Hopewell Culture National Historical Park: Native American Artifacts housed in the Museum

The “Hopewell Culture” refers to a Native American civilization that was centered in Ohio. It flourished here between 200 B.C. and 500 A.D. They are renowned for having built elaborate, huge, earthen structures. However when these mounds were excavated, many artifacts of great artistry were discovered. I would like to share photos of a few of these artifacts, or in some case, replicas of these artifacts. All of them were uncovered at “Mound City” which is where the Hopewell Culture National Historical Park is today. They were on display in the museum portion of the park’s visitor’s center.

Copper Artifacts

This civilization did not develop the technology of smelting ores, so all the above artifacts were created by pounding nuggets of copper until the desired shape was achieved. Artisans also learned how to similarly shape silver and iron (the iron was acquired from iron-rich meteorites). The copper originated from the Lake Superior region.

Effigy Pipes carved out of Pipestone

The effigy refers to the animal or human that was carved into the pipestone. The pipe has been designed so that the animal faces the person who is smoking it. Perhaps a shaman who was trying to commune with an animal spirit felt that gazing into the animal’s face while smoking facilitated this process.

It used to be thought that the pipes were crafted in Ohio from local pipestone. However chemical analysis of the stone shows that it was quarried in Illinois.

Miscellany

If you are unfamiliar with Ohio’s location, in the sidebar I have a map of the mainland of the United States in which I show where Ohio is. As you can see, Ohio is not near the ocean. I believe that the shark teeth that were uncovered in these Ohio earthen mounds were from the Gulf of Mexico.

The above necklace was made from bone — I assume from animal bone. However while reading the Wikipedia article on the Hopewell Tradition (cited at the bottom of this article), I came across this passage:

… Hopewell artists were expert carvers of human bone. A rare mask from Mound City was created using a human skull as a face plate

Okay… that’s disturbing. By the way, Mound City is the site where the Hopewell Culture National Historical Park is.

I’ll close by saying all the above artifacts were found in burial mounds. Surprisingly most were purposefully broken prior to being interred. We don’t know if the breakage was ceremonial, or whether it might have been tactical (to disincentivize grave robbery).

My next post is about Mound City itself.

Additional information

• Hopewell Culture by Ohio History Channel
• Woodland Animal Effigy Pipes by Ohio History Channel
• Hopewell Tradition by Wikipedia
• The Hopewell Culture by the Web Chronology Project
• Museum Collections – the first of two pages showing photos of artifacts housed by the museum at the Hopewell Culture National Historical Park; these pages are published by the National Parks Service.
• Mound City Group published at the official site of the Hopewell Culture National Historical Park.
• HOPEWELLpublished by C. Smith of the Cabrillo Anthropology Department

Location

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