes.
Flint Ridge rock was also used for the roadbed of the National Road
where it crosses Licking and Muskingum counties.
The 525 acres owned by the state around the ancient flint quarries are
today a nature preserve. There is a paved handicapped-accessible trail
and a picnic area.
There also are Hopewell mounds and earthworks at Flint Ridge, although
no one can say why.
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