Followers of the Light of the Seasons: SunWatch
SunWatch Home Page - Ancient Indian Village - Dayton Ohio
Ohio has some truly wonderful archaeological treasures dating back to this area’s original human inhabitants. Remains of burial mounds, ceremonial earthworks and long-forgotten villages can be found concentrated along many of the river valleys that criss-cross the Ohio landscape. Many of these sites are attributed to Native American Fort Ancient Culture, which predated the cultures that are more commonly known and associated with the encroachment of Europeans on North America.
A book I highly recommend is Brad Lepper’s Ohio Archaeology, published in 2005 by Orange Frazer Press. It is probably the most comprehensive volume about the Native American cultures that once lived in the endless woodlands of an Ohio landscape, now for the most part long gone.
One of the best sites to visit and learn about the Fort Ancient people lies just south of Dayton. SunWatch Ancient Indian Village - part of the Boonshoft Museum of Discovery - sits along the western bank of the Great Miami River. It’s not easy to find and feels quite of bit out of place when driving through the heavily industrialized and not-overly -picturesque hamlet of beautiful Moraine, but once there it is easy to imagine what life must have been like prior to what we refer to as “civilization.” The staff at SunWatch have done a stand-out job with an excellent visitor’s center and reconstructed dwellings as well as presentation of the thousands of artifacts uncovered at the site.
One of the pleasant surprises from our visit was experiencing the coolness of the inside of the reconstructed homes, which was nice given how hot and humid it was outside.
The original inhabitants of SunWatch were worshipers of the mystery of nature and avid followers of the light of the seasons. Everything about their lives involved the signs of earth, sun and sky. When to plant, when to harvest, when to hunt. Everything had its’ time and season, like the concentric circles obviously used in the layout of their own village.
In today’s society of immediate gratification, cell phones, wireless laptops and digital disconnection I think we can stand to re-learn a thing or two about the natural rhythms and mysteries of nature and life that are just outside our doors, perhaps learning from teachers who have been quietly waiting for over 1,000 years.
