Explore the history and archeology of the Portsmouth Earthworks Complex that prehistoric Native Americans constructed over two-thousand years ago at the Mouth of the Scioto River, which are considered to be one of the largest complexes of mounds and earthworks in North America. Complete the tour in person or virtually using the Scioto Historical mobile app and website.

Learn about the construction of the mounds and earthworks and their near destruction in the 19th and 20th centuries. View a 3D video reconstruction of the complex set in a landscape from the Middle Woodlands Period (between c. 200 BCE and c. 300 CE) and consider the importance of the preservation of what remains of these ancient monuments. Learn about how remnants of these mysterious monumental works were ultimately preserved and contemplate the archeological record that survived.

Start your tour at the Southern Ohio Museum and view their exhibit, Art of the Ancients, which showcases over 10,000 artifacts from the famous Wertz Collection. Assembled over two generations by the father and son team of Charles and William Wertz, the collection provides an unparalleled window into the world of the prehistoric indigenous peoples who originally inhabited the Scioto and Ohio Valleys.

Learn about the Waller-Heinisch Mound, which was located where Portsmouth High School stands today, and how Clara Waller’s account of the mound’s excavation and destruction in 1887 provides insights today into the artifacts recovered from the location.

Visit Mound Park in the Hill Top neighborhood, where the Horseshoe Mound and other elements of the complex’s central group of earthworks were preserved within the bounds of a municipal park.

Visit the Tremper Mound Preserve, which protects one of the most significant ceremonial and mortuary sites of the ancient Hopewell people. Tremper was first surveyed and mapped in the 1840s and excavated in 1915 by William C. Mills of the Ohio Archaeological and Historical Society.

Finish the tour with a virtual or in-person (ODNR permit required) visit to the Raven Rock State Nature Preserve, which protects the historic sandstone lookout and the surrounding ridge, including a prehistoric mound site that American settlers excavated and leveled earlier in the 19th century. With the City of Portsmouth in the distance and the valley floor hundreds of feet below, consider the long history of human habitation at the confluence of the Scioto and Ohio Rivers and contemplate where we today fit into the story.