Fort Ancient

Fort Ancient is comprised of land from northeastern Kentucky, southern Ohio, western West Virginia, and southern Indiana.  The people of Fort Ancient lived off of maize, corn, and squash (the three sisters), wild plants, with the occasional game of elf, white-tailed deer, turkey, and other animals.  They fished with bone hooks, harpoons, and nets.  They hunted using the bow and arrow.

They lived in a village with their homes in a circle around a central plaza, and some sites have burial or temple mounds.  The villages were located near a water way, a stream or a river.
Their pottery was squat and globular, with rounded bottoms and board mouths.  Some of these also had strap handles.  They also had pipes made from stone and clay.  Most of the pipes were rectangular and conical with a wooden stem, but some were made into animal shape, elbow shaped, or they were made with a cool handhold.  

As for how they handled their dead, they let the body decompose, defleshed it, then cremated and buried the bones.  The remains were buried with beads, shells, and other items the person might have possessed. 
Fort Ancient is said to be the largest prehistoric Indian hilltop enclosure earthwork and is a place to explore 15,000 years of American Indian heritage and history in Ohio.

The site is Ohio’s first state park. On April 28, 1890, the Ohio General Assembly passed Senate Bill 308 providing funds to purchase Fort Ancient for the State of Ohio. In April 1891, the legislature authorized the Ohio Historical Society to care for the site. Soon after acquiring the property, it was discovered that the 180 acres purchased did not include the entire earthworks, only the central section. It took another 18 years to purchase additional tracts. The state was in competition with the Fort Ancient Hotel Company, which wanted the land to establish a summer resort within the earthwork. The Historical Society finally won out and purchased the earthworks in 1908, although they paid more than double the cost compared to the 1890 purchase.

In 1966, the site became nationally recognized when it was named a National Historic Landmark.