Marti Chaatsmith

2097 C Louella Hodges Reese Hall
1179 University Drive
Newark, Ohio 43055

Mailing Address

1179 University Drive 
Newark, Ohio 43055

Marti L. Chaatsmith, Associate Director, Newark Earthworks Center (NEC), Ohio State University at Newark (OH), is an enrolled citizen of the Comanche Nation and direct descendant of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. Marti’s research focuses on creating an Indigenous-centered understanding of the Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks World Heritage Site. Marti developed the first tribal outreach program and contributed to the foundational work to attain World Heritage status.  In her role, she consults with Ohio’s historic American Indian tribes to build sustainable relationships with tribal governments removed from the region, focusing on their Midwest histories, and the protection of Indigenous historic and ancient places. Her work emphasizes that land is not a passive backdrop, but a living archive of relationships, stories, and cosmologies. She reminds us that planetary imagination is not new: long before modern climate discourse, the People of the Hopewell Culture built monumental earthworks throughout the Midwest 2,000 years ago aligned with solar and lunar cycles, expressing a sophisticated, relational understanding of the Earth as a sentient actor.  Her leadership invites us to consider planetary imagination as a responsibility to deep time, to ancestors, and to ecosystems undergoing profound change today.

In collaboration with the Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma, Marti initiated a tribal outreach program that has evolved into building sustainable relationships. Since 2007, she has advocated for the inclusion and participation of American Indians and Indigenous perspectives in the policies and activities of Ohio and the Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks World Heritage sites. 

Her projects focus on re-introducing the indigenous earthworks to American Indians today, including tribal government leaders, cultural historians and American Indian artists, writers and activists. She is also a former member of the Member of the Ohio Historic Site Preservation Advisory Board.

Recently Completed Newark Earthwork's Center's Research

• Laura Da’: Walking the Scioto, 2025 Spark Grant (R. Fletcher, E. Washuta, M. Chaatsmith)
• Stepping Out and Stepping Up: The Land-Grant Truth and Reconciliation Project
  • Stepping Out of Our Comfort Zone and Stepping Up to Our Responsibilities
• "Toward Truth and Reconciliation: Present-Day Indigenous Peoples in Ohio"
• Ancient Indigenous Monuments and Modern Indigenous Art 

Research

• "Earthworks are places of spirituality, accomplishment and power" The Newark Advocate, February 23, 2020.
• "Earthworks: Rise and Tell"
  • by Marti Chaatsmith (Comanche Nation/Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma Descendant) and Dr. Christine Ballengee-Morris in the Fifth Session: Through Space and Time on April 12, 2018 T at "Metaphors of Time: An Interdisciplinary Conversation Across the Arts, Humanities and Sciences," April 11-12, 2018. Sponsored by The Ohio State University Office of Research, Jewish Studies at Fordham University, The Thomas and Diann Mann Distinguished Symposium Fund, The Melton Center for Jewish Studies at Ohio State, The Departments of NELC and Philosophy at The Ohio State University.
• Earthworks Rising
• "Earthworks rising: emerging roles within collaborations for indigenous knowledge." Christine Ballengee-Morris; Marti Chaatsmith; Glenna Wallace. Replanting cultures: community-engaged scholarship in Indian country. Benjamin Barnes and Stephen Warren. State University of New York Press (SUNY Press), 2022.
• "Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks: Landscape Monuments of the Ancient Ohio Valley" [external link]
  • John E. Hancock, Marti L. Chaatsmith, Bradley T. Lepper, Bret J. Ruby. Smithsonian Books. April 21, 2026.
• “Let Us Tell the Story of Our Land and Place: Tribal Leader Interviews Concerning the Seizure and Sale of Territories Benefiting Land-Grant Universities."
  • Williams, R. B., Gavazzi, S. M., Roberts, M. E., Snyder, B. W., Low, J. N., Hoy, C., Chaatsmith, M. L., and Charles, M. Tribal College Journal of American Indian Higher Education. Volume  33, No. 4- Summer 2022.
• "Native (Re)Investments in Ohio: Evictions, Earthworks Preservation, and Tribal Stewardship."
  • The Newark Earthworks: Enduring Monuments, Contested Meanings. University of Virginia Press. 2016.
• Ohio Native Heritage Archive, Ohio State Libraries
• "Paying Old Debts" Williams, R.B., Gavazzi, S. M., Roberts, M.E., Chaatsmith, M.L., Hoy, C., Low., J. N., and Snyder, B. W. Tribal College Journal of American Indian Higher Education. Vol. 33, No. 2. 2021.
• "Places of Spirituality, Accomplishment, and Power"
  • The Fertile Earth and the Ordered Cosmos: Reflections on the Newark Earthworks and World Heritage. edited by Elizabeth Weiser, Timothy Jordan, and Richard Shiels. The Ohio State University Press, June 2023.
• "Singing at a Center of the Indian World: The SAI and Ohio Earthworks." Marti Chaatsmith. American Indian Quarterly. Summer 2013. (EBSCOHost external link)
• "Time and Earthworks." Marti Chaatsmith and Christine Ballengee-Morris. Time: A Multidisciplinary Introduction. edited by Sarit Kattan and Lynn Kaye. De Gruyter. 2023.
• Tribal Leadership in the 21st Century and the Preservation of American Indian Heritage in Ohio, Welcoming the Tribes Back to Their Ancestral Lands Presentation, 2018.​​​​
  • Presented at the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity.
• Virtual World Heritage Ohio
  • Newark Earthworks GIS Web Map
  • Office of Digital Humanities, National Endowment for the Humanities, Ball State's Institute for Digital Intermedia Arts (IDIA Lab), Applied Anthropology Laboratories (AAL), The Works, Ohio History Connection, Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma and the Shawnee Tribe.
• "Water/Earth/Sky Journeys: Overcoming Serial Nomination Challenges with a Themed Landscape Approach"
  • Jennifer Aultman, Marti Chaatsmith (Comanche Nation/Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma Descendant), Elizabeth Bartley.
• "WOSU Preserving American Indian Culture." Radio Show Recording.
  • September 29, 2016. All Sides with Ann Fisher with guests President Kerry Holton of the Delaware Nation, Daryl Balwin Director of the Myaamia Center at Miami University, and Marti Chaatsmith (Comanche Nation/Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma Descendant) Interim Director of the Newark Earthworks Center.

Awards

• 2012 Ohio State Newark Ohio Central Technical College Diversity Award
  • "AIS and Newark Earthworks Center's Marti Chaatsmith Recognized with Diversity Award" American Indian Studies May 17, 2013.