Hopewell Interaction Area and local expressions of the Hopewell tradition
The Hopewell tradition (also called the Hopewell culture) describes the common aspects of the Native American culture that flourished along rivers in the northeastern and midwestern Eastern Woodlands from 100 BCE to 500 CE, in the Middle Woodland period. The Hopewell tradition was not a single culture or society, but a widely dispersed set of related populations. They were connected by a common network of trade routes, known as the Hopewell exchange system.
At its greatest extent, the Hopewell exchange system ran from the Crystal River Indian Mounds in modern-day Florida as far north as the northern shores of Lake Ontario.
Within this area, societies participated in a high degree of exchange
with the highest amount of activity along waterways. The Hopewell
exchange system received materials from all over what is now occupied by
the United States. Most of the items traded were exotic materials and
were received by people living in the major trading and manufacturing
areas. These people then converted the materials into products
and exported them through local and regional exchange networks. The
objects created by the Hopewell exchange system spread far and wide and
have been seen in many burials outside the Midwest.
Origins
Although the origins of the Hopewell are still under discussion, the Hopewell culture can also be considered a cultural climax.
Hopewell populations originated in western New York and moved south into Ohio, where they built upon the local Adena mortuary tradition. Or, Hopewell was said to have originated in western Illinois and spread by diffusion ... to southern Ohio. Similarly, the Havana Hopewell tradition was thought to have spread up the Illinois River and into southwestern Michigan, spawning Goodall Hopewell. (Dancey 114)
The name "Hopewell" was applied by Warren K. Moorehead after his explorations of the Hopewell Mound Group
in Ross County, Ohio, in 1891 and 1892. The mound group itself was
named after Mordecai Hopewell, whose family who owned the earthworks at
the time. What any of the various groups now defined as Hopewellian
called themselves is unknown.
It is used to describe a wide scattering of people who lived near
rivers in temporary settlements of 1-3 households and practiced a
mixture of hunting, gathering and crop growing.
Politics and hierarchy
The Hopewell inherited from their Adena forebears an incipient social stratification.
This increased social stability and reinforced sedentism, social
stratification, specialized use of resources, and probably population
growth. Hopewell societies cremated
most of their deceased and reserved burial for only the most important
people. In some sites, hunters apparently received a higher status in
the community because their graves were more elaborate and contained
more status goods.
The Hopewellian peoples had leaders, but they were not like powerful rulers who could command armies of slaves and soldiers.
These cultures likely accorded certain families a special place of
privilege. Some scholars suggest that these societies were marked by the
emergence of "big-men".
These leaders acquired their position because of their ability to
persuade others to agree with them on important matters such as trade
and religion. They also perhaps were able to develop influence by the
creation of reciprocal obligations with other important members of the
community. Whatever the source of their status and power, the emergence
of "big-men" was another step toward the development of the highly
structured and stratified sociopolitical organization called the chiefdom.
The Hopewell settlements were linked by extensive and complex
trading routes, which doubled as communication networks, bring people
together for important ceremonies.
Mounds
Hopewell mounds from the Mound City Group in Ohio
Today, the best-surviving features of the Hopewell tradition era are mounds built for uncertain purposes. Great geometric earthworks
are one of the most impressive Native American monuments throughout
American prehistory. Eastern Woodlands mounds have various geometric
shapes and rise to impressive heights. The gigantic sculpted earthworks
often took the shape of animals, birds, or writhing serpents.
The function of the mounds is still under debate. Due to considerable
evidence and surveys, plus the good survival condition of the largest
mounds, more information can be obtained.
Several scientists, including Dr. Bradley T. Lepper, Curator of Archaeology, Ohio Historical Society, hypothesize that the Octagon earthwork, part of the Newark Earthworks at Newark, Ohio, was a lunar observatory
oriented to the 18.6-year cycle of minimum and maximum lunar risings
and settings on the local horizon. The Octagon covers more than 50
acres, the size of 100 football pitches.
Dr. John Eddy completed an unpublished survey in 1978, and proposed a
lunar major alignment for the Octagon. Ray Hively and Robert Horn of Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana, were the first researchers to analyze numerous lunar sightlines at the Newark Earthworks (1982) and the High Banks Works (1984) in Chillicothe, Ohio.
Christopher Turner noted that the Fairground Circle in Newark, Ohio
aligns to the sunrise on May 4, i.e. that it marked the May
cross-quarter sunrise.
In 1983, Turner demonstrated that the Hopeton earthworks encode various
sunrise and moonrise patterns, including the winter and summer solstices, the equinoxes, the cross-quarter days, the lunar maximum events, and the lunar minimum events due to their precise straight and parallel lines.
William F. Romain has written a book on the subject of "astronomers, geometers, and magicians" at the earthworks.
Many of the mounds also contain various types of burials.
Precious burial good have also been found in the mounds. These include
objects of adornment made of copper, mica and obsidian, imported to the
region hundreds of miles away. Stone and ceramics were also fashioned
into intricate shapes.
Artwork
The
Hopewell created some of the finest craftwork and artwork of the
Americas. Most of their works had some religious significance, and their
graves were filled with necklaces, ornate carvings made from bone or
wood, decorated ceremonial pottery, ear plugs, and pendants. Some graves were lined with woven mats, mica (a mineral consisting of thin glassy sheets), or stones. The Hopewell produced artwork in a greater variety and with more exotic materials than their predecessors the Adena. Grizzly bear teeth, fresh water pearls, sea shells, sharks' teeth, copper and even small quantities of silver
were turned into beautifully crafted pieces. The Hopewell artisans were
expert carvers of pipestone, and many of the mortuary mounds are full
of exquisitely carved statues and pipes. The Mound of Pipes at Mound City produced over 200 stone smoking pipes depicting animals and birds in well-realized three-dimensional form, and the Tremper Site in Scioto County produced over 130.
Some artwork went beyond the ordinary exotic, as Hopewell artists were
expert carvers of human bone. A rare mask from Mound City was created
using a human skull as a face plate.
Hopewell artists created both abstract and realistic portrayals of the
human form. One tubular pipe is so realistically portrayed that the
model was identified as an achondroplastic (chondrodystropic) dwarf. Many other figurines give details of dress, ornamentation, and hairstyles. An example of their abstract human forms is the "Mica Hand" from the Hopewell Site in Ross County, Ohio.
Delicately cut from a piece of mica, more than 11 inches long, and
6 inches wide, the hand piece was likely worn or carried for public
viewing.
Carved mica hand, Hopewell Mounds
Serpent effigy, Turner Group, Mound 4, Little Miami Valley, OH
Hopewell pipe, points, and earspool on display at Serpent Mound
Otter effigy pipe, Mound City
Bird figure, Tremper Mounds
Copper spider(?) from a Ross County mound
Bird head carved on bone, Hopewell Mounds
Repoussé copper falcon, Mound City
Repoussé copper falcon at American Museum of Natural History
Pot with a bird design, Hopewell site
Local expressions of Hopewellian traditions
Aside from the more famous Ohio Hopewell, a number of other Middle Woodland period cultures are known to have been involved in the Hopewell tradition and participated in the Hopewell exchange network.
Armstrong culture
The Armstrong culture was a Hopewell group in the Big Sandy River Valley
of northeastern Kentucky and western West Virginia from 1 to 500 CE.
They are thought to have been a regional variant of the Hopewell
tradition or a Hopewell-influenced Middle Woodland group who had
peacefully mingled with the local Adena peoples.
Archaeologist Dr. Edward McMichael characterized them as an intrusive
Hopewell-like trade culture or a vanguard of Hopewellian tradition that
had probably peacefully absorbed the local Adena in the Kanawha River
Valley. Their culture and very Late Adena (46PU2) is currently thought
to have slowly evolved into the later Buck Garden people.
Copena culture
The Copena culture was a Hopewellian culture in northern Alabama, Mississippi, and Tennessee,
as well as in other sections of the surrounding region including
Kentucky. The Copena name is derived from the first three letters of
copper and the last three letters of the mineral galena. Copper and galena artifacts are often associated with Copena burials.
Crab Orchard culture
Crab Orchard culture
During the Middle Woodland period, the Crab Orchard culture
population increased from a dispersed and sparsely settled Early
Woodland pattern to one consisting of small and large base camps. These
were concentrated on terrace and floodplain landforms associated with
the Ohio River channel in southern Indiana, southern Illinois, and northwestern and western Kentucky. In the far western limits of Crab Orchard culture is the O'byams Fort site, a large tuning fork-shaped earthwork reminiscent of Ohio Hopewell enclosures. Examples of a type of pottery decoration found at the Mann Site are also known from Hopewell sites in Ohio (such as Seip earthworks, Rockhold, Harness, and Turner), as well as from Southeastern sites with Hopewellian assemblages such as the Miner's Creek site, Leake Mounds, 9HY98, and Mandeville Site in Georgia, and the Yearwood site in southern Tennessee.
Goodall focus
The Goodall focus occupied Michigan and northern Indiana from around 200 BCE to 500 CE. The Goodall pattern stretched from the southern tip of Lake Michigan, east across northern Indiana, to the Ohio border, then northward, covering central Michigan, almost reaching to Saginaw Bay on the east and Grand Traverse Bay to the north. The culture is named for the Goodall site in northwest Indiana.
Havana Hopewell culture
The Havana Hopewell culture was a Hopewellian people in the Illinois River and Mississippi River valleys in Iowa, Illinois, and Missouri. They are ancestral to the groups which eventually became the Mississippian culture of Cahokia and its hinterlands.
The Toolesboro site is a group of seven burial mounds on a bluff overlooking the Iowa River
near where it joins the Mississippi River. The conical mounds were
constructed between 100 BCE and 200 CE. At one time, as many as 12
mounds may have existed. Mound 2, the largest remaining, measures 100
feet in diameter and 8 feet in height. This mound was possibly the
largest Hopewell mound in Iowa.
Kansas City Hopewell
At the western edge of the Hopewell interaction sphere is the Kansas City Hopewell. The Renner Village archeological site in Riverside, Missouri, is one of several sites near the junction of Line Creek and the Missouri River. The site contains Hopewell and Middle Mississippian remains. The Trowbridge archeological site
near Kansas City is close to the western limit of the Hopewell,
"Hopewell-style" pottery and stone tools, typical of the Illinois and
Ohio River Valleys, are abundant at the Trowbridge site, and decorated
Hopewell-style pottery rarely appears further west. The Cloverdale site is situated at the mouth of a small valley that opens into the Missouri River Valley, near Saint Joseph, Missouri. It is a multicomponent site with Kansas City Hopewell (around 100 to 500 CE) and Steed-Kisker (around 1200 CE) occupation.
Laurel complex
The Laurel complex was a Native American culture in what is now southern Quebec, southern and northwestern Ontario, and east-central Manitoba in Canada and northern Michigan, northwestern Wisconsin and northern Minnesota in the United States. They were the first pottery-using people of Ontario north of the Trent-Severn Waterway. The complex is named after the former unincorporated community of Laurel, Minnesota.
Marksville culture
The Marksville culture was a Hopewellian culture in the Lower Mississippi valley, Yazoo valley, and Tensas valley areas of present-day Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, and Arkansas. It evolved into the Baytown culture and later the Coles Creek and Plum Bayou cultures. It is named for the Marksville Prehistoric Indian Site in Marksville, Louisiana.
Miller culture
Miller and Copena cultures
The Miller culture was a Hopewellian culture located in the upper Tombigbee River
drainage areas of southwestern Tennessee, northeastern Mississippi, and
west-central Alabama, best known from excavations at the Pinson Mounds, Bynum Mounds, Miller (type site), and Pharr Mounds sites. The culture is divided chronologically into two phases, Miller 1 and Miller 2, with a later Miller 3 belonging to the Late Woodland period. Some sites associated with the Miller culture, such as Ingomar Mound and Pinson Mounds on its western periphery, built large platform mounds. Archaeologist speculate the mounds were for feasting rituals and that they fundamentally differed from later Mississippian culture platform mounds which were mortuary and substructure platforms.
By the end of the Late Woodland period, about 1000, the Miller culture
area was absorbed into the succeeding Mississippian culture.
Montane Hopewell
The Montane Hopewell on the Tygart Valley area, an upper branch of the Monongahela River, of northern West Virginia, is similar to Armstrong. The pottery and cultural characteristics are also similar to late Ohio Hopewell.
They occurred during the neighboring Watson through Buck Garden periods
to their south and westerly in the state. Montane Hopewell is a variant
that is considerable distance from Cole Culture and Peters Phase or
Hopewell central Ohio. However, this Hopewellian arrival of a particular
small, conical mound religion appears to be also waning to the daily
living activities at these sites according to Dr. McMichael. This period
begins a rapid fading away of influence by an elite priest cult burial
phase centered towards the Midwest states.
Ohio Hopewell culture
| Preceded by Adena culture |
Ohio Hopewell 200 BCE-500 CE |
Succeeded by Fort Ancient |
Map of the archaeological cultures of Ohio
Artists conception of the summer solstice sunrise at the Shriver Circle with the Mound City Group to the left
The greatest concentration of Hopewell ceremonial sites is in the Scioto River Valley (from Columbus to Portsmouth, Ohio)
and adjacent Paint Creek, centered on Chillicothe, Ohio. These cultural
centers typically contain a burial mound and a geometric earthwork
complex that covers ten to hundreds of acres and sparse settlements;
evidence of large resident populations is lacking at the monument
complexes. The Hopewell Culture National Historical Park, encompassing mounds for which the culture is named, is in the Paint Creek Valley just a few miles from Chillicothe, Ohio. Other earthworks in the Chillicothe area include Hopeton, Mound City, Seip Earthworks and Dill Mounds District, High Banks Works, Liberty, Cedar-Bank Works, Anderson, Frankfort, Dunlap, Spruce Hill, Story Mound, and Shriver Circle.
When colonial settlers first crossed the Appalachians, after almost a
century and a half in North America, they were astounded at these
monumental constructions, some reaching as high as 70 feet.
The Portsmouth Earthworks
were constructed from 100 BCE to 500 CE. It is a large ceremonial
center located at the confluence of the Scioto and Ohio Rivers. Part of
this earthwork complex extends across the Ohio River into Kentucky. The
earthworks included a northern section consisting of a number of
circular enclosures, two large, horseshoe-shaped enclosures, and three
sets of parallel-walled roads leading away from this location. One set
of walls went to the southwest and may have linked to a large square enclosure
located on the Kentucky side of the Ohio River. Another set went to the
southeast, where it crossed the Ohio River and continued to the Biggs site,
a complicated circular enclosure surrounding a conical mound. The third
set of walls went to the northwest for an undetermined distance, in the
direction of the Tremper site.
Point Peninsula complex
The Point Peninsula complex
was a Native American culture located in present-day Ontario and New
York during the Middle Woodland period, thought to have been influenced
by the Hopewell traditions of the Ohio River valley. This influence
seems to have ended about 250 CE, after which burial ceremonialism was
no longer practiced.
Saugeen complex
The Saugeen complex was a Native American culture located around the southeast shores of Lake Huron and the Bruce Peninsula, around the London area, and possibly as far east as the Grand River. Some evidence exists that the Saugeen complex people of the Bruce Peninsula may have evolved into the Odawa people (Ottawa).
Swift Creek culture
The Swift Creek culture
was a Middle Woodland period archaeological culture in the southeast
(present-day Georgia, Alabama, Florida, South Carolina, and Tennessee)
dating to around 100–700 CE.
Wilhelm culture
The
Wilhelm culture (1 to 500 CE), Hopewellian influenced, appeared in the
northern panhandle of West Virginia. They were contemporaneous to
Armstrong central on the Big Sandy valley nearly 200 miles downstream on
the Ohio River. They were surrounded by peoples who made the
Watson-styled pottery, with a Z-twist cordage finished surface. Wilhelm pottery was similar to Armstrong pottery, but not as well made.
Pipe fragments appear to be the platform-base type. Small mounds were
built around individual burials in stone-lined graves (cists). These
were covered over together under a single large mound.
Little studied are their four reported village sites,
which appear to have been abandoned by about 500 CE. Today, new local
researchers are looking at this area period and may provide future
insight.
Cultural decline
Sinnissippi Mounds, Sinnissippi Park, Sterling, Illinois
Around 500 CE, the Hopewell exchange ceased, mound building stopped,
and art forms were no longer produced. War is a possible cause, as
villages dating to the Late Woodland period shifted to larger
communities; they built defensive fortifications of palisade walls and
ditches.
Colder climatic conditions could have also driven game animals north or
west, as weather would have a detrimental effect on plant life,
drastically cutting the subsistence base for these foods. The
introduction of the bow and arrow,
by improving hunts, may have caused stress on already depleted food
populations. It may have led people to live in larger, more permanent
communities for protection as warfare became more deadly. With fewer
people using trade routes, there was no longer a network linking people
to the Hopewell traditions. The breakdown in societal organization could also have been the result of full-scale agriculture. Conclusive reasons for the evident dispersal of the people have not yet been determined.
| Preceded by Early Woodland period Adena culture |
Hopewell tradition 200 BCE – 500 CE |
Succeeded by Late Woodland |
Genetic studies
Modern studies show that 80% of cranial samples from Hopewell remains indicate a cephalic index in the range of being dolicocephalic. Analysis of Hopewell remains indicate shared mtDNA mutations unique with lineages from China, Korea, Japan, and Mongolia, while bone collagen from Eastern North American native remains indicate maize was not a large part of their diet until after B.P. 1000. As of 2003, maize had only been discovered at one archaeological dig site in Ohio.
