Encounter with the Hopewell culture

An artist's impression of the Hopewell people.

By Patrick Matbob

 Some ancient cultures that once lived on earth and later disappeared have left behind some clues about their existence. However, there is little to reveal who they were and how they lived.

Having no links with any existing groups of people today, they remain a mystery and we can only stitch together some basic information about how they might have lived and what they did.

In PNG scientists have uncovered similar evidence of the existence of ancient cultures in places like the Kuk swamp in Western Highlands (7000 years ago), Ivane Valley in Central province (49,000 years ago) and the better-known Lapita culture in PNG, Fiji, Tonga and Samoa (3000 years ago).

So during a recent trip to the US it was interesting to visit a site where a 2000 year-old culture had once thrived at Chillicothe in the present day state of Ohio.

Known as the Hopewell culture, nothing was known about them until the late 1700s when settlers stumbled upon the hundreds of mysterious mounds and earthworks they left behind. The ancient artifacts made of various stones and sea shells collected from vast distances tell a fascinating story of a thriving culture that had certain religious practices that is incomparable to anything we know today. The site is the size of a cricket pitch and is encircled by a low raised wall. Within it are mounds of various sizes all covered by grass. The site reminded me of the Stonehenge structures on the plains of Salisbury in UK that also remains a mystery.

It was a hot summer Saturday afternoon when we arrived at Chillicothe to tour the native American burial grounds.

The mounds and earthworks in the Ohio Valley had puzzled settlers who arrived in the area in the late 1700s. They wondered how and why the mounds came to be and what purpose they had in the lives of those who had built them.

The Shawnee and other native Americans living in the area knew little about the mounds. This led to people believing that a “lost race” may have been responsible for building them then vanished before the arrival of the present day native American tribes.

In 1840s, a Chillicothe newspaper editor Ephraim G. Squier and a physician Edwin H. Davis systematically mapped the mounds and documented what was found inside them. The Smithsonian Institution published Squier and Davis’ findings in the 1848 Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley which can be seen online today.  

The “lost race” notion was discarded after further scientific studies revealed that the people were actually a race of native Americans who lived between 2,200 and 1,500 years ago and were recognized as the architects and builders of the mounds. The natives were named Hopewell peoples, the name coming from Captain Mordecai Hopewell, who owned the farm where part of an extensive earthwork site was excavated in 1891.

In front of the mystery mounds.

The Hopewell settled along riverbanks in present-day Ohio and in other regions between the Great Lakes and the Gulf of Mexico. Excavations of dwelling sites show that they made their living by hunting, gathering, gardening and trading.

No one lived at the earthworks; however, artifacts found inside revealed that some of the mounds were built primarily to cover burials. A mound was typically built in stages: a wooden structure containing a clay platform was probably the scene of funeral ceremonies and other gatherings. The dead were either cremated or buried on-site. Objects of copper, stone, shell and bones were placed near the remains. After many such ceremonies the structure was burnt or dismantled, and the entire area was covered with a large mound of earth. Wall-like earthworks sometimes surrounded groups of mounds. Squier and Davis named one site Mound City because of its unusual concentration of mounds, at least 23, encircled by a low earthen wall. During World War 1 Mound City was covered by part of an army training facility, Camp Sherman, and many of the mounds were destroyed. The Ohio Historical and Archaeological Society conducted excavation and restoration work in 1920-21. In 1923 the Mound City Group was declared a national monument.

The National Park Service conducted additional excavations in the 1960s and 70s. In 1992 Mound City Group became Hopewell Culture National Historical Park, which also includes four other sites in the region: High Bank Works, Hopeton Earthworks, Hopewell Mound Group, and Seip Earthworks.

Archeological excavations at Hopewell habitation sites provide a wealth of information about daily life long ago. Trash sites indicate that Hopewell peoples hunted, fished, and gathered wild foods, supplementing their diet with cultivated plants. Patterns of small holes outline the sites of dwellings constructed of bent poles and covered with skins, mats, or bark. Food processing areas marked by large, deep storage pits, earth ovens, and shallow basins are often found outside these structures. Many habitation sites were probably occupied year-round for several years before being vacated when firewood and other local resources ran out.

Scattered groups probably gathered at the major earthwork centers seasonally and for important occasions: feasting, trading, presenting gifts, marriages, competitions, mourning ceremonies, and of course, mound constructing.

One of the objects left behind is a conch shell

Tools and ornaments used in and worn for these occasions were often made of materials obtained in trade: copper and silver from near the Great Lakes, Obsidian (volcanic glass) from a site in present-day Yellowstone National Park, sharks’ teeth and seashells from the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico, and mica from the southern Appalachian Mountains. Artisans fashioned these raw materials into fine objects that have been found under the mounds.

By about 1,500 years ago the Hopewell way of life had ended. Within a few hundred years new societies emerged along the Mississippi River and its tributaries. These groups were more fully agricultural and politically structured. Only the great mounds and earthworks remain as monuments to the once flourishing Hopewell world.