Are the Octagon Earthworks a burial site for prehistoric Native people?
An article published in the April 19, 1925 issue of the New York Times Magazine suggests that 14 “giant” human skeletons were found at the Octagon Earthworks. This article almost certainly refers to an early 19th century discovery of human skeletons in a mound destroyed by the construction of the Ohio and Erie Canal located one mile from the Octagon Earthworks, behind what today is Famous Supply near Main and Union streets in Newark. An original account of the burial discovery is reported in The Advocate on March 29, 1827. A second report is contained in a footnote of the 1848 book, Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley. It is not known what became of the human remains and artifacts found in this excavation. The earliest documented scientific excavations at the Newark Earthworks were undertaken at the Octagon by a group of scholars from the Granville Literary and Theological Institution (now Denison University). In 1836 this group excavated parts of the Observatory mound at Octag
