When the first European-Americans entered the Ohio Valley, they were amazed by the massive earthworks they encountered—tall conical mounds, geometric works in the shape of circles, squares, and octagons, parallel walls that were miles long. Some of the mounds contained equally amazing artifacts made of stone, copper, obsidian, sea shells, and other exotic materials. When queried, local natives had no explanation for these ancient monuments, and a mythology of the mound builders began to grow. Were they lost tribes of Israel, Greeks, Vikings, Chinese…? In any case, they certainly weren’t Native Americans.
But by the dawn of the twentieth century, archaeologists had established that the mound builders were indeed Natives, albeit quite ancient ones, and people’s interest in the earthworks waned. Many of the great monuments are gone—buried under modern cities like Marietta and Cincinnati, leveled for farming, or looted for valuable artifacts—and it seemed that many of the mysteries of the mound builders would be forever lost.
But in the twenty-first century, a new generation of archaeologists with fresh ideas and new technologies began to tackle the issues surrounding the mound builders. This volume, and another to come, report their findings and new theories in nine articles presented by fourteen archaeologists. They all came together at the Third Chillicothe Conference on Hopewell Archeology on 2016.
When researchers applied modern remote sensing technologies to the earthworks, they got surprisingly good results. The remote-sensing surveys, which covered hundreds of acres, have discovered a stunning quality of subsurface preservation and many new architectural features, even on sites that have been farmed for more than 150 years. These discoveries led to new information about the scope and purpose of the earthworks, including monumental function and astronomical alignments. For example, the Great Circle at the Hopewell Mound Group is now being seen as a woodhenge observatory with about 100 substantial timbers forming a circle 350 feet in diameter. From one to four large roasting pits are in the circle’s center.
The last two decades have produced a renaissance in Hopewell archaeology that is sure to continue well into the future. This volume reports many of the latest discoveries using new technology and new ways of looking at this ancient culture. It is an exciting time for the study of one of America’s most spectacular and enigmatic ancient cultures. —Mark Michel
