The Ohio Hopewell Culture

Bone needles, awl. Mound 25, Hopewell Site. OHS 283/180,263,269,484A D. Implements suitable for working fabrics, leather, or furs constitute one of the more common tool types recovered from Ohio Hopewell mound contexts. Evidence from the few organic fragments preserved by charring or contact with copper indicates an extensive knowledge of fabric manufacture and decoration including the use of feathers and treading.

Tool, bone tip, antler handle. Marriott Mound 1. PMAE 84 6 10/34374. One of a set. Eight antler handles with an assortment of tips including two flint points, and a cylindrical polished bone tip were found as a group in a small mound west of the Turner enclosure. Many bone needles and awls were recovered from other sections of the mound. Collections Peabody Museum, Harvard University.

The majority of the cutting and heavy puncturing or drilling tools recovered from Ohio Hopewell sites are chipped from various flints. There are a few examples of meteoric iron drills and copper awls and gravers found in midden contexts. There are also whole and fragmentary copper objects which were probably tools of unknown type(s). Again, these are limited in number.

Core, bladelets. Harness Group, Licking County. OHS 7/20,24; 985/4. Also called prismatic blades or flake knives, these small tools are a major component of the Hopewell lithic industry. Struck one at a time from a carefully prepared core, they apparently were used for cutting or incising many different materials. Flint Ridge flint is the most common raw material source (shown here), but other exotic and local flints were used. Frequently the roughed out core is heat treated. Small workshop areas where literally hundreds of bladelets were produced are a common site type near many major earthworks.

Points, flint. Hopewell Site. OHS 283/43,129,174. Morphologically related to, but distinct from the Snyder's points defined from an Illinois Hopewell site collection.

Large bifaces. Mound 25, Hopewell Site. OHS 283/293,322A. Ohio Hopewell collectors included raw materials from the far west in their range of exotica. A few examples of Knife River chalcedony (top) from the Dakotas have been excavated. Larger quantities of obsidian (bottom) from the Northern Rockies are known, but these have been recovered from only a few deposits, mainly at the Hopewell Site.

Stone bifaces, Wyandotte Chert Mound 2, Hopewell Site. OHS 283/516. Examples of the size and shape range found within the more than seven thousand similar bifaces which had been placed in two separate layers in the center of a prepared floor within a small structure. The raw material, also called Indiana Homstone, can be found as large nodules in areas of northern Kentucky and in Harrison County, southern Indiana. Bladelets and other tools made from this variety of flint have been found at Ohio Hopewell sites.

Galena. Liberty Group (Edwin Harness Mound). PMAE 84 6 10/35050. Not as common as other exotic raw materials such as copper, mica, and marine objects, galena was probably used as a source of white pigment. Thus, this piece is a potentially useful as well as a beautiful object. Collections Peabody Museum, Harvard University.

The vast majority of the sherds recovered from Ohio Hopewell sites are cordmarked or plain. A small percentage bear diagnostic Hopewell decorations which include cross hatching and rocker stamping (plain and dentate), and a smaller percentage show stamping (simple, checked, complicated) and brushing. Some vessels in the Hopewell series have incised zoomorphic and geometric designs in which zones of plain finish alternate with decorated areas. There are recognizable differences in Hopewell assemblages found in the several river valleys of southern Ohio. These distinctions are not illustrated in this slide set.

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