The Hopewell

The Hopewell culture overlaps in time with the Adena culture, lasting from about 100 B.C. to 500 A.D. The Hopewell received their name from Captain Mordecai Hopewell, who owned the farm where the first Hopewell earthwork was excavated in 1891. The Hopewell lived along the riverbanks of the Ohio and in scattered areas from the Great Lakes to the Gulf Coast.

Most of what we know about the Hopewell people comes from the artifacts that have been found in mounds, since they left no written records. The Hopewell lived in small villages that consisted of a few households. Like the Adena, they relied in part on farming, growing sunflowers, squash, knotweed, goosefoot, and maygrass. The Hopewell also hunted white-tailed deer, turkey, bear, and raccoon, but they used spears, not bows and arrows. They attached a special weight to a spear-throwing tool called an atlatl. This helped their spears travel faster and further. They fished, gathered mussels, and searched the forest for nuts, berries and other foods.

mica hand cut-out

The Hopewell were accomplished artists. They made pottery for cooking and storing food and wove baskets. They carved a type of pipe known as a platform pipe, which can be plain or in an animal or bird effigy form. They also cut mica and shaped copper into a variety of shapes. The Hopewell had a far-ranging trade network that supplied them with materials from a large geographical area. They obtained their obsidian from the northern Rocky Mountains, their copper from Lake Superior and Canada. From the Gulf Coast came pearls, alligator teeth, conch shells, and sea turtle shells, while shark teeth were collected from the Atlantic coast. Mica, quartz crystal, and chlorite came from the Blue Ridge Mountains. They might have traded animal pelts and hides in return.

hopewell trade network

beaver platform pipe / copper bird

mica claw

Large caches of Hopewell items, such as copper ear spools, axes, mica cutouts in various shapes, and effigy pipes have been found. Also among the findings are also clay figurines that lead insight as to how the Hopewell looked and dressed. Both the men and women wore fur, fabric, and leather. They adorned themselves with ear spools, head pieces, beads, and bracelets made of shell, copper, and silver. Their hair was often pulled up in a bun.

To the Hopewell burial mounds were very sacred, and were built in a certain way. First, they would construct a wooden structure on the area. Some of these were probably houses where they prepared their dead for cremation, while others could have been council houses or places of worship. Eventually the wooden structure would be burned and covered with earth. This process would repeat over time until it created a mound.

serpent mound

The Hopewell also built earthen walls to surround some of their more sacred places and earthworks in the forms of squares, circles, ovals, and octagons. Some seem to have astronomical alignments embedded into their contours. The largest of these earthworks are in Newark, Ohio, a site that appears to be aligned with the moon’s cycle.