The Ohio Hopewell Episode: Paradigm Lost and Paradigm Gained

Prologue: What Counts as the Ohio Hopewell?

Name /uap04/22015_u01 04/28/04 01:45PM Plate # 0-Composite pg 1 # 1 ⫺1 0 ⫹1 1 P R O L O G U E what co unts a s th e oh io hopewe ll? A view of the Newark earthworks as they were mapped by the surveyor Charles Whittlesey just prior to the middle of the nineteenth century, is shown in fig. P.1. Newark is a small city in Licking County, Ohio, in the upper Licking drainage and about 50 km east of Columbus, the state capital. It is on the northern margin of the Central Ohio Valley, a region that is outstanding for many major prehistoric embankment earthworks similar to those of Newark. The Newark site is one of the most complex of these earthwork sites, and even though the growth of the city during the nineteenth century did serious damage to it, two major components have survived relatively intact: the Newark Circle-Octagon, shown in the left sector of fig. P.1, and the Fairground Circle, the large eastern circle shown in the lower right sector. The magnitude of these and similar earthworks can be appreciated by noting that the Circle-Octagon alone incorporates most of a nine-hole golf course (also see fig. 4.2 and fig. 4.3). The diameter of the monumental Circle component is almost exactly 320 m, and the Octagon is based on a square that has sides of 320 m.1 The embankments average about 2 m in height and their bases are about 8 m to 9 m wide. The southwest sector of the embankment of the Circle component is partly covered by a large mound built at a tangent to its perimeter . Usually referred to as the Observatory Mound, it is about 50 m long and 5 m high. The Fairground Circle in the southeastern sector of the site is Name /uap04/22015_u01 04/28/04 01:45PM Plate # 0-Composite pg 2 # 2 2 p r o l o g u e ⫺1 0 ⫹1 equally impressive, having a diameter close to 400 m and an embankment varying from 2 m to 5 m high. There is a broad ditch running inside the base of the Fairground Circle and having a depth that only roughly corresponds to the height of the contiguous embankment. The name of the circle derives from its use as the county fairground.2 There are several other major embankment components that tie the total site together, as well as some that reach outward, as will be discussed in much greater detail later. Between ca. 100 b.c. and a.d. 400, the Central Ohio Valley was characterized by the systematic construction and use of many prehistoric embankment earthwork complexes as impressive as those of Newark . These demarcate a major prehistoric episode of this region generally referred to as the Ohio Hopewell of the Middle Woodland period (fig. P.2). Many of these were mapped in the mid-nineteenth century by Ephraim G. Squier and Edwin H. Davis, two amateur scholars. Their compilation of these plans, along with those that they commissioned or “borrowed” from other publications, was published in 1848 as volume 1 of the Smithsonian Contributions to Science and titled Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley.3 Some of the best known of these works are Liberty Works (fig. P.3) and Seip (fig. P.4), and the eponymous Hopewell earthwork site (fig. P.5). These three, along with a number of other major works, are loosely clustered around Chillicothe, the seat of Ross County, in the middle sector of the lower Scioto River, where it is joined by the eastern-flowing Paint Creek (fig. P.2). There are also very impressive non-“geometrical” earthworks, such as Fort Hill (fig. P.6) in Highland County, Ohio, southwest of Chillicothe, and Fort Ancient in the Little Miami Valley in Warren County (fig. P.7), southwestern Ohio, among others. The embankment earthworks often incorporate equally impressive mounds, many but not all of these covering floors on which were constructed mortuary features and facilities, including crematory basins , prepared burial platforms, and crypts. Many of the latter contained the remains of human deceased often associated with elaborate artifacts Name /uap04/22015_u01 04/28/04 01:45PM Plate # 0-Composite pg 3 # 3 p r o l o g u e 3 ⫺1 0 ⫹1 (fig. P.8). Together these go to make...