Archaeotrek
Pollock Works—Indian Mound Reserve; Cedarville, Ohio Hilltop Fort, Mounds, & Enclosure—Hopewell
By Dr. Greg Little
Portions of this article come from The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Native American Mounds & Earthworks.
The Pollock Works center on a 12-acre flat hilltop steeply elevated above Massie Creek near Cedarville, Ohio. The site is managed by the Greene County Parks association and is part of a larger complex called “Indian Mound Reserve.” Around the edges of the irregular hilltop bluff is an earthen embankment now 3- to 10-feet in height. In the 1840s the walls were measured at 30-feet in thickness and a uniform 10-feet tall. The embankment was erected in AD 50 and is known to have once served as the base for a massive palisade wall that had been burned and was later rebuilt with more earth. The site is a Hopewell culture ceremonial center, but was clearly also used for a long period as a fortress. It is one of a few Hopewell Hilltop Forts that was definitely used as a fort. There are three gateways into the enclosure — the photo above shows one of these. When the site was first discovered each of the three gateways had a large stone mound at the entrance. To the outside of the mounds were four horseshoe-shaped earthworks, the remnants of which can still be seen. Nearby is the Williamson Mound, a large conical mound dated to the Adena period. The mound was once 40-feet high and had a circumference of 150-feet. The diameter is today the same but the height has eroded to just under 30-feet. The mound dates to about 100 BC.
