The Ohio Hopewell Episode: Paradigm Lost and Paradigm Gained

15. World Renewal Post-mortem Sacrifice at Mound City

Name /uap04/22015_u15 04/28/04 01:53PM Plate # 0-Composite pg 346 # 1 ⫺1 0 ⫹1 346 Chapter 15 W O R L D R E N E W A L P O S T M O R T E M S A C R I F I C E A T M O U N D C I T Y While Mound City was reported by Squier and Davis as having 24 mounds, their plan shows only 23 (fig. 2.12). The first and most striking feature in connection with this work [Mound City] is the unusual number of mounds which it contains. There are no less than twenty-four within its walls. All of these . . . have been excavated , and the principal ones found contain altars and other remains, which put it beyond question that they were places of sacrifice, or of superstitious origin. (Squier and Davis 1973, 54, emphases in the original) Mills excavated the residue of those mounds that survived following the serious damage caused to most of them by agricultural modification in the nineteenth century and, in particular, by the construction of Camp Sherman, a First World War U.S. military base.1 At the urging of museum officials, Mound 7 was preserved more or less intact by the camp commandant’s order that it be built around. As Squier and Davis reported the conical mound, it was 90 feet in diameter at the base and about 17 feet high, making it the largest mound in this site.2 They undertook an exploratory excavation of the mound by digging a vertical shaft from the top center to the floor. They noted that the mound had been built in a series of earth, clay, and sand strata, a form of Name /uap04/22015_u15 04/28/04 01:53PM Plate # 0-Composite pg 347 # 2 w o r l d r e n e w a l p o s t - m o r t e m s a c r i f i c e 347 ⫺1 0 ⫹1 construction that was to become recognized as typical of Ohio Hopewell mounds.3 Despite its size, Mills was able to establish that there were only 13 separate mortuary deposits, or burials, as he usually called them (fig. 15.1), and all were cremations. Three of these were found individually deposited above the floor. These will be commented on later. The other ten were deposited on the floor of the mound. Six of these mortuary deposits were on relatively small prepared bases and were “casually” covered with earth and sand, meaning that they did not have the formal stratification of sand and earth constituting them as primary mounds. These six were apparently deposits of single cremated individuals . However, Mills comments that at least one, Burial Number 8, may have combined several individuals. The other four mortuary deposits , Burial Numbers 3, 9, 12, and 13, were placed in large prepared log-crib facilities and covered with primary mounds. The log cribs were rectangular with the width about 5 feet and the length about 6 feet, although precise sizes varied among them. Burial Number 3 appeared to be the least complex of these four mortuary deposits, having the cremated human remains deposited in a pile over one half of the platform and associated with a few artifacts, including a “large obsidian spear, copper ‘button’ and a shell and pearl bead necklace”. Burial Number 9 may have also involved more than one human cremation. In Mills’s view, this feature was the central mortuary deposit on the floor. Burial Numbers 9, 12, and 13 will be described and interpreted as mortuary set-pieces, starting with Burial Number 13.4 burial number 13 mortuary set-piece Treated as a mortuary set-piece, the primary framing device of Burial Number 13 (fig. 15.1) was a large rectangular pit dug into the northeastern sector of the floor and lined with a log cribbing (it was the only sub-floor burial deposit). Mills does not give the lateral dimensions of this pit. However, the floor map of Mound 7 indicates that the log cribs of Burial Numbers 12 and 13 were about 61 ⁄2 by 5 feet and these appear to be about the same size as the log crib of Burial Name /uap04/22015_u15 04/28/04 01:53PM Plate # 0-Composite pg 348 # 3 348 o...