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Photo: ChristopherM at English Wikipedia, CC BY 2.5 via Wikimedia Commons
The Blackhand Gorge State Nature Preserve is a 4-mile-long (6.4 km) sandstone formation through which the Licking River flows in Licking County, Ohio, United States. Located 12 miles (19 km) east of Newark near the tiny town of Toboso, 957 acres (387 ha) along the gorge were designated an Ohio Nature Preserve in 1975. The gorge is a capsule of Ohio transportation history, having hosted canal boats, steam railroads, electric interurbans, and automobiles through the years. It is named for the black hand petroglyph that was found on the cliff face by the first settlers to the area. Black Hand Sandstone is a resistant rock that also forms the backbone of the Hocking Hills region.
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3 miles south of Cynthia, near (south/east) Newark, Ohio, off of SR 668. Flint Ridge is a restored prehistoric quarry pit with a museum that explains both the digging and shaping of flint. It is a site well worth the visit. There is a flint knap-in (teaching, exhibiting flint knapping, swap flint) every Labor Day week end. At the opposite end of the park there is a camping area that has a fossil swap the same week end.
Wright Earthworks, located less than a block west of the SR 79 intersection at Grant St in Newark, Licking County. The earthwork remnants may be viewed from James Street, a short distance from Grant Street and the SR 79 interchange. Hopewell Indians (100 BC-AD 500}