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.
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