The Ohio Hopewell Episode: Paradigm Lost and Paradigm Gained

23. The Shifting Ideological Postures of Ohio Hopewell

Name /uap04/22015_u22 04/28/04 01:57PM Plate # 0-Composite pg 537 # 1 ⫺1 0 ⫹1 537 Chapter 23 T H E S H I F T I N G I D E O L O G I C A L P O S T U R E S O F O H I O H O P E W E L L The chronological framework and the material criteria of factional competition can now be used to interpret the historical and regional variation in the Ohio Hopewell in terms of ongoing ideological negotiations between competing factions of given cults as postulated under the Ideological Cult Faction Model. First the Mound City/ Hopeton Complex and Tremper, and then the Hopewell, Seip, and Liberty Works sites will be examined in these terms. The interpretive application of the model will be completed with an account of the collapse of the Ohio Hopewell and the emergence of the Late Woodland period in this region. Confirmation of this interpretation by means of the hermeneutic spiral requires presenting and critiquing an alternative temporal and social organizational model of these same data. This will be done in the following chapter. 1. the mound city/hopeton c omplex and tremper Greber has argued that much of the stylistic innovation identified as Hopewellian may have emerged through the work of the populations responsible for the Adena earthworks in the zone immediately north of Chillicothe.1 These make up a cluster that she has referred to Name /uap04/22015_u22 04/28/04 01:57PM Plate # 0-Composite pg 538 # 2 538 f a c t i o n a l c o m p e t i t i o n , c o n f l i c t ⫺1 0 ⫹1 as the Chillicothe Northwest Group. Important earthworks in this group are the Adena Mound site, the Worthington Mound group, and the Carriage Factory/Miller Mound to the immediate southwest of Mound City Proper. Her insight can be supplemented with the claim that this “explosion” of cultural expression would not have occurred in a social vacuum. While the creative imagination manifested in the more fascinating aspects of Ohio Hopewell may have been more localized here, it is likely that it was stimulated by the interaction between this Central Scioto region and the southwestern Ohio region, possibly even mediated through the Hopewell-Turner axis. The primary point of this interaction, of course, would be innovation in world renewal ritual, and the dynamics of this relation promoted a competitive pursuit of cultic reputation, as postulated under the Proscriptive/ Prescriptive Ecological Strategy Model. More specifically, the auxiliary Autonomous Cult Model argues that if a system of complex, ecclesiastic-communal cults were to have emerged (i.e., the Ohio Hopewell), it would have required the preexistence of a regional system of autonomous simple communal cults (e.g., the Adena). As the motivating condition would be an escalating pursuit of cultic reputation, it could be anticipated that one obvious way of enhancing reputation would be cross-generational sharing in the construction of a monumental project that, at the same time, could be claimed to advance the world renewal goals that both the senior and junior age-grade cults shared, while—initially—respecting their traditional arm’s-length relations of mutual autonomy. It is postulated that the Mound City Cluster of SR-Profile and SLPro file embankments would be among the earliest known expressions of a successful integration of the construction programs of at least two autonomous senior and junior age-grade communal cults, and that this cluster constitutes one of the earliest ecclesiastic-communal cult locales and demarcates the Early Ohio Hopewell phase in the central Scioto region. Under the Mourning/World Renewal Mortuary Model a complex set of rites is postulated as occurring, mediated by possibly joint complementary solar and lunar renewal ceremonies. The former would Name /uap04/22015_u22 04/28/04 01:57PM Plate # 0-Composite pg 539 # 3 t h e s h i f t i n g i d e o l o g i c a l p o s t u r e s 539 ⫺1 0 ⫹1 be performed at both Cedar Bank Works and Component C, and the latter at Component B and, possibly, the two sacred circles on the east bank of the Scioto. Indeed, that these four sets of earthworks straddle the Scioto River may...