The Ohio Hopewell Episode: Paradigm Lost and Paradigm Gained

17. The Offering Altars of the Hopewell Site

Name /uap04/22015_u17 04/28/04 01:54PM Plate # 0-Composite pg 407 # 1 ⫺1 0 ⫹1 407 Chapter 17 T H E O F F E R I N G A L T A R S O F T H E H O P E W E L L S I T E The four major burnt deposits to be examined are the most thoroughly reported. They were discussed fully by Greber and Ruhl, whose description and comments are summarized below.1 Particularly important is the cosmological perspective that Greber and Ruhl claim is supported by both the manner of formation of these deposits and the patterning and distribution of their artifactual contents. Two of the burnt deposits are found on the floor of Structure D/E, one in the clay basin of Sector D, the other in the clay basin of Sector E. The two other burnt deposits are found on the floor of Shetrone Mound 17. It is postulated that these clay basins are appropriately termed burnt offering altars and their contents are appropriately described as sacrificial offerings. It is further claimed that these two sets of burnt offering altars and their contents mediated two separate collective memorial/world renewal rites. Therefore they were essential constituent elements of the mourning→spirit-release→world renewal ritual process at the Hopewell site. It should be noted that there are no clear indications in the form of human cremations, body parts, and so on, that would unproblematically mark these deposits as the result of mortuary ritual. However, under the Mourning/World Renewal Mortuary Model it was argued that representations of the deceased can be treated as manifesting Name /uap04/22015_u17 04/28/04 01:54PM Plate # 0-Composite pg 408 # 2 408 o h i o h o p e w e l l a n d w o r l d r e n e w a l ⫺1 0 ⫹1 them, thereby transforming the behaviors these representations were used to mediate into mortuary rites. Confirming that these deposits can be interpreted in these terms can be effected by demonstrating that the artifacts making up their contents had been used in mediating mortuary/world renewal rites—renewal events in which human deceased figured. If this can be demonstrated, and since their terminal use in this way can be understood as manifesting some important aspect of the deceased, then the burning events in which they figured can be quite adequately characterized as memorial/world renewal rites. If many such symbolic warrants were utilized simultaneously, then this usage would constitute a collective memorial/world renewal rite. Two points then must be demonstrated. First, it must be shown that the same artifact types making up these burnt deposits are also found undamaged by fire and in direct association with mortuary deposits . Second, it must be demonstrated that the patterning of the deposits expressed an immanentist cosmology of the type postulated under the World Renewal Model of the Ohio Hopewell. From these demonstrations it follows that these deposits could be interpreted without strain to be sacrificial burnt offerings mediating collective memorial /world renewal rites, thereby feeding back to enhance the validity of the Laying-In Crypt Model. In this regard, in fact, the first point was firmly established in the last chapter. The purpose of this chapter, then, is to demonstrate the second point. a. the shetrone mound 17 burnt deposits Shetrone Mound 17 was a rather small earthwork feature in the extreme northeast corner of the Hopewell site, just short of where the eastern embankment wall climbs to the upper terrace (fig. P.5). As fig. 17.1 indicates, there were three clay basins on the floor of this mound and burnt deposits were found associated with two of these. The central basin was badly damaged, a condition that Shetrone claims was the result of deliberate mutilation. To its south was another basin and piled beside it on a prepared base of “greenish-yellow clay” was Deposit 1, a large aggregation of burnt artifacts, both broken and unbroken, Name /uap04/22015_u17 04/28/04 01:54PM Plate # 0-Composite pg 409 # 3 t h e o f f e r i n g a l t a r s 409 ⫺1 0 ⫹1 mixed with charred organic remains and earth. (81) To the immediate north of the damaged central basin was the third, also associated with burnt...