BY MIRIAM SMITH
The Cincinnati Enquirer
MORROW -- Dignitaries in suits took turns shoveling piles of dirt Wednesday during ground-breaking ceremonies for the new Little Miami High School.
Across the field, Ted Sunderhaus took a lunch break after he and a volunteer spent much of the the morning in a ditch meticulously digging with trowels for ancient mysteries.
At the ground-breaking, a large white tent covered seats lined in neat rows and propped-up architectural renderings of school plans.
At the dig, a dusty pickup marked the plot where two men spent the morning crouched down in the ditch, scooping soil into white bags.
The contrasts reflect how time is running out for scientists working at a significant anthropological discovery on the same site as the 86-acre high school property at U.S. 22-Ohio 3 and Morrow-Cozaddale Road.
School officials and anthropologists with the Cincinnati Museum Center are working cooperatively at the site, which cannot legally be preserved.
The district has allowed anthropologists to dig at the site all summer and hope to use information gathered there as part of its curriculum.
The site is believed to be part of Southwest Ohio's last large "geometric earthwork" -- an ancient gathering place used by the Ohio Valley's earliest settlers at about the time of Christ's birth. Heavy machinery next week probably will bury six temporary dwellings discovered and believed to be used by Hopewell Indians 2000 years ago. Experts believe they had gathered there to build and use the earthwork.
The architecture of the dwellings is unlike any seen before this time.
Mr. Sunderhaus, an archaeologist and research associate with the Cincinnati Museum Center, three weeks ago found evidence by "dumb luck" of Ohio's second and largest "woodhenge," a large circular structure which had been surrounded by 172 posts at the site.
That too is expected to be buried by the end of next week.
But Superintendent Michael Virelli said anthropologists will be able to continue work on the site when the construction manager deems it safe to do so. He expected that would occur at the earliest next spring.
State Sen. Richard Finan, R-Evendale, joined county, school and township officials as well as architects, builders and representatives from the Cincinnati Museum Center at the ceremony.
Mr. Virelli said "this is a wonderful day for the Little Miami School family."
The 130,000-square foot school, which is needed because of crowding, will house between 800 and 850 students and will have room to grow and should be open for school in fall 2000, he said.
Anthropologists want to continue exploring on school property which surrounds a mound, which has already been preserved.
They say they have gleaned much already since they started exploring the site last May.
"It's certainly significant," Mr. Sunderhaus said. "But in a lot of ways what we're doing here is merely increasing the number of questions we have to ask rather than answering a lot of questions."
Those questions include: Where were the Hopewell Indians living?
"This period of prehistory is poorly understood, at best," he said.
