Hopewell culture

Before the ascendance of the MISSISSIPPIAN peoples, the Hopewell peoples created a complex civilization in the region now encompassed by the states of Ohio and Illinois.

The Hopewell cultural pattern originated about 100 B. c. and was flourishing by A. D. 1. Its rise may have been related to a shift in the climate that made the region warmer. In a warmer climate maize (see corn) could be more reliably grown. With more food available the population grew. Even after maize cultivation increased, Hopewellians never relied entirely on it for their diet. They also hunted animals and ate a wide variety of plant foods, including sunflowers, squash, nuts, and berries. Hopewell communities were often built on river terraces near flood plains where women could gather wild plants to supplement the food supply.

Hopewell culture was hierarchical. Elites could draw on the labor of ordinary people to construct large earthworks, including conical burial mounds and geometric embankments. High-ranking people were buried, sometimes in mounds, with valuable and exotic trade goods, including sheet mica, SILVER, TOBACCO pipes, ornaments, beads, and weapons. The tombs of some elite men suggest that their wives, servants, or retainers were sacrificed to accompany the dead, and Hopewell religion may have included a cult of the dead. The trading network that allowed for the accumulation of such objects was extensive. Hopewellians acquired copper from Lake Superior; mica, quartz, and other minerals from the Appalachians; and shells, shark teeth, and turtle shells from Florida. Hopewell art included stone pipes carved in the shapes of humans, animals, birds, and fish. Archaeologists have also found clay figurines, embossed copper sheets, and engraved bones.

Hopewell culture was in decline by A. D. 500. The reasons for its decline are obscure but may be linked to

A cooler phase in the climate, which made growing maize more difficult. Anthropologists speculate that as resources dwindled Hopewell groups fought one another over resources and territories. The trade routes that had linked Hopewell sites collapsed, and autonomous, more egalitarian villages replaced the network of Hopewell groups. Aspects of the Hopewell cultural pattern survived among southern peoples, who would have been less affected by a shift in climate.

Further reading: David S. Brose and N’omi Greber, eds., Hopewell Archaeology: The Chillicothe Conference (Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1979); Patricia Galloway, Choctaw Genesis 1500-1700 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1995); John A. Walthall, Prehistoric Indians of the Southeast: Archaeology of Alabama and the Middle South (University, Ala.: University of Alabama Press, 1980); Biloine Whiting Young and Melvin L. Fowler, Cahokia: The Great Native American Metropolis (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2000).

—Martha K. Robinson