Indigenous earthworks are an ‘Easy Day Away' trip for Northeast Ohioans

"Easy Day Away: Ohio's Mounds" This summer, the "Sound of Ideas" team has been bringing you suggestions for trips to take outside of Northeast Ohio, through the "Easy Day Away" series, which you can travel to within a short car ride. This time, we head south to visit sites that are thousands of years old, and the significance of which puts them in the same category as the Acropolis in Greece, Stonehenge and the Great Wall of China. The Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks are earthen mounds built by ancient indigenous cultures around 2000 years ago and in 2023 they were designated as UNESCO World Heritage sites. Tuesday on the "Sound of Ideas," hosted by Stephanie Haney, we learn more about these massive earthworks, why they're important and what to learn from them. WOSU Public Media in Columbus has also been focusing on these mounds in a documentary series - "Hopewell Earthworks - Stories Written on the Land" which you can watch here. Guests: - Brad Lepper, Ph.D., Senior World Heritage Archaeologist, Ohio History Connection - Susan Knisley, Director of Interpretation & Education - Hopewell Culture National Historic Park; National Park Service - Logan York, Historic Preservation Director, Miami Tribe of Oklahoma; Host, "Hopewell Earthworks - Stories Written on the Land" James Renner's New Book Then, we hear from longtime Akron-based author James Renner, who has been covering true crime for years and has published books about some of the region's most infamous unsolved cases, including the murders of Amy Mihaljavic in Bay Village and Lisa Pruett in Shaker Heights. In his latest book, “A Cruise to Nowhere: My Search for Amy Lynn Bradley,” he goes farther afield — to the disappearance of a young Virginian woman from a cruise ship in the Caribbean in 1998. Ideastream Public Media's Deputy Editor of Engaged Journalism, Justin Glanville, spoke with Renner about the unresolved case and why it's maintained such a high profile for nearly 30 years. Guests: - James Renner, Author, "A Cruise to Nowhere: My Search for Amy Lynn Bradley" - Justin Glanville, Deputy Editor - Engaged Journalism, Ideastream Public Media