We Don’t Know What We Don’t Know

            This has been an enlightening week, in many ways.  I wonder how we can live our entire lives in one place and still have so many unknowns about our surroundings.  I was recently talking with a friend about Ohio being the Buckeye State and I noted that I don’t think I’ve ever seen a buckeye tree.  I tried to find information online about where buckeyes grow but didn’t have much luck finding anything more than tips on transplanting and growing saplings.  Knepper solved this mystery for me when he explained that the versatility and popularity of the wood from buckeye trees caused them to be virtually eliminated from Ohio (9).

            One of the topics discussed in class was the existence of Indians in northeast Ohio.  While the southern and central areas show many signs of the existence of early native people, there isn’t much in northeast Ohio.  We talked about the possibility this was due to the rate of development obliterating any artifacts and mounds because they didn’t realize what they were or the importance of them or because of the secrecy that sometimes surrounds archeological finds.  I think it may be that the people that moved into the area knew what the mounds and artifacts were but discounted them because they were from what they believed was an inferior people and therefore unimportant.  Or at least, they were not as important as the progress of civilized society.  The website “Prehistoric Indian Earthworks in the City of Cleveland and Environs” showed some old photos or drawings of mounds in the Cleveland area so we know they were not immediately destroyed, but as the city grew, they were in the way and subsequently flattened for building purposes.  I was surprised to learn of the mounds that still exist in the area that I never knew about before.

            The topic of natives in Ohio came up in my Preservation Planning course this week as well.  Someone mentioned that this is a young country.  Dr. Sande corrected this statement by clarifying that just because the United States was formed less than 300 years ago, this is not a young country.  He talked about many of the same things we did in our class pertaining to human migration and natives that inhabited Ohio.  He stressed that we have thousands of years of history with human inhabitants here so we are not a young country at all.

            Another thing that resonated with me this week is how topographers made maps without modern technology.  We talked in class about inaccuracies of early maps of the western hemisphere.  On one, we’re not sure what lake is represented.  It could be Lake Erie based on location or Lake Chautauqua based on its crescent shape.  Another showed the eastern half of America but the west, particularly the northwest, disappeared into obscurity due to lack of information.  I was astounded to learn that these early maps were often made by third parties based on the notes of travelers.  It amazes me that there is any accuracy at all when the topographer never viewed the land first hand or took any type of measurements for themselves.