carr_2005_rethinking interregional hopewellian “interaction”(1)

Chapter 16

Rethinking InterregionalHopewellian “Interaction”

Christopher Carr

Fascination with Hopewellian peoples relatesconsiderably to their movement of raw materialsand, less frequently, finished artifacts over manyhundreds of miles over North America. Conchshells from coastal Florida and along the Gulfof Mexico were brought as far north as Michi-gan and New York (Seeman 1977a:appendix B),and silver from Cobalt, Ontario, was taken as farsouth as Georgia and Mississippi (Spence andFryer, Chapter 20). How did Hopewellian peo-ples succeed in these translocations, and equallytantalizing, who did so and why?

This chapter introduces Part IV, which ad-dresses such questions about the movement ofmaterials, artifacts, and styles over the Wood-lands, and the kinds of cultural connectionsamong distant peoples and places implied bythese geographic linkages. Like introductoryChapters 3 and 12, this one reviews anthropo-logical theory and ethnographic analogs that arerelevant and necessary background to the chap-ters that follow. Also, past understandings andanalyses that complement the studies of inter-regional Hopewellian activity presented in thisbook are summarized, in order to help place thelatter in context and highlight their significance.

The chapter begins with the observation thatHopewellian activities at the interregional scale,which involved movements of raw materials,

artifacts, styles, mortuary and other ceremo-nial practices, and ideas across the EasternWoodlands, have often been interpreted as man-ifestations of some unitary kind of phenomenon.Examples include a trade network, a mortuarycult, a shared religion, and a network of peerpolities. These and other previous, singularinterpretations of interregional Hopewell arereviewed. An alternative, interpretive perspec-tive is then offered, which sees interregionalHopewell as having been comprised insteadof many distinct kinds of activities that led tovarying geographic distributions of Hopewellianfeatures of the same or different kinds. In thisview, interregional Hopewell can be definedand understood only when it is resolved into itsmany component aspects.

The chapter goes on to introduce ten sel-dom or never cited possible forms of inter-regional activity. Many of these mechanismsare ceremonial and religious in nature, such asvision-power questing, pilgrimage to places innature or to ceremonial centers, buying and sell-ing of ceremonial prerogatives, and travels ofrising social leaders to centers of learning toobtain esoteric, sacred knowledge and power.Other mechanisms are social, sociopolitical, orpolitical–economic, sometimes with religiouscomponents, such as intermarriage or adoption

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576 CHRISTOPHER CARR

across cultural lines, valuables exchange amongelite, and elite-orchestrated transference of reli-gious cults. These distributive mechanisms aredescribed in a grounded manner, in terms ofsocial actors with personal and local motives.Ethnographic examples of each of the ten kindsof interregional activity are described to help un-derstand their potential relevance to Hopewelliancases and to build a model of their discrimi-nating material–archaeological correlates. Manykinds of interregional Hopewellian material pat-terns, expressed within chemical sourcing, dis-tributional, and stylistic data, and coming fromprevious studies and those made in chapters inthis book, are then systematized and sifted fortheir fit with the modeled forms of interregionalactivity. The most concrete result of this study isa listing of specific cases of particular means bywhich particular kinds of Hopewellian raw mate-rials, artifacts, styles, practices, and ideas cameto be spread and shared among regional tradi-tions across the Woodlands—a deconstruction ofthe Hopewell Interaction Sphere into its diverseoperational-level, cultural practices and histori-cal events. The entire process of determining thearchaeological correlates of particular kinds ofactivity, applying them to specific interregionalHopewell remains, and resolving interregionalHopewell into its many constituent kinds of prac-tices and events is made possible by envisioningsocial actors with ethnologically known kinds ofmotives—that is, by taking the personalized, lo-cally contextualized, and generative approach tounderstanding interregional Hopewell that is de-fined in Chapter 1.

Following this development of the interpre-tive framework and its application, and in lightof them, the chapters in this part of the book aresummarized for their particular contributions todeconstructing and reinterpreting interregionalHopewell. Seven contributions are highlighted,including: (1) the origins of Hopewellian waysin regional traditions other than the supposedHopewellian core area, Ohio; (2) the distinctdistributions of different “Hopewell InteractionSphere” items in relation to their roles in dif-ferent kinds and scales of interregional com-munication; (3) uniformity and variation acrossthe Woodlands in the ideological meanings ofartifact classes, (4) in the social roles in which

they were used, and (5) in their ritual uses; (6) thedegree to which finished artifacts, in contrast toraw materials, were transported across the Wood-lands; and (7) variation over the Woodlands inthe means of transport of even singular kinds ofHopewellian materials and artifact classes.

The chapter ends with an enumeration ofsome of the more important, singular kinds ofphenomena that Interregional Hopewell has beenposited to be, a summary of the empirical ev-idence that firmly contradicts these inferences,and a concluding reinterpretation of what Inter-regional Hopewell can be said to have been. Theconcluding view of Interregional Hopewell ismultifaceted rather than unitary, historical, per-sonalized with motivated actors in social roles,emphasizes local context, and generates interre-gional Hopewell from local concerns.

PERSPECTIVES ONINTERREGIONAL HOPEWELLIANTRAVEL, PROCUREMENT, ANDINTERACTION, AND THEIRANALYSIS

Historically, a broad range of phenomena hasbeen equated with interregional Hopewell. Ear-lier in the 20th Century, interregional Hopewellwas envisioned as a single culture that had spreadfrom Ohio by conquest or diffusion (Shetrone1931:304–306, 322), a biological stock of long-headed people (Hooton 1922; Neumann 1950,1952; Prufer 1961a; for a summary see Buikstra1979), a series of cultures that had developedalike from a common ancestral culture in theSoutheastern United States through interculturalcontacts (Seltzer 1933:6–7), and a “loose con-federation” of contemporaneous, “cooperating”peoples tied together by trade, genealogy, andcolonization from Ohio (Deuel 1952:255–256).Today, these interpretations are no longer held,but the range of opinions on the identity of inter-regional Hopewell is still very wide. Hopewellhas recently been called, and is still discussed inconversation as:

� a wide network of trade of raw materials andexchange of ideas (Struever 1964; Strueverand Houart 1972; see Griffin 1965 and See-man 1979a for rebuttals).

RETHINKING INTERREGIONAL HOPEWELLIAN “INTERACTION” 577

� a specific mortuary cult (Prufer 1964b; seeCaldwell 1964 and Struever 1964 for rebut-tals).

� a shared religion (Caldwell 1964; Maxwell1947:25).

� a worldview (Carr 1998, 1999b, 2000a; Carrand Case 1996; Romain 2000).

� a Sprachbund (Seeman 1995).

� a multiregional artistic style (Prufer 1968;Willey 1971).

� a Great Tradition of religious-based inter-action and innovation (Caldwell 1964).

� a social organization of a complex kind in-terwoven with a symbol–ideological systemfor marking and claiming leadership andprestige (Seeman 1995).

� a network of peer polities involved in com-petitive display (Braun 1986; Dancey andPacheco 1997a:9–10, Pacheco and Danceyn.d.).

� an ecological adaptation (Braun 1986;Dancey 1996a).

Historically, most of these ideas have beenpresented as satisfactory explanations of interre-gional Hopewell in and of themselves. Typicallythis has been done without reference to the alter-natives or serious evaluation of the relative mer-its or complementarity of the alternatives (butsee Struever 1964:88). Thus, attempts have beenmade to explain the entire expanse and contentof interregional Hopewell by some single phe-nomenon.

Deconstructing Interregional HopewellThe position taken here, and in the other chaptersof this book, is that interregional Hopewell is amultidimensional and composite phenomenon,and can be understood only when it is resolvedor “deconstructed”1 into its diverse aspectsand causes. There are at least two levels ofdeconstruction that are required. At the broadestlevel, it is essential to realize that the conceptof interregional Hopewell, as defined here, andthe related concept of the Hopewell InteractionSphere, as found in archaeological literature,

embrace three closely intertwined subjects.These subjects are: (1) the cultural and materialcontent shared across regions of the Woodlands,including raw materials, classes of artifacts, arti-fact styles, mortuary and other cultural practices,and ideas; (2) the geographic regions over whichthese things were shared to varying degrees;and (3) the cultural mechanisms by which thesethings came to be widely distributed (see Hall[1997:156] for a similar partitioning). From thisviewpoint, it can be seen that the understandingsof interregional Hopewell listed above are notequivalent in nature. Some are shared culturalcontent (e.g., religion, art style), one is ageographic distribution (i.e., a Sprachbund), andsome are mechanisms of interaction (e.g., trade,competitive display). In this regard, certain of theabove interpretations are logically and phenome-nalogically alternative and complementary ratherthan competing. Such complementary interpre-tations, depending on their empirical veracity,could be integrated into a multidimensionalunderstanding of interregional Hopewell. In fact,explanatory completeness would demand this.

A second, narrower level of deconstructionapplies to each of the above-listed understand-ings of interregional Hopewell individually. It isnecessary to entertain the possibility that the onekind of cultural content or one geographic areaor one kind of distributing mechanism thoughtto comprise interregional Hopewell might itselfbe heterogeneous. Consider the subject of geo-graphic area. Struever (1964:88) postulated theexistence over the Eastern United States of an in-terregional logistics network, within which rawmaterials, stylistic concepts, and their ideolog-ical rationalizations had moved. This networkover this whole area was initially implied byhim to be of a single kind: “The Hopewell In-teraction Sphere simply refers to relations ofa still to be determined nature” (Struever, p.88; emphasis added). However, through time,empirically detailed distributional studies (See-man 1979a; Struever and Houart 1972), rawmaterial sourcing analyses (e.g., Spence andFryer, Chapter 20; Carr and Sears 1985; Goad1978, 1979; Hatch et al. 1990; Walthall 1981;Walthall et al. 1979, 1980), and stylistic analy-ses (e.g., Seeman 1979a:379) have shown thatthis network was really many different networks


within which the same or different raw materi-als were distributed, different amounts of a rawmaterials were distributed, and different stylisticconventions and ideas were intercommunicated.The contrast between the Illinois–lower Missis-sippi valley connection and the Ohio–Tennessee–Georgia connection is a well-known example(e.g., Goad 1979:244–245; Jefferies 1979:170;Seeman 1979a:313, 385; B. A. Smith 1979:186;Toth 1979:196; Walthall et al. 1979:249–252;for summaries of these viewpoints, see Carr andSears 1985:86). Struever and Houart (1972:74–77), themselves, came to define four geographi-cally distinct northern Hopewellian interregionalnetworks within which different raw materials orfinished goods were thought to have been dis-persed. The deconstruction of Hopewell as a ge-ographic area is addressed in Chapters 11 and 20.

Another form of deconstruction of inter-regional Hopewell at the second level concernsits cultural content rather than its geographicexpanse. An example is breaking apart thenotion of interregional Hopewell as a complexkind of social organization that was interwovenwith a symbol system that marked leadershipand/or prestige and facilitated social interaction(Seeman 1995:123; Struever 1964:88). This kindof deconstruction is made at the pan-Woodlandsscale in Chapter 18, by Turff and Carr, and at thesmaller scale of Ohio in Chapter 9, by Field etal. In Chapter 18, one finds that widely dispersedover the East during the Middle Woodland weremetal-jacketed panpipes, which might be sup-posed to represent some one form of importantsocial role and its symbolic representation.However, Turff and Carr document that the roleof the panpiper, which does appear to have beena key one, was instead combined fluidly withmany other kinds of important social roles, in-cluding diverse shaman-like personae, one kindof community-wide leader, high achievers ormembers of two different prestigious sodalities,and important members of different clans. Alsosignificant, the social roles with which that ofpanpiper was combined varied among regionaltraditions, and in a patterned way delimitingfour, broader areas, each comprised of multipletraditions. (see Chapters That Follow, below,for details). These patterns imply the varying

functions of panpipes, their use in varied socialand ritual contexts by persons in differentroles, and, in turn, varying forms of social andceremonial organization and leadership sym-bolization across the East. The patterns do notevidence a single, panregional social–symbolicsystem, as Seeman (1995) envisioned. Theyalso do not accord with Caldwell’s (1964)and Prufer’s (1964b) ideas that interregionalHopewell represents the spread of a specific setof religious beliefs, a ceremony, or a cult, suchas the Ghost Dance or Midewiwin.

In a similar way, in Chapter 9, Field et al.document that shaman-like and other leadershiproles, along with their richly symbolic artifactmarkers, were associated with different gendersin different parts of Ohio. In northeastern Ohio,key social roles were filled only by males,suggesting a patrilineal kinship system likethose found in historic Algonkian societiesof the northern Woodlands. In southwesternOhio, these roles and their markers were asso-ciated instead almost completely with females,suggesting a matrilineal system like thosefound in historic southeastern Woodland tribes.Geographically in between, in the central Sciotovalley, the balance of males and females thatfilled such important roles is more equitable,with some male predominance (Field et al.,Chapter 9:table 9.2). These different patternsamong the three Hopewellian geographic areasdo not accord with the idea of a unitary kind ofsocial organization that was interwoven with asymbol system that marked leadership and/orprestige, as Struever and Seeman proposed.2

The final form of deconstruction of inter-regional Hopewell that is wanting at the sec-ond level involves recognizing and mapping thediverse mechanisms, as opposed to a singularmechanism, by which raw materials, classes ofartifacts, artifact styles, mortuary and other cul-tural practices, and ideas came to be widely dis-tributed over the East. Theoretically, one wouldexpect, from the diversity of kinds of materialitems shared over the Eastern Woodlands, thatseveral different mechanisms of dispersal mighthave been involved. Following the logic of Carrand Neitzel (1995c:389), “Different media canvary in their scale, visibility, rarity, durability,


malleability, portability, and other qualities. Inturn, these characteristics determine the contextsof artifact production and use, and affect an arti-fact class’s potential role and articulation with so-ciety and individuals”—as well as its capacity tointerrelate different societies and their members,I would now add. Thus, for example, one wouldwant to inquire whether Hopewellian male-produced metallic symbols used in mortuary–ceremonial contexts and female-produced clayfigurines used in largely domestic–ceremonialcontexts interrelated Hopewellian societies indifferent ways, and were distributed interre-gionally by differerent cultural mechanisms (seeKeller and Carr, Chapter 11).

Empirically, this form of deconstruction ofinterregional Hopewell is historically exempli-fied in the works of Carr and Sears (1985), Griffin(1965, 1973), and Seeman (1995). Griffin (1973)championed the idea, in contrast to Struever andHouart (1972), that not all Interaction Sphereitems were traded across the midcontinent, but in-stead some were procured through long-distancelogistical trips. In the case of obsidian, he posedthat this raw material might have been obtainedfrom Yellowstone by one or a few small canoeparties from the Hopewell earthwork community.Thus, multiple mechanisms of distribution—both trade and direct procurement—might havebeen involved in interregional Hopewell. Carrand Sears (1985:84–86, 89), through geographicand chemical analyses, found that meteoric ironwas probably procured and distributed over theEast by several means. These include the possi-ble local collecting of meteoric iron by Copenapeoples, probably regional or interregional ex-change or long-distance logistical trips by SantaRosa–Swift Creek and St. Johns peoples, almostcertainly long-distance logistical trips to multiplemeteorite falls by Illinois and Ohio Hopewelliangroups, and possibly interregional exchange ofmeteoric iron from the Southeast to Ohio. Carrand Sears concluded that interregional Hopewellwas a composite of diverse distributional mech-anisms that were not necessarily integrated.

This view is also found in Seeman’s(1995) communication perspective on Hopewell.He proposed, following a theoretical distinc-tion drawn by Helms (1988), that interacting

Hopewellian peoples might have classified eachother into three categories by their geographic,linguistic, and cultural distances: normal people,close strangers, and outsiders. Initiating andmaintaining relationships and communicationamong peoples in these three categories can beexpected, according to ethnographic analogscited by Seeman, to involve different culturalmechanisms. Whereas normal people can speakto each other using the same language, closestrangers may employ bilingualism facilitated byout-of-group foster care and education, as well asmarriage exchanges, pidgins, trade jargons, andritualized behavioral response sequences. Out-siders can use very simple “foreigner talk” toensure safe passage or to initiate basic trade, butmore in line with Hopewellian material cultureis the use of nonlinguistic, artistic communica-tion in the form of iconography, music, and/ordance. Seeman went on to notice that RossBarbed points, copper celts, and panpipes haveincreasingly wider geographic distributions andexplained their different expanses as the result ofdifferent means of communication among nor-mal people, close strangers, and outsiders, re-spectively. Thus, interregional Hopewell was re-solved into three kinds of distributive mecha-nisms.

Additional Mechanisms of Dispersalof HopewellThe range of mechanisms by which Hopewellianmaterial culture, practices, and ideas came to bespread over the East can be expanded and/orrefined considerably beyond the ones just de-scribed. Additional possibilities—some of whichare discussed here in Part IV of this book—include:

� vision and power questing by medicinepersons, headmen, male initiates, or thosetrying to bolster their social position in acompetitive milieu.

� pilgrimage to a place of power in nature(Gill 1982).

� the travels of medicine persons to heal thesick or the travels of the sick to medicinepersons.


� long-distance buying and selling and/orlearning of ceremonial rites by medicinepersons or others (Penney 1989).

� spirit adoption (Hall 1987, 1997).

� interregional intermarriage.

� pilgrimage to a ceremonial center (Gill1982).

� valuables exchange among distant elite(e.g., Flannery 1967).

� travel to a center of learning to gain esotericknowledge (Helms 1976, 1988, 1993).

� elite-orchestrated transference of religiouscults among tribal segments in order to fa-cilitate supralocal exchange (Wiessner andTumu 1999).

Significantly, these mechanisms are more spe-cific and personalized than the generalized no-tions of “procurement” and “exchange”, in thatthey reference actors within particular culturalroles and with specific motives. By consider-ing social actors, they open the possibility ofgenerating interregional Hopewell from localand intraregional concerns. In addition, manyof these mechanisms are essentially religious intheir nature and/or motives, and contrast withthe economic and socioeconomic views of theHopewell Interaction Sphere that predominatedin the 1970s and 1980s (e.g., Ford 1974; Hall1973, 1980; Seeman 1979a; Struever and Houart1972) and that are still reiterated today (e.g.,Braun 1986; Fagan 1995b:408–410, 414–417;Seeman 1995:125, 138).

In the following sections, each of the aboveten mechanisms of interaction is described inactor-based terms with ethnographic analogs,and their relevance to explaining various facets ofinterregional Hopewell is assessed with availablearchaeological data. Mechanisms of interactionat the long-distance, interregional scale of themidcontinent (hundreds of miles) are the focusof discussion, except in the section on valuablesexchange. In this case, local, regional, and inter-regional means of valuables exchange are consid-ered and contrasted, for the purpose of suggestingthose particular means that are more or less likely

to have occurred at specifically the interregionalscale.

In order to systematize the logic by whichany one or few of the above mechanisms ofinterregional interaction might be identified asthe cause of a specific interregional distribu-tion of Hopewellian raw materials or artifacts,Table 16.1 is offered. It lists some expectablematerial consequences of all but the last of theabove mechanisms. The consequences includethe raw or finished nature of the items, their func-tion, their local or foreign raw material sourceand style, and their abundance. The reasons whythe mechanisms have the material correlates thatthey do will become evident as the mechanismsare described below. The last mechanism listedabove is not addressed in Table 16.1 because it is acomposite of several of the first nine (see below).

Not all of the mechanisms listed in Ta-ble 16.1 are easily distinguished archaeologi-cally; some pairs of mechanisms share many orall of their listed material correlates. However,five groups of mechanisms appear to be readilydiscernible. These groups are (1) vision/powerquesting and pilgrimage to a place in nature; (2)the travels of medicine persons or patients forhealing; (3) the buying of religious prerogatives,spirit adoption, and intermarriage; and (4) pil-grimage to a ceremonial center, valuables ex-change among elites, and travel to a center oflearning. Contextual evidence possibly would al-low finer distinctions to be drawn within thosegroups having multiple mechanisms.

MECHANISMS BASED ONSHAMAN-LIKE IDEOLOGY ANDPRACTICES

OverviewVision and power questing by medicine personsor others seeking spirit helpers and/or powerfrom nature; more regular, periodic pilgrim-age to places of power in nature; the travelof medicine persons or patients in the contextof healing and being healed; and the travel ofmedicine persons or others to ceremonial prac-titioners to learn or buy ceremonial rites eachimply shaman-like cosmologies, practices, ar-tifacts, and/or raw materials. These suggested


Table 16.1. Material Consequences of Various Mechanisms of Interregional Interactions

Material consequence

Visible andobscure style

Raw material Function Material of finishedMechanisma or finished good of artifact source goods Quantity

Vision/powerquesting(deposit backhome)

Raw materialsof manykinds

Shamanic quality Nonlocal n/a Little to much

Pilgrimage to aplace in nature(deposit backhome)

Raw material ofone or a fewkinds

Symbolic token Nonlocal n/a Much

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Travels of

medicinepersons orpatients forhealing; tokensof healing

Raw material orfinished good

Shamanic quality,symbolic token

Nonlocal Nonlocal Little

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Elite valuables

exchangeRaw material or

finished goodFancy, symbolic Nonlocal Nonlocal Little to much

Pilgrimage to aceremonialcenter (depositat center)


Fancy and/orutilitarian

Nonlocal or local Nonlocal Little to much

Travel to a centerof learning(deposit backhome)


Symbolic tokenof esotericknowledge

Nonlocal Nonlocal Little

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Buying of

religiousprerogatives ±spread locallyback home

Finished good Ceremonialparaphernelia

Local Nonlocal Little ± much

Spirit adoption ±spread locally

Finished good Fancy and/orutilitarian


Intermarriage ±spread locally

Finished good Fancy and/orutilitarian


aEach of these mechanisms would produce a nodal geographic distribution of the raw material or finished good of relevance. Dotted lines groupmechanisms that are least distinguishable from each other in the archaeological record.

mechanisms for how Hopewellian material cul-ture, practices, and ideas were spread over theEastern Woodlands are reasonable in light of theclear shamanic orientation of Hopewellian ma-terial culture and symbology (Carr and Case,Chaper 5). Specifically, shaman-like animal im-personators of several kinds are known to havepracticed in Ohio Hopewellian societies fromtheir depictions in sculptures and carvings and

from elements of their costumery (see Chap-ter 5, Table 5.2). They were the culmination ofa shaman-like tradition that had been elaborat-ing since at least the terminal Late Archaic.3

Shamanic paraphernelia of many kinds are foundin Ohio Hopewellian burials, including turtle-shell rattles, turtle-effigy rattles, deer antler tinetinklers, mushroom effigies, and smoking pipes,all suggesting trance induction; quartz and other


crystals, a quartz disk, mica mirrors, and cones,all for divination; quartz and gem points used forwar or hunt divination, spiritual warfare, and/orsending harmful power intrusions; turtle-shelland bird bone sucking tubes for healing; bar-racuda jaws historically used by ceremonial lead-ers for scratching and letting blood from par-ticipants in preparation for ceremonies; conchshells, which historically were closely associatedwith the distribution and use of the black drinkin public ceremonies; and cosmological symbolsfor performing rituals that referenced the naturalworld (see also Carr and Case, Chapter 5, Table5.4, for a much larger list).

Power/Vision Questing and Pilgrimageto a Sacred Place in NatureJourneying to a place in nature that, by its ge-ological, hydrologic, historic, or other qualities,was thought to have much power was a very com-mon practice among historic Native Americansgenerally (Gill 1982:97).4 Certain spots in na-ture were believed to be the home of powerfulsupernatural beings or, more generally, to be fullwith energy—for example, “where the Creator’sheart beats more strongly” (Swan 1988:152).Waterfalls, springs, deep pools, caves, mountainpasses, and outcrops of fascinating raw materi-als are common examples of the power placescited by Eastern Woodland Native Americans(e.g., Hudson 1976:130–131, 145; Bacon 1993).At such places, power was sought internally inthe form of visions induced by exposure, fast-ing, chanting, prayer, and other means. Powerwas also obtained externally through the col-lecting of special minerals, pigments, medicinalplants, and such. The vision quests and rock-painting ventures of Ojibwa and other Algonquinpersons at isolated spots on Lake Superior andother northern bodies of water (e.g., Dewdney1970:22; Gill 1982:98–99) are classic examplesand especially relevant to the Hopewell case, con-sidering the Hopewellian acquisition of copperfrom this area. Journeys were taken by East-ern Woodland youths (usual males) as part oftheir initiation into adulthood, sometimes to ob-tain an animal guardian spirit; by ordinary per-sons seeking an animal guardian spirit to bring

them power and bolster their social position ina competitive social milieu; and by prospectivemedicine persons seeking tutelary animal, plant,and humanlike spirits and specific procedures tohelp them in many shamanic tasks (e.g., Eliade1964; Gill 1982:97–101; Halifax 1979:87–91;Harner 1980:54, 81–83; Mails 1979:49–54, 86,154–155, 181–185; Parker 1923:27–28; Swan1988; Walsh 1990:53–54). A long-distance jour-ney thus was a means of social and internal trans-formation for an individual. It was a “rite ofpassage” from one personal and social state toanother, and fits well the cross-cultural norm forrites of passage to involve a territorial passage(van Gennep 1960:192). Commonly, journeys forpower and visions in the Woodlands and Plainsinvolved an element of danger, which was in-strumental in the process of transformation (seeabove references; also Turff and Carr, Chapter18, and Spielmann 2002:199–200 for broader,world-wide examples).

A pilgrimage to a sacred place in nature islike a vision quest in most of the above respects.However, a pilgrimage takes a person to a tra-ditionally visited spot, and one visited by manypersons, whereas a power or vision quest oftendoes not. In addition, a pilgrimage may be madeas a group venture, whereas a vision or powerquest is an individual affair. In the process ofmultiple persons sharing the pilgrimage ritual,group identity is strengthened (Turner 1969; seealso Mack 2000), bolstering the personal and so-cial transformation of the individual.

An excellent Native American example ofa pilgrimage to a power place was the trip madeannually by Papago youths and men from theirdesert Arizona homeland to the Gulf of Califor-nia, about 200 miles away, beyond their territoryof ordinary activities (Gill 1982:101–105). Theocean was seen as a place of power—the sourceof much needed monsoon rains in the desert andalso salt, which was thought powerful, gatheredfrom deposits, and brought back home, to be dis-tributed as substance and power among the com-munity. The trip was difficult and dangerous, andrequired adherence to a number of special rulesand restrictions. Pilgrims had visions along theway and collected examples of objects seen intheir visions. These they kept for themselves.


Upon coming back to the community, the jour-neyer had to remain isolated from the rest of thecommunity for days, because the power acquiredat the ocean was too great for others to be safelynear. The trip was made 10 or more times by a per-son, beginning at age 16 or 17, and transformeda youth of religious naivete into a vision-guidedman, and one of a group of men of vision.

The idea that Hopewell Interaction Sphereraw materials were brought back home fromafar in the course of long-distance power/visionquests or pilgrimages to sacred places in natureis directly implied by the combination of thematerials’ distant sources and their likely spir-itual qualities in the native’s eye. A canoe trip toLake Superior sources of copper from the cen-tral Scioto area in Ohio and back, as one example,would have taken many months and required con-siderable endurance and demonstration of power(Little 1987). As for spiritual qualities, mica,copper, silver, meteoric iron, obsidian, galena,and other Hopewell Interaction Sphere materialseach either have the capacity to be transformedfrom light to dark or shiny to dull, and viceversa, or simultaneously exhibit a light/shinyquality and a dark/dull quality (Carr and Case,Chapter 5; 1996; Carr 1998). In addition, quartzand translucent gemstones, as well as materi-als like mica that can reflect one’s image, implythe ability to see within, through, or beyond. Inshamanic worldviews, both transformation andseeing are qualities that are equated with power(Harner 1980:28–29). Thus, many Hopewell In-teraction Sphere raw materials would likely havebeen perceived as powerful. The combination ofa long journey and a spiritually extraordinaryend point logically suggests the possibility thatshaman-like practitioners, initiates to adulthood,or others seeking power went on long-distancepower/vision quests or pilgrimages to the potentplaces in which these materials were found inbulk (e.g., Obsidian Cliff, Wyoming the BrenhamFall, Kansas; Isle Royale in Lake Superior; theKeweenaw Peninsula of Michigan; Cobalt, On-tario) and that they brought back these materialsas evidence of the spirits and/or power they hadwitnessed and acquired there. Archaeological ex-ample tokens of such successful journeys includethe books of mica, large raw copper nodules,

and large galena cubes found in some Ohio sites;the large silver nuggets and relatively expansivesheets of silver found at the LeVesconte site,Ontario, and the Converse site, Michigan; andthe multiple but small silver nuggets and massesfrom the Hopewell site, Mound 25, Burial 260–261, and from the Snake Den site, Ohio (Spenceand Fryer, Chapter 20; Spence and Fryer 1990,1996).

The image of Hopewellian vision questsresulting in the acquisition of power and pow-erful materials is perhaps most easily visualizedfor the case of obsidian from the Yellowstoneregion. There, dualities—which preoccupiedthe Hopewell—abound naturally. The obsidianveins of Obsidian Cliff are black but sparkle onand off with abundant white reflections of sun-light as one walks below the cliff. The Fireholeriver runs cold just feet away from warm pools,affording the possibility of sweat baths followedby cold emersion—a natural precipitate of trancestates. Hot gysers also erupt just feet from theriver. The colors that predominate in Hopewellart and earthen architecture, and that historicallysymbolized the Directions among Woodlandpeoples, are found closely juxtaposed in thehot pools—white carbonates, red algae, yellowalgae, black basalt and algae, and blue–greenwaters. Good candidates for referents to beingsof a Lower World abound in Yellowstone: gysersthat erupt vocally and unpredictably, steam fromvents, bubbling pools, and Roaring Mountain’ssteaming and vocal slope, just four miles fromObsidian Cliff, and occasionally heard fromthere. Redundant images of the axis mundiare found at Gyser Basin, where large moundshave built up around the gyser entrances, fromthe centers of which smoke rises and waterplumes. Several animals whose power parts,effigies of them, or artistic images were a partof Hopewellian ritual paraphernalia occur atYellowstone: bear, elk, goat, trumpeter swan,and raptors. We do not know how the Hopewellmay have used the Yellowstone landscape ritu-ally or what specific symbolism they might haveattributed to its natural wonders. However, thepower of the place and image of persons journey-ing there for spiritual power, powerful materials,visions, and initiation or transformation are


easily grasped by those who have walked inYellowstone.

Likewise, the austerity, raw natural power,and eerie qualities of the Lake Superior basin,the magical properties of copper and silver thatHopewellian peoples obtained there, and its re-mote location all conform well to the pictureof long journeys taken by Hopewellian peopleto extraordinary places for vision and power.The rugged relief, steep bluffs, dense maple–birch–hemlock forests with interwoven massesof foliage that prohibit the noonday sun, pen-dant mosses, and cedar swamps of the Trap rangein the Keweenah peninsula and of Isle Royaleare forbidding to overland travel. Lake Superioris equally dangerous for travelers, with its un-predictable dense fogs, violent windstorms, andshoreline seiches, waterspouts, and whirlpools,which historic Native Americans attributed to theHorned Serpent–Underwater Panther and otherpowerful underwater beings. The atmosphere ofthe region is unreal. The horizon is falsely lu-minous and colored on a clear day on the Ke-weenah peninsula, from the great mass of waterthat surrounds it. Disorienting and dynamicallychanging mirages and disproportionate, enlargedreflections of the terrain suspend in the air aboveLake Superior or float on its waters as a result ofstrong differences in air and water temperatures.Massive and quickly changing cloud formationsdominate the day sky. At night, streaks of or-ange and blue light of the aurora flash up fromthe horizon, sometimes to the zenith, in rapidpulses. (Foster and Whitney 1850:55–57, 81;Martin 1999:36–42, 202; Schoolcraft 1970:168–169, 178). The many unreal, transformational,powerful, and dangerous qualities of the placewould have provided an ideal setting for journeysand rituals of personal and social transformationand empowerment for the Hopewellian peoplewho traveled there.

The argument that the exotic and transfor-mative raw materials found in Hopewellian sitesevidence power/vision quests or pilgrimages isimplicated in Chapter 18 by Turff and Carr. Theyreview the detailed symbolic meanings of copperfor various historic Great Lakes and Midwest–Riverine Native Americans, and distill some ofcopper’s most probable, fundamental meanings

for Hopewellian peoples. They conclude thatcopper would have evoked the notion of power asrelated to supernatural Upper and Lower Worldcreatures, but also the power required by hu-mans to make a long-distance journey to a coppersource and the power attained by having suc-cessfully done so. The argument is further sup-ported in the case of copper by Bernardini andCarr (Chapter 17), who show the likelihood thatcopper used to make the celts found over theMidwest and Midsouth was normally obtaineddirectly by long-distance journeying to UpperGreat Lakes sources rather than indirectly bydown-the line exchange. The random geographicdistribution of celts of varying sizes over theMidwest, rather than their clinal decrease in sizeaway from the upper Great Lakes, is used bythe authors to make their case. Bernardini andCarr also point out that copper celts, analogousto stone celts used to manufacture dugout ca-noes, would have been ideal representations ofthe long journeys made to acquire power in ar-eas of copper deposits. Finally, the authors ex-tend the long-distance journey interpretation toalligator teeth, barracuda jaws, obsidian, and me-teoric iron, each of which have qualities imply-ing power. Items of these kinds concentrate geo-graphically in Ohio Hopewell sites and occur atvery low densities or not at all between Ohio andtheir distant sources, suggesting that they arrivedin Ohio by long-distance journeying rather thandown-the-line exchange.

Geochemical sourcing, distributional data,and/or evidence of the working of exotic raw ma-terials at a site indicate, with very high prob-ability, the following instances of direct, long-distance acquisition rather than nodal exchangeor down-the-line exchange: obsidian found inseveral Ohio Hopewell sites from Obsidian Cliff,Wyoming, a nearby Yellowstone source, and theCamas–Dry Creek formation in Idaho and, muchless likely, obsidian found in Illinois HavanaHopewell sites from these sources (Griffin 1965;Hatch et al 1990; Hughes 2000; Hughes andFortier 1997; Wiant 2000);5 galena at severalOhio Hopewell sites and/or galena at a number ofTennessee Copena sites from the upper Missis-sippi valley source (Walthal 1981:41); galena atsix Illinois Havana Hopewell sites from a central


Missouri source and at additional Havana sitesfrom the Potosi deposit in southeastern Missouri(Walthal 1981:37); silver at the LeVesconte sitein Ontario, the Converse site in Michigan, and theTunnacunhee and Mandeville sites in Georgia,all from Cobalt, Ontario; silver at the Hopewelland Turner sites in southern Ohio from the Ke-weenaw peninsula of Michigan, where it occursin the form of erratic inclusions within raw cop-per (Spence and Frye, Chapter 20; Spence andFryer 1990, 1996);6 meteoric iron at the Turnerand Hopewell sites, Ohio, from the Brenham fallin Kansas (Wasson and Sedwick 1969); mete-oric iron at the Havana site, Illinois from a Min-nesota, a Kentucky, or an unknown source (Kim-berlin and Wasson 1976); and one instance ofriver mussel shell at Naples–Russell Mound 8,Illinois, from southeastern Georgia (Farnsworthand Atwell 2001:74). Distant sources of otherHopewell Interaction Sphere raw materials havebeen documented to have been used (e.g., cop-per from the Keweenaw Peninsula, Isle Royale,Green Bay, and the Ducktown Appalachian oreband), but the mechanism(s) of interregional dis-persal is(are) not so certain (compare Bernardiniand Carr, Chapter 17; Turff and Carr, Chapter 18;Spence and Fryer, Chapter 20; Goad 1978, 1979;Griffin 1961b; Levine 1999; Seeman 1979a:292–293; Winters 1968).

Long-distance power questing and visionquesting must have been given high value inHopewellian societies. This is seen in part in theabundance of fancy, exotic raw materials foundin Hopewellian cemeteries, sometimes in theform of very large ceremonial deposits of a sin-gle material (e.g., the 8,000+ disks of Dongolachert in Hopewell Mound 2, the 160 poundsof galena found in Hopewell Mound 29, andthe 300 pounds of obsidian found in HopewellMound 11; see other examples in Carr et al.,Chapter 13, Tables 13.2 and 13.3). The valueplaced on long-distance journeying is also seenin the flaunting of exotic materials crafted intothe form of ceremonial items that probably weredisplayed in public events. Examples includelarge obsidian bifaces, large copper geometricsymbols that apparently decorated costumes, alarge mushroom-effigy staff sheathed with cop-per, deer antler headresses of copper, and large

mica mirrors cut out and painted in the form ofhuman heads wearing headgear (Carr, personalobservation, Field Museum of Natural History).The high value that Hopewellian societies placedon long-distance acquisition of raw materials isalso seen in the juxtaposition of materials fromdifferent, far-away places in the same deposits.For example, DeBoer (2000:36) pointed out thatsingle bladelets of each of obsidian, Knife Riverflint, Upper Mercer flint, and Harrison Countychert were placed in a pit in Russell BrownMound 3, of the Libery Works, Ohio (See-man and Soday 1980). Similarly, in Pete KlunkMound 2 in Illinois, three marine shell cups wererecovered, each a different species from differentsections of the Atlantic and Gulf coasts (Perino1968:51).

Long-Distance Travels of MedicinePersons or Patients for HealingNative American medicine persons today and inthe past, as well as shaman cross-culturally, arewell known for the long distances they have trav-eled and, frequently so, in the course of followingtheir spiritual calling to help individuals. Like-wise, patients needing healing traditionally havetraveled to distant medicine persons of reputationto be healed (e.g., Halifax 1979; Mails 1979:186–189; 1991:141, 169–176; Neihardt 1932). Thesetravels have the potential for spreading mate-rial goods. Specifically, after healing ceremonies,many Native American medicine persons tradi-tionally have given their patients a material re-membrance of the vital and protective power(s)that had been brought back to them in placeof what had ailed them—for example, a tie oftobacco, a crystal, an animal power part, im-agery, and such (see references above). In theend, whether the medicine person or patient didthe traveling, the given token is spread far from itsoriginal source in nature where the medicine per-son collected it. It is possible that certain, token-like Hopewell Interactions Sphere items, such aspieces of mica, copper, meteoric iron, and galena,were spread in small numbers from their sourcesin this way. Small caches of token-like materialsin the graves of persons who have shamanic para-phernalia and probably were medicine persons,


or lone tokens in the graves of ordinary per-sons who may have been patients (Appendix16.1), might indicate this mechanism of disper-sal. The single river mussel that was carved witha shaman-like broad-beaked duck–raptor combi-nation and was found in Naples–Russell Mound8 in Illinois, but that originated from southeast-ern Georgia (Farnsworth and Atwell 2001:74),may be another example.

Long-Distance Buying and Selling,and/or Learning of Ceremonial RitesThe notion that interregional distributions of In-teraction Sphere goods reflect the long-distancetravels of medicine persons or others to buyrights to perform powerful ceremonies and tomake the paraphernalia used in those cere-monies is an elaboration of a contribution madeby Penney (1989:159–229). Penney examinedHopewellian smoking pipes, clay figurines, andbird-effigy pots spread across the Eastern Wood-lands for their raw materials, stylistic detailsof the kind that reflect the producing artist,and more visible stylistic conventions and im-age content. From these data, he was able toshow that objects that are remarkably similarin their stylistic conventions and image contentand that were found in distant regional tradi-tions are nevertheless clearly not examples ofinterregional trade7 (see also Farnsworth 1997;Hughes et al. 1998; Wisseman et al. 2002). Asan alternative explanation, Penny offered that itwas the styles and images that were spread, andthat this dispersion can be attributed to personswho traveled distances in order to buy or ex-change prerogatives (i.e., rights) to the perfor-mance of particular ceremonies and the produc-tion of the ritual equipment required for thoseceremonies. Purchase and exchange would haveinvolved a period of tutelage in the ways ofthe ceremony and the manufacture of its equip-ment.

The parties involved might have been rit-ual trading partners, or less formally tied mem-bers of communities who met at interregionalsocial and religious gatherings. The spread ofmedicine pipes among the historic Crow, Hi-datsa, Blackfeet, Sarsi, and Gros Ventura, and

the spread of the Dream Drum and Dream Drumcult among Eastern Siouan and Great Lakes Al-gonquin speakers are ethnographic examples in-volving these two kinds of parties, respectively.To the list of participants that Penney suggestedcan be added medicine persons who traveleddistances to learn from each other—a commonNorth American and global practice (e.g., Gill1982:165; Harner 1980; Helms 1976:109–143;Mails 1979:156–161). The spread of the GhostDance from the prophet Wovoka (Jack Wilson)—a gifted healer among the Nevada Paviotso—across the Plains tribes through medicine per-sons and others who came to learn from him isan example (Gill 1982:164–167). Male bache-lors who, as part of their initiation into manhood,journeyed to distant societies of power to pur-chase sacred objects and learn the rites connectedwith them, is another possibility, to follow thecase of the Sangai bachelors’ rites of the Engain New Guinea (Wiessner and Tumu 1999:19;see below). There, male initiates from the mostprosperous clans were identified by the tribe andsent in secret to purchase sacred objects and cere-monies from a distant society. The voyages wererecorded in lengthy poems, which also describedthe physical transformation of the initiate into aman.

Penney’s idea of long-distance buying andselling of religious prerogatives is very signifi-cant, because it provides an explicit mechanismfor the spread of the “mortuary–ceremonial sys-tem,” “ceremonial idea system,” “cult,” or “reli-gion” that Caldwell (1964), Prufer (1964b), andStruever (1964) thought interregional Hopewellto have been. Prufer (1961a:725–726, Prufer etal. 1965:133) had suggested the less convinc-ing idea, without ethnographic analog, that theHopewell cult was spread by ceremonial andcraft specialists who migrated interregionally(in particular, from Illinois to Ohio). The alter-native mechanism of spread of religious cultsdocumented ethnographically by Wiessner andTumu (1999) and described below (see Big ManOrchestrated Transference of Religious Cults)would have worked well at the within-traditionscale of Hopewell, but probably would have beentoo cumbersome at the interregional scale ofHopewell.


SPIRIT ADOPTION ANDINTERMARRIAGE

The practice of spirit adoption and its proposedapplication to explaining the interregional distri-bution of some Hopewellian practices and ideashave been presented by Hall (1987, 1997:42–47,155–157). Spirit adoption was a historic, GreatLakes, Prairie, and Plains Native American rit-ual for releasing the soul of dead tribespersonsand ending the period of mourning for them(e.g., Callender 1979:256). It involved the re-placement of the deceased by a close relative,a fellow tribesman, a captive enemy, or a friendor prominent individual from a neighboring tribe,who took on the deceased’s identity—commonlyhis or her name and/or clothes. If not previouslya member of the tribe, the person was adoptedinto it. This replacement allowed the soul of thedeceased (or one of his souls) to move on perma-nently to an afterlife and have a happy existencethere. Because spirit adoption created fictive kin-ship relationships, it could be used to solidify al-liances among individuals, villages or bands ofa tribe, or neighboring tribes. In the latter case,a notable person from the foreign tribe was hon-ored by being ceremonially made into a resurrec-tion of a dead chief of the adopting tribe, and bybecoming a chief of that nation.

Spirit adoption, with its tie to the mor-tuary realm, has an obvious potential for ex-plaining the spread of Hopewellian mortuaryand other practices and ideas in a down-the-line fashion, which Hall (1997:157) pointed out.His idea is strengthened by his proposal (Hall1987) that the historically widespread Plains andWoodlands calumet pipe ceremony had its originin spirit adoption ceremony. The calumet cere-mony served to allow safe passage for travelersthrough potentially dangerous regions and to cre-ate alliances between potential or actual enemies.Hall’s (1977:504–505; 1983:48, 52; 2000:115–116, 120) more specific ideas, that historic Plainsand Woodlands Hako-type calumet ceremonial-ism had an analog during the Middle Woodlandperiod in Hopewellian platform pipe ceremo-nialism, and that spirit adoption was a compo-nent of Hopewellian pipe ceremonialism, is notsupported by archaeological evidence of several

kinds (Turff and Carr, Chapter 18). However, hisbroader concept of spirit adoption as a fundamen-tal ritual of social intercourse among neighboringor close parties in the Woodlands (Hall 1997:161;1989:255–256; personal communication, 2004;see also 1987; 1997:57), and as extending backin time well before the Middle Woodland period(Hall 1987:39), remains reasonable.

Intermarriage among those neighboring vil-lages, bands, and tribal nations in the EasternWoodlands who might share or compete forhunting or fishing grounds, quarries, or sourcesof other goods was fairly common historically(e.g., Callender 1979:256). Intermarriage natu-rally had the potential for going hand-in-handwith spirit adoption among tribes: An adopteemight marry within the adopting tribe. Thus, in-termarriage at the scale of neighboring groupscould have been a significant factor in the down-the-line spread of Hopewellian practices andideas. Distinguishing the relative contributionsof intermarriage and spirit adoption to the spreadof Hopewellian ways within a locale or regionwould be difficult.

In contrast to local and regional-scale inter-marriage and spirit adoption, interregional inter-marriage and spirit adoption were probably veryrare historically. They are unlikely candidates forexplaining much of the interregional distributionof common Hopewellian ways across the East-ern Woodlands. They may, however, very wellexplain certain specific cases of very strikingresemblances among Hopewellian objects foundin distant sites. For example, four clay figurinesfrom Mounds A and B of the Mandeville site inGeorgia resemble clay figurines from the Knightmound, Illinois, in the details of their body form,posture, clothing, and painting, but are not itemsof exchange because they have a micaceoustemper like the local Mandeville pottery (Kellerand Carr, Chapter 11; Kellar et al. 1962:344,351). Another example is found in three pairs ofcopper earspools that are apparently unique overthe Woodlands in having “white” metal—silveror meteoric iron—overlays in only their centraldepressions. These earspools are from the Eschsite in northwestern Ohio (silver), BedfordMound 4 in Illinois (silver), and Tunacunnhee inGeorgia (iron) (Ruhl, Chapter 19). All of these


cases suggest the local manufacture of items byone or a few persons who came from a far-awaystylistic tradition. Long-distance intermarriageand spirit adoption would be consistent withthese cases; however, also possible would be thelong-distance buying of ceremonial prerogatives.

Occasional long-distance intermarriagemay have helped to solidify ritual ties betweenthe Mann community in Indiana and communi-ties in the Georgian Piedmont and/or GulfCoastal Plain. Kellar (1979:186) noted the strongresemblance between complicated stampedvessels at the Mann site, Indiana, and early SwiftCreek complicated stamped pottery in vesselshape, rim shape, and stamping. He concludedthat more than trade was involved in this rela-tionship, given the relatively high frequency ofcomplicated stamped sherds at Mann comparedto their rare occurrence in Scioto Hopewell sites.Complicated stamped sherds constitute about2% of the ceramic assemblage from the Mannsite and complicated stamping is the secondmost common form of ceramic decoration foundat Mann (Ruby and Shriner, Chapter 15; Ruby1997e:6). To explain this frequency of vesselsof foreign style, Keller suggested a northwardmovement of people to Mann, perhaps by in-termarriage. However, ethnographic parallels inthe Woodlands for such long-distance, repeatedintermarriage are wanting.

A different tack to the problem is takenby Ruby and Shriner (Chapter 15) in this book.Through petrographic, x-ray diffraction, andscanning electron microscopic analyses of pot-tery from the Mann site and local clays, theyfind that all of the Swift Creek-like complicatedstamped sherds from Mann that they tested forlocation of production were made locally at thesite, rather than imported from the GeorgianPiedmont and/or Gulf Coastal Plain. On this ba-sis, they ruled out the presence of complicatedstamped pottery at Mann as due to power quest-ing or elite valuables exchange. In addition, be-cause complicated stamped pottery is relativelyfrequent at Mann, they conclude that its presencecannot be attributed to small numbers of pilgrimswho might have regularly come to Mann andmade their own pottery there. The pilgrimageinterpretation is also not supported by the oc-currence of complicated stamped pottery on a

number of Mann phase habitation sites in theneighborhood of the Mann ceremonial center,rather than their restriction to the center (Rubyand Shriner, Chapter 15; Ruby 1997e:8). As analternative explanation, Ruby and Shriner sug-gest that people of the Mann phase hosted regularceremonies attended by good numbers of per-sons from the Georgian Piedmont and/or GulfCoastal Plain. At the Mann site, and that thispractice continued over a long time, leading tothe frequency of complicated stamped pottery atMann. The long-term stability of this tradition isattributed by Ruby and Shriner to the cement-ing of intercommunity relationships throughsome marriage and/or adoption. Note that in-terregional intermarriage, itself, is not thoughtto be responsible for the bulk of the com-plicated vessels at Mann. Ruby and Shrineralso suggest that complicated stamped potteryat Mann might be attributable to residents atMann having bought the rights from Southeast-ern groups to produce complicated stamped pot-tery and to enact ceremonies associated withit; pottery production and ceremonial perfor-mance might then have spread within the Manncommunity.

Intermarriage between the Havana andScioto tradition peoples has been an ongoingtopic in Hopewellian studies, beginning in phys-ical anthropology and spreading to archaeol-ogy. Dixon (1923, in Buikstra 1979) saw re-semblances between Illinois valley skeletonsfrom Hopewell mounds and the skeletal se-ries at Turner, Ohio. Neumann (1950, 1952,1970, in Buikstra 1979) saw Illinois and OhioHopewellian populations as having been quitesimilar and derived from the same (Otamid)stock. His work was based first on a detailed,cranial–morphological typology that he devel-oped in the style of descriptive anthropometry, inorder to trace the racial history of North Amer-ican Native Americans, and then on a discrimi-nant function analysis of craniometric data. Fol-lowing Neumann’s conclusions and consideringthe similarities between the Havana and SciotoHopewellian archaeological records and theirchronological positions, Prufer (1961a:725–726,1964a:55–59; 1964b:97; Prufer et al. 1965:133)posed that Ohio Hopewellian culture had its rootsin Illinois Hopewellian culture. He specifically


thought that ceremonial and craft specialists ofthe Hopewell cult had migrated from Illinois toOhio and intermarried there. Subsequent metricand nonmetric cranial analyses (Jamison 1971;Reichs 1974) of Illinois and Ohio Hopewellianskeletal populations have not firmly supported ordenied the migration and intermarriage hypoth-esis (Buikstra 1979:228).

Frequent marriage exchange of womenamong Havana, Mann, and Scioto Hopewelliancommunities is pretty firmly refuted by stylis-tic studies done by Keller and Carr (Chapter 11)on clay figurines found in these areas. The au-thors argue that clay figurines were producedby women, based on very strong worldwideand Eastern Woodlands ethnographic associa-tions between females and manufacture withsoft, pliable materials, including clay (Driver1969; Murdock and Provost 1973). The authorsalso find support for this position in the natu-ral style of the figurines, unelaborated with theceremonial face marking and costumery foundon human images carved from hard materials,and in the production and frequent depositionof figurines in domestic rather than ceremonialsites in the Havana and Mann regions. Lack ofinterregional exchange of female producers offigurines, as well as a lack of exchange of fig-urines themselves, is indicated by marked varia-tion among the three regional traditions in theless visible, facial stylistic attributes of theirfigurines, which theoretically should be sensi-tive to learning among close kin/artisans (Carr1995a). Lack of interregional exchange of fe-males and figurines is also evidenced in the id-iosyncratic sharing of different stylistic attributesamong different pairs of the three regions, ratherthan the interregional spread of the covaryingbundles of stylistic traits that would be pro-duced by artisans of frequently intermarryingsocieties.8

PILGRIMAGE TOCEREMONIAL CENTERS

Long-distance pilgrimage to a sacred ceremonialcenter has a cultural logic behind it closely simi-lar to long-distance pilgrimage to a sacred placein nature. In both cases, personal and/or social

transformation of the individual are the goals,traveling a distance is equated with approach-ing the sacred or supernatural (Helms 1976:133,136, 176), and the pilgrimage point is a place ofpower. Moreover, ceremonial centers have com-monly been built in places in nature that werethought to be powerful. For example, the site ofDelphi, Greece, was selected to erect the famousshrine in honor of the earth goddess, Gaia, be-cause the location was experienced as having astronger earth-force or “plenum”, thus favoringprophecy (Swan 1988:153).

Hopewellian ceremonial centers may havebeen places of pilgrimage not only becausereligious specialists and community membersgathered there periodically to perform sacredrites, but also because they were located in placesin nature thought powerful. For example, inOhio, the Seip earthwork is located immediatelynorthwest of white florescences of alum—anastringent—in the 300-foot-high black shale cliffof Copperas Mountain, along Paint Creek (See-man and Branch n.d.), and very close to outcropsof red ocher (Romain 2000:29) that would havebeen useful for making paint.9 The Glenford hill-top enclosure, within a few miles of the NewarkEarthworks, is situated on a hill bearing outcropsof a rare white sandstone that today is sought outcommercially for its abnormally high silica con-tent (Romain 2001). Tremper mound was locatedstrategically across the Scioto River from pipe-stone quarries in Feurt Hill (Mills 1916:265),which was use to manufacture some of the smok-ing pipes deposited in the mound (Weets et al.,Chapter 14; Emerson et al. 2002). The Hopewellearthwork is located immediately adjacent to aseries of springs, and the McKittrick earthworkis less than a half-mile from brine springs usedhistorically to make salt (the Old Scioto SaltLick [Romain 2000:30]). More broadly, thegreat concentration of earthworks at the interfaceof the Appalachian Plateau and the Till Plainprovinces in Ross County, Ohio, may well reflectthe perceptions that Ohio Hopewellian peopleshad of the abrupt rising of the AppalachianPlateau above the relatively flat Till Plain in thisarea, and/or the closed-in versus open natureof these two provinces, respectively.10 The OldStone Fort hilltop enclosure in Tennessee waslocated between the two deep gorges of the Duck


and Little Duck rivers, and had seven majorwaterfalls with plunge pools and a multiple-entrance cave nearby it. The closest MiddleWoodland enclosure to Old Stone Fort—DesotaFalls, near Ft. Payne, Alabama—also has waterfalls, a plunge pool, and a multiple-entrancecave by it (Bacon 1993:246, 249, 260). Thus, thedistinction between Hopewellian pilgrimages toplaces in nature and pilgrimages to ceremonialcenters could have been largely insignificant inHopewellian cultural logic.

Regarding archaeological correlates, pil-grims may manufacture utilitarian and ceremo-nial artifacts at sacred sites in their nonlocalstyles out of local materials. The foreign-stylespecimens may be rare to frequent at the sites,depending on pilgrimage rates. Unfortunately,these same material consequences can resultfrom long-distance intermarriage and spirit adop-tion, and from the long-distance buying of reli-gious prerogatives. In these cases, foreign prac-tices may be accepted by the local communityand spread within it to varying degrees (Table16.1). Alternatively, pilgrims may bring alongtheir own utilitarian and ceremonial artifacts to asacred site, for use there or for exchange with lo-cal residents, with the possibility of breakage anddeposition at the sacred site. In these cases, thedeposited artifacts will have been made of non-local materials. Pilgrimage can then be distin-guished from long-distance intermarriage, spiritadoption, and the buying of religious preroga-tives, but may be indistinguishable from elitevaluables exchange or travel to a distant centerof learning (Table 16.1).

Pilgrimage where foreign style artifactsare made of local materials is probably exem-plified at the Pinson ceremonial center, Ten-nessee (Mainfort et al. 1997; see also Mainfort1996:387). At Pinson are found vessels producedof local clays but in multiple nonlocal styles fromdistant Hopewellian traditions in the Marksville,Santa Rosa–Swift Creek, Tennessee valley, andMobile Bay areas (Mainfort 1980, 1988b:168;Mainfort et al. 1997; but see Stoltmanand Mainfort 1999 and 2002:16 for qualifica-tions). Foreign-style vessels have been found in“virtually every tested locality” at Pinson (Main-fort 1996: 386), but are not found in surround-

ing Middle Woodland habitation or other sites(Mainfort et al. 1997:44). These data suggest along-term pattern of pilgrimage of peoples fromafar to Pinson for ceremonies, without intermar-riage or spirit adoption with local residents—practices that would have spread foreign stylesto local residents and their habitations. Buyingof religious prerogatives by local residents in or-der to manufacture the foreign-style vessels isunlikely for the same logic. The multiplicity offoreign styles and their restriction to the Pinsoncenter distinguish this example from the case of,complicated stamped pottery at the Mann site(see Spirit Adoption and Intermarriage, above).The few known examples at Pinson Mounds offoreign-style vessels that were actually producedat distance from the site (Stoltman and Mainfort1999, 2002:16) could indicate pilgrimage, or thelong-distance travel of aspiring leaders to PinsonMounds for training under important teachersthere, or symmetrical valuables exchange amongelite (see below, Interregional, Asymmetric Ex-change of Valuables, on Helm’s model).

Pilgrimage where foreign-style artifactsmade of nonlocal materials are brought to a cer-emonial center by pilgrims may be representedat the Mann site, Indiana (Ruby and Shriner,Chapter 15). This mechanism can account for therare occurrences of foreign-made, Southeastern-style, fine-spaced, simple stamped pottery ves-sels at Mann. The authors reason that peoplesfrom the Appalachian Summit may have beenattracted to visit the great Hopewellian ceremo-nial earthworks of the north, upon hearing tales ofthem, and may have made pilgrimages to themas rites of passage, somewhat akin to the pil-grimages or power quests that Southeasternersseem to have made to the copper-bearing powerplaces of the upper Great Lakes (Turff and Carr,Chapter 18; see also Goad 1978, 1979). Withthem, the Southeasterners would have broughttheir simple stamped pottery. In turn, residents atMann could have placed value on the pottery, byvirtue of its foreign origin and unusual designs,and exchanged gifts for the vessels and possiblytheir contents. The allure of northern ceremonialearthworks generally, as envisioned in Ruby andShriner’s scenario, finds support in the contin-ued use of some of these earthworks locally for


burial of persons in simplified mounds long afterthe major events of Big House use and earthworkand large mound construction were complete.11

Alternatively, the fine, simple stamped potteryat Mann could be explained by long-distancetravel to a center of learning or long-distance eliteexchange, which have archaeological correlatessimilar to pilgrimage to a ceremonial center (Ta-ble 16.1). It is not likely that residents of Mannphase sites made pilgrimages or power quests tothe Appalachian Summit and brought back sim-ple stamped pottery from communities there, be-cause such pottery does not occur in habitationsaround the Mann site, based on surface surveys(Ruby 1997e).

A case similar to that at Mann, but with itsown twist, seems to be evidenced in the rare oc-currences of simple stamped pottery with sandtemper (Turner Simple Stamped B [Prufer 1968])in southern Ohio. Specimens of this kind of pot-tery from several Ohio ceremonial centers havebeen identified petrographically to have comefrom the Appalachian highlands, especially inNorth Carolina and Tennessee, and from the GulfCoastal Plain (Stoltman 2000; see also J. A.Brown 1994:186–188; Chapman 1973; Chap-man and Keel 1979; Griffin 1983; Keel 1976).However, the pottery type is also known occa-sionally from residential sites away from cere-monial centers (Dancey 1991:63; Prufer 1968;Prufer et al. 1965:25). This situation leaves openthe possibility that southern Ohioans made pil-grimages to the Southeast, not simply vice versa.Again, long-distance travel to a center of learn-ing or long-distance elite exchange are viable,alternative interpretations.

LONG-DISTANCE EXCHANGE OFVALUABLES AMONG ELITES

The nodally concentrated distributions of cer-tain Hopewellian fancy artifact classes and rawmaterials across the East suggested to Struever(1964:88, 105; Struever and Houart 1972:49)some form of exchange of goods that was tiedto “selected persons who occupied status posi-tions” (Struever 1964;105) within societies thatwere widely separated. The goods, themselves,were thought to “communicate” social prestige

or to be “paraphernalia used in the ritual re-inforcement” of prestige (Struever and Houart1972:49). Goad (1978:201–204, 1979:245–246)went on to characterize the presumed exchangeof copper, in particular, as “reciprocal” and “hi-erarchical,” with reciprocal exchange among un-specified persons at major “regional transactioncenters” and, again, between these “pooling ar-eas” and smaller, surrounding sites of a region.Modern anthropology, simplified, would rewritethese interpretations as the symmetric exchangeof valuables and sumptuary items among theelite (chiefs, chief-priests, big men, and/or rit-ual leaders of a kind) of approximate “peer poli-ties” (Renfrew 1986). One purpose of the ex-change would be seen as the opportunity forelite to have materially demonstrated their powerand knowledge, and their efficacy in accessingthese, especially supernatural forms of power andknowledge (Earl 1997; Helms 1976; Renfrew1986; Service 1962:147, 150). A complementaryview offered by the neo-Marxist based “prestigegoods economy” model (Brown et al. 1990; Clarkand Blake 1994; Earl 1982; Frankenstein andRowlands 1978; Friedman and Rowlands 1977;Hayden 1995; Meillassoux 1978) would suggestthat “individual aggrandizing” or “competitiveaccumulating” emerging elite co-opted the pro-duction and circulation of material valuables nec-essary for social payments of debt, damages,bride-price, ceremonial functions, and otherforms of social reproduction; used the valuablesto create debts and obligate others in their societyto them; and augmented their power by buildingalliances with other elite of the region through theexchange of the valuables with them, or what hasbeen called a “network strategy” for political ac-tion (Blanton et al. 1996; Feinman 1995, 2000).

This section begins by summarizing cur-rent archaeological evidence of the kinds ofHopewellian items, and specific examples ofthem, that actually were and were not physi-cally moved long distances among Hopewelliantraditions. Thus, candidates for elite valuablesexchange are identified, although other culturalmeans of movement of the items must also beentertained. The section proceeds to describeseveral different ethnologically known forms ofvaluables exchange—among elite, aspiring elite,


or commoners—at three distinct geographicscales, thereby widening the simplified idea of“elite valuables exchange” to a spectrum of be-haviors, which should be distinguished anthropo-logically and archaeologically. Finally, for eachof the several defined kinds of valuables ex-change, instances of Hopewellian movements ofgoods that probably or possibly represent theform of exchange are identified.

Archaeological Evidence for theLong-Distance Movement of Valuablesamong Hopewellian Regional TraditionsTwo empirical questions have historically beenfundamental to the topic of the movement ofHopewellian Interaction Sphere goods among re-gions. First is whether finished artifact classes, oronly ideas related to their styles, were transferedamong regions. Second is whether raw materialswere moved among regions through some kind ofnetwork or, instead, procured directly from theirsources by each region separately.

Struever (1964:88) initially held the posi-tion that “primarily raw materials . . . not fin-ished goods” had moved through an interre-gional network. This he concluded from the“considerable local reinterpretation of diagnos-tic Hopewell artifact forms.” Eight years later,Struever modified his position, holding that awide variety of both raw material and artifactforms had moved through the network (Strueverand Houart 1972:48, 74), including such ar-tifacts as copper earspools, celts, and breast-plates, pipes, figurines, and Hopewell ware.Within this paradigm, the results of sourcingstudies of copper (Goad 1978, 1979) and galena(Walthall 1981; Walthall et al. 1979) were in-terpreted to reflect interregional “exchange” and“trade” rather than direct procurement by sev-eral regions. For example, Goad (1978:201–204,1979:245) interpreted the nodal distribution ofcopper in large sites across the East as evidencefor reciprocal exchange among regional cen-ters, as described above. She adopted Strueverand Houart’s (1972) terms of “regional trans-action center” and “local transaction center.”Goad left the specific mechanism of center-to-center exchange undefined, although she ruled

out long-distance traders and other options thatshe thought unlikely. She did not entertain thepossibility of direct acquisition of copper fromits sources independently by persons from dif-ferent sites. In contrast to the above authors,Griffin (1965, 1971:242, 1973, 1979:278) con-sistently saw little evidence of interregional-scaleexchange of either raw materials or finished arti-facts, but did envision local-scale exchange ofHopewell diagnostics. The distant sources ofmany Hopewellian raw materials, along withtheir massive deposition in restricted numbersof sites, were taken by Griffin (1971:242) toindicate their direct “acquisition” and “localceremonial consumption” and exchange. Thisview was reiterated by Griffin’s student, Braun(1986:121).12

A cautious approach to the issues of artifactor stylistic exchange, and of exchange or directprocurement of raw materials, requires that eachkind of item be assessed for itself, and that thepotential for different modes of distribution indifferent parts of the Eastern Woodlands for thesame kind of item be recognized. The uniquegeographic distributions of different raw mate-rial and artifact classes across the East (See-man 1979a, 1995; Struever and Houart 1972), aswell as the geographically differentiated distri-butional patterns documented for each of mete-oric iron (Carr and Sears 1985) and copper (Goad1979) across the East, affirm this methodology.

A number of kinds of Hopewellian valu-ables that have been thought possibly to havebeen moved interregionally can be taken off thelist of candidates, based on recent studies. Inthis book, clay figurines in northern Hopewelliansocieties, earspools from Ohio and the South-east, and metal-jacketed panpipes across the en-tire East are analyzed in detail stylistically forindications of whether they were moved acrossregions (Keller and Carr, Chapter 11; Turff andCarr, Chapter 18; and Ruhl, Chapter 19, respec-tively). Local production, use, and burial, with-out interregional movement, is concluded for allthree classes of artifacts. Likewise, stylistic anal-yses of bird-effigy Hopewell ware vessels, plat-form pipes, and again, clay figurines over theEast, by Penney (1989), do not indicate their in-terregional transport. Griffin (1971:238) did not


see any stylistic evidence of Illinois Hopewellceramics having been moved to Ohio at any timeduring the Middle Woodland. Source analysesof Hopewell ware pottery from Illinois, Indi-ana, and Ohio (Ruby and Shriner, Chapter 15;Fie 2000; Stoltman 2000) indicate little or nolong-distance movement of these items. Noneof 21 Hopewell ware vessels and 20 Baehr ves-sels from six habitation and mortuary sites in thelower Illinois valley analyzed by Fie (2000:462–466) were found to have been made outside ofthe area, and only 6 had circulated within that re-gion. Only 2 (8%) of 24 Hopewell wares from theMann site analyzed by Ruby and Shriner (Chap-ter 15) were made of nonlocal clays and rocktemper (Ruby and Shriner, Chapter 15). None of42 Hopewell Series wares from seven southernOhio sites studied petrographically by Stoltman(2000) had paste compositions or temper typesthat would indicate foreign manufacture. Illi-nois Havana Hopewellian platform pipes, com-monly thought to have been made from Ohio flintclays and moved long distance into Illinois, arenow known from mineralogical analyses to havebeen made of northwestern Illinois berthiorine-rich flint clays within the Illinois Havana stylis-tic region (Farnsworth 1997; Hughes et al. 1998;Wisseman et al. 2002). Copper celts from North-ern and Midsouthern Hopewellian traditions donot have the size differences over space that onewould expect for the interregional exchange ofeither raw copper or celts through a network ofceremonial centers (Bernardini and Carr, Chapter17). The absence of alligator teeth and barracudajaws, and the sparsity of obsidian, between theirsources and their deposits in Ohio mortuary sitesmake their exchange through an interregionalnetwork of centers also unlikely (Bernardini andCarr, Chapter 17; Griffin 1965).

The most convincing cases for the move-ment of valuable artifacts and/or raw materi-als among regional traditions—which may ormay not have constituted elite exchange—arethose for which some information on interre-gional variation in item density is available, andthat entail associations among several kinds offoreign items. Galena is one such case. Galenacubes in Ohio Hopewellian mounds and moresoutherly sites source almost completely to the

upper Mississippi valley (Walthall1981:37, 41).Galena is found at the highest density in theOhio Hopewellian sites and at lower densitynodes as one moves south, to Copena sites inthe Tennessee valley, and then to Mandeville(Santa Rosa–Swift Creek tradition) and Mc-Quorquodale (Miller tradition) closer to the Gulf(Walthall et al. 1979). In contrast, galena fromHavana sites, which fall geographically betweenthe Ohio sites and the upper Mississippi valleysource, were obtained from other, closer sources(southeastern and central Missouri). These pat-terns suggested to Walthall et al. (1979:249, fig.31.2) that Ohio Hopewellian peoples probablyobtained galena by direct procurement from theupper Mississippi valley, rather than through ex-change with Havana communities, and that fromOhio, galena was exchanged southward amongcenters, in decreasing amounts. The possibilitythat Copena peoples exchanged galena to personsat Mandeville and McQuorquodale, rather thanthe latter two having directly procured galenafrom the upper Mississippi valley, is bolsteredby the association of galena with Copena-likestone celts and a greenstone spade in one cre-mation at Mandeville and with a Copena-likegreenstone celt on the surface of the primarymound comprising McQuorquodale. A similarbut somewhat weaker case can be made for move-ment of meteoric iron northward from/throughthe Copena region to the Seip earthwork commu-nity in Ohio.13 Although these instances of theinterregional movement of valuables among re-gional centers are good candidates for elite valu-ables exchange, the alternatives of pilgrimage toa ceremonial center and travel to a center of learn-ing cannot be ruled out (Table 16.1).

Perhaps the strongest case for interregionalvaluables exchange among Hopewellian elite isthe burial of a complete articulated skeleton of aroseate spoonbill duck with the skeleton of anadult male and a child in a subfloor crypt ofGibson Mound 3 (Burials 17, 18) of the lowerIllinois valley (Buikstra 1976:31). The duck hadto have been brought alive to Illinois from aGulf Coast location. The spoonbill currently livesyear-round along only the Florida, Louisiana,Texas, and Mexico Gulf coasts and has a some-what broader spring-through-summer breeding


range along the entire Gulf Coast and inlandonly about 50 miles (National Geographic So-ciety 1983:56). Cross-culturally, exotic, live an-imals are not uncommon gifts among leadersof polities (Renfrew and Bahn 1991b:311), andthe spoonbill would have had the requisite sym-bolic value for Middle Woodland leaders in theSoutheast and Midwest, if historic thought onthe animal is relevant. Specifically, the spoonbillis an aquatic, filter-feeding bird that, because ofthese characteristics, is considered in contempo-rary Creek thought (Dan Penton, personal com-munication, 1996) to be an anomalous (powerful)animal—a transformer that connects the Upperand Lower Worlds. Thus, it is a pointed symbolof cosmological beliefs. The spoonbill also hasbrilliant pink feathers unlike any bird native to theMidwest. As in the cases of galena and meteoriciron, the alternative explanations of pilgrimageto a ceremonial center and travel to a center oflearning cannot be eliminated.

Interregional movements of fancy deco-rated ceramic vessels other than bird effigyHopewell ware were apparently rare over theWoodlands. Such vessels might or might not havebeen considered “valuables“ by Hopewellianpeoples, although their contents, if any, mighthave been. Two rocker-stamped vessels from theConnestee phase Icehouse Bottom site in east-ern Tennessee (Chapman 1973; Chapman andKeel 1979) have been sourced petrographicallyto southern Ohio (Stoltman 1999), and thirty-fivesimple-stamped, Connestee-like vessels fromseveral mound sites in southern Ohio (Shetroneand Greenman 1931), have vice versa beensourced petrographically to the vicinity of Ice-house Bottom (Stoltman 1999, 2000). Likewise,rare, finely spaced, simple-stamped, Connestee-like vessels from the Mann site, Indiana, appearto have been manufactured in the AppalachianSummit (Ruby and Shriner, Chapter 15; see alsoabove, Pilgrimage to Ceremonial Centers). Only134 Connestee-like simple stamped sherds areknown from eight Ohio mound sites, and onlyabout 200 such sherds have been found at theMann site (Ruby and Shriner, Chapter 15). Atthe Pinson mound site in western Tennessee, atleast some foreign-style vessels buried there weremanufactured in the regions of origin of their

styles rather than locally (Stoltman and Mainfort1999, 2002:16; compare with above, Pilgrimageto Ceremonial Centers). All of these cases of in-terregional movement of vessels could indicatethe exchange of valuables among elites, but alsopilgrimage to a ceremonial center or travel to acenter of learning.

For the great majority of foreign Hopewe-llian raw materials, it is unknown whether theywere moved across regions by direct procure-ment, exchange, or other means. Likewise, formost foreign Hopewellian finished materials, itis unclear whether they were moved interregion-ally by exchange or one of the alternative mech-anisms listed in Table 16.1.

Multiple Scales of Valuables ExchangeIf long-distance exchange of valuables among theelite of Hopewellian societies did occur, its na-ture is best understood in the larger frameworkof valuables exchange among elite or others atthree distinct geographic scales: local, regional,and interregional or, in Helm’s (1988) terms, ar-eas of “normal people,” “close strangers,” and“foreigners” (see also Seeman 1995). Valuablesexchange at these different scales can vary in thesocial roles of the persons involved (e.g., elite, or-dinary persons), in the nature of the relationshipsamong them (e.g., equal or unequal in prestige),and in purpose (e.g., to secure subsistence needs,to increase one’s prestige). Exchange activitiesat the three scales are not necessarily mutuallyexclusive, and it is likely that the material–distributional correlates of the Hopewell Inter-action Sphere are the composite result of severalof such kinds of activities.

In the multiscalar framework of exchangeto be described, the terms local, regional, and in-terregional exchange are used here to describecultural processes that approximately sort out bygeographic scale, but not sharply.14 The sizesof the geographic areas over which distinct pro-cesses manifest overlap, cross-culturally. As ap-proximate points of reference in the Hopewellianworld, local is used here to describe communi-ties that were situated within a single river valleyor very close river valleys and that would havebeen very similar culturally—“normal people.”Examples include communities in the lower and


central Scioto valley, the lower and central Littleand Great Miami valleys, the lower and centralIllinois valley, and the middle Tennessee valley.River distances are about 50 miles or less. Theterm regional is applied here to communitiesof the order of 50 to a couple hundred milesapart, who would be “close strangers.” Some ad-jacent Hopewellian traditions, such as the Sciotoand Mann phase Hopewell, the Mann phase andlower Illinois valley Havana Hopewell, and theCopena and Porter Hopewell, could have beenconnected by regional exchange processes. Theterm interregional is used for communities thatwere separated by larger distances and wouldhave considered themselves “foreigners,” such asthose in the Havana and Scioto areas, the Sciotoand Copena areas, or more distant traditions.

Local, Symmetric Exchange of ValuablesExchange of valuables at the local level isaddressed in Hall’s (1973, 1980) model ofHopewellian interaction. He proposed that lo-cal exchange of valuables among neighboringgroups had the benefit of regularly renewing andkeeping open ties of mutual friendship and obli-gation that, in occasional years of subsistencescarcity and need, could then be more easilycalled upon for obtaining staples. A similar in-terpretation was offered by Ford (1974). How-ever, Ford envisioned valuables and subsistenceitems as directly exchangeable for each other,whereas Hall more realistically assumed a mul-ticentric economic organization, in which staplesand valuables have different prestige and moralvalue and belong to distinct spheres of exchange(Bohannan 1955). To Hall’s and Ford’s modelscan be added the possibility that regularized, lo-cal exchange of valuables may have kept alivealliances that had as their goals security fromconflict and/or the exchange of mates. Both Halland Ford envisioned interregional Hopewellianexchange and procurement as mechanisms forfeeding local exchange and alliance systems.

Cross-culturally, valuables exchange at thelocal level, either within a polity or among ad-jacent polities, can occur among ordinary per-sons seeking to raise their prestige with the itemsthey receive and give, among leaders who are Big

Men or chiefs and likewise seek to improve theirstatus, or both. Melanesian kula trading partnerswithin and among island societies (Malinowski1922b) were both commoners and leaders. Cross-culturally, the parties involved in local valuablesexchange are usually roughly equivalent in pres-tige and give roughly equivalent gifts, that is, ex-change is symmetric. This need not be the caseat the interregional level (see below). Local valu-ables exchange among trading partners may bemore or less ritualized and institutionalized, inpart depending on the social distance of the par-ties. Sometimes, trading partnerships may be in-herited across generations, as in the cases of thekula (Malinowski 1922b) and historic Plain-RioGrande Pueblo exchange of ceramics and staples(Leonard 2000).

The only two examples of Hopewellian lo-cal exchange that have been documented firmlythrough artifact chemical or physical signatures,and that might have involved valuables, of whichI am aware, are the coordinated study by Carrand Komorowski (1995) and Yeatts (1990) on theexchange of fancy and ordinary ceramics withinOhio (see also Carr, Chapter 2) and a parallelstudy by Fie (2000, n.d.) for the lower Illinois val-ley. Carr, Komorowski, and Yeatts found that, atthe McGraw site, Ohio, finely decorated vesselsof the kind that were used in mortuary and proba-bly domestic ceremonial contexts and that mightrepresent valuables, as well as coarse, utilitarian,cordmarked vessels, were manufactured up to 25kilometers away from McGraw and most proba-bly were brought into the site by exchange. Mc-Graw was a small, undistinguished habitation. Ifthe finely decorated vessels were specially val-ued by Hopewellian peoples, then the case wouldconstitute local valuables exchange, most prob-ably among ordinary persons of roughly equiva-lent prestige. The persons would have been fromthe same and/or close local symbolic commu-nities and sustainable communities (Carr andKomorowski 1995:741), given what is knownabout Hopewellian community and mating net-work sizes,15 and would have considered eachother “normal people” in Helms’ terms. In addi-tion, because both utilitarian and fancy foreign-made vessels at McGraw were sometimes pro-duced from very similar clays and tempering


materials, and likely were made in the sameforeign location, the case suggests that lines ofvaluables exchange were paralleled by lines ofutilitarian exchange. This would support Hall’sposition (see above) that local valuables ex-change helped to maintain local alliances andutilitarian exchange, specifically the exchange ofstaples, especially if food had been contained inthe vessels brought to McGraw. The case doesnot address the issue of whether utilitarian andvaluables exchange occurred at the same or dif-ferent times and places and constituted distinctspheres of exchange.

Fie (2000:498–502) chemically analyzed304 Middle Woodland coarse and fine waresherds from four bluff-base habitations and twoflood plain mound centers well distributed alongthe lower 40 miles of the Illinois valley. Twenty-eight (9.2%) of the sherds—six of which werefine ceremonial wares (Hopewell, Grigsby rock-ered, and Baehr styles)—were found to have beenmanufactured in all probability at locations in thelower Illinois valley other than the sites wherethey were discarded. Because three of the sixfine ware vessels occurred in habitation sites, notsimply in flood plain mound centers where lo-cal and extralocal peoples gathered for ceremonyand may have used and discarded only their ownceramics (Buikstra and Charles 1999; Charles1995), it can be inferred that the three vesselsactually exchanged hands between persons ofneighboring groups within the lower Illinois val-ley. The three vessels can be interpreted as casesof local valuables exchange, if their fineness setthem apart as valuables for lower Illinois valleyHopewell peoples. This is probably true, becauseHopewell, Baehr, and Grigsby rockered stylesare found much more commonly in mortuarycontexts than domestic ones. In addition, Fie’s(2000:447) data show that coarse and fine wareswere traded in parallel, from the same originatinghabitation site to the same destination habitationsite, for two pairs of sites in the lower Illinoisvalley.16 Again, this supports Hall’s position thatlocal valuables exchange helped to maintain lo-cal alliances and utilitarian exchange, possiblyincluding the exchange of staples in vessels.17

Indirect evidence of local valuables ex-change can be found in chemical sourcing data on

galena (Walthall 1981). Of the 121 archaeolog-ical samples of galena from across the East thathave been chemically sourced, only 8 came fromcentral Missouri deposits, and all of these werefound in sites in the lower Illinois valley. The rar-ity and spatially limited distribution of the Mis-souri galena suggested to Walthall (p. 37) thatit was procured in one shot and then dispersedthrough trade partners among nearby commu-nities. Additionally, Walthall (1981:41) arguedthat upper Mississippi valley galena cubes foundin Copena sites are so geochemically homoge-neous that they probably were gotten from onespecific place within the source district, possi-bly in one or a very few procurement trips. Sub-sequently, the galena would have been spreadthrough trade partners among Copena communi-ties. Additional indirect evidence of local valu-ables exchange in Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois canbe envisioned in the foreign, fancy raw materialsbesides galena that are found in small quanti-ties in small habitation sites. These are listed andreferenced by Carr (Chapter 2, Interregional andLocal Hopewell).

All of the above-cited literature and exam-ples of local valuables exchange focus on cer-emonial exchanges that had as their purposethe establishing and reinforcing of alliances.A second form of local valuables exchange—competitive exchange—aims instead at settlingprestige rivalries among elite or among ordi-nary persons and their kin (Dalton 1968, 1977).This is accomplished through the giving-awayof valuables in such quantity and quality thatthey cannot be reciprocated and the receivingparty is embarrassed. Food surpluses and otherstaples commonly exchange hands along withvaluables, which may help to overcome tem-porary local shortages and extralocal differen-tials in the staples of life, similar to the caseof cooperative alliance formation defined byHall (see above). The potlatch of NorthwestCoast Native Americans is a well-known ex-ample of competitive valuables and staples ex-change among elites who held their position byinheritance or achievement, supported by theirkin and/or communities (Piddocke 1969; Ros-man and Rubel 1971; Suttles 1960). These eventswere tied to the acquisition of titles of prestige.


Competitive exchange among common personsand their kin are found in societies of many lev-els of complexity around the world in the formof bridewealth give-aways; less common dowrygive-aways; and give-aways associated with pu-berty rites, marriages, funerals, and other rites ofpassage. The bridewealth exchanges of historicGreat Plains Native Americans (e.g., Collier andRosaldo 1991:278–279; Driver 1969:224–225,342; Hoebel 1966:349) are examples. Amongother purposes, these aimed at prestige build-ing. Another fine example of competitive ex-change among common persons is the contem-porary Apache female puberty ceremony, whichopenly involves competitive giving of massiveamounts of gifts, raw food, and cooked food be-tween the young woman’s matrilineal clan andthe matrilineal clan of her Godmother. Hundredsof persons are fed for a period of four days.The ceremony is followed immediately afterwardand one year later by give-aways by each clanto those who helped amass the valuables andfood (Elizabeth Brandt, personal communica-tion, 2001). On the Great Plains, the Give-AwayCeremony among the Arapaho was competitive,but less openly so in the short run. It was and isheld by families who wished to honor a familymember who had achieved or experienced some-thing good, such as being selected for a positionor title of importance, participating in the SunDance, or returning home from military duty.The ceremony was also held at funerals. Clothbolts, clothing, pots, horses, saddles, and suchwere given to a variety of persons, from closefriends to visitors from other bands or tribes—in general to those with whom one had somekind of relationship of reciprocity—rather thanto a specific social unit of competition. However,the items given were noticed and talked about(Weist 1973; Peter Welsh, personal communica-tion, 2001).

In the Hopewell world, competitive ex-change and the gathering of large numbers ofpeople for this purpose have been inferred ex-plicitly for Havana flood plain mound complexesfrom the quantity and diversity of prestigiousitems found in the mounds and surroundingmidden deposits (Buikstra and Charles 1999;Charles 1995; Charles and Buikstra 2002; see

Carr, Chapter 2, Buikstra and Charles). Compet-itive exchange has also been used to interpret theflamboyance of Hopewellian mortuary remainsacross the East generally (Braun 1986:121).However, other ritual practices are probablyresponsible for the large ceremonial deposits ofvaluable artifacts within the “altars” (cremationbasins) and some burials in Ohio Hopewellmounds, especially those deposits comprised ofmany artifacts or raw materials of one or twokinds (e.g., breastplates, celts, pipes, copper geo-metric symbols, ovate stone disks, quartz, galena,obsidian) (Carr et al., Chapter 13; Greber 1996).

A final variant on local valuables exchangeis that involved in the making of a Big Man, asdescribed ethnographically for Melanesian soci-eties and modeled by Sahlins (1972). Here, theupcoming leader gains prestige and power bygiving away valuables and/or staples to the per-sons he is attempting to draw into debt to himand in support of him. The valuables or staplescommonly are needed by those persons to fulfillsocial obligations of a kind (e.g., bridewealth,blood money, feasts, and give-aways at rites ofpassage). It is not difficult to imagine a Hopewellperson who aspires to be socially important ac-quiring specimens of a potent mineral, herb,“medicine”, or other natural product throughtravel to its source or through trade partners andthen ceremonially “giving” them away18 to oth-ers, thereby increasing his or her prestige, but alsospreading the valuables through the society. Thedistribution of central Missouri galena in lowerIllinois valley sites and upper Mississippi valleygalena in Copena sites (Walthall 1981), as de-scribed above, could easily be explained in thisway or by the other forms of local exchange.

Regional, Symmetric Exchangeof ValuablesValuables exchange at a regional level, involving“close strangers”, has been modeled by Flannery(1967). He was concerned with explaining mate-rial similarities between Formative-period com-munities in the valley of Oaxaca, Mexico, and thecentral highlands generally, and the Olmec com-munities in coastal Veracruz and Tabasco. Thesimilarities include both concepts expressed in


nonportable material culture (ceremonial archi-tecture, iconography) and portable prestige rawmaterials and finished items, as in the Hopewellcase. Early and Middle Formative ceremonialarchitecture and iconography in Oaxaca incor-porated elements found among Olmec sites, butnot vice versa. Oaxacan sites have yielded GulfCoast mussel shell, turtle shell, and a crocodilemandible, while Olmec centers have borne mag-netite and ilmenite that was concentrated andworked in quantity in one Oaxacan site, and ob-sidian and greenstone from the highlands (Flan-nery 1967:68; Grove 1997:84–85).

To explain these distributions, Flannerybuilt a model of regional valuables exchangeamong elite through ethnographic analogy tothe fur “trade” of the coastal Tlingit and inlandAthabascan groups in the Pacific Northwest, andto the jade and food “trade” of the valley Shan andhighland Kachin in Burma. The regional scalesof all three exchange systems are roughly similarto each other and to certain interaction spheresin the Hopewell world. From the valley of Oax-aca to Gulf Olmec centers it is about 175 miles.The Tlingit–Athabascan and Shan–Kachin ex-change systems spanned about 50 to 100 miles.These distances equate, at most, to those betweenadjacent northern Hopewellian phases, such asScioto Hopewell and Mann phase Hopewell, thelatter and lower Illinois valley. Hopewell, orScioto Hopewell and the Goodall focus, but notto the distances between these northern traditionsand ones of the mid Southeast and deep South-east (e.g., Copena, Marksville, Santa Rosa–SwiftCreek, Porter, Miller). Also relevant to the anal-ogy is that the interacting Pacific Northwest andBurmese groups spoke different languages, i.e.,were “close strangers,” which was true of the Na-tive American tribes that historically were spreadover the territories of the above-named northernHopewellian traditions.

The Northwest Coast and Burmeseexchange systems worked as follows. TheAthabascans were egalitarian groups, and theKachin egalitarian and simple rank societies.Both groups lived in highland territories havingvaluable raw materials (furs in the first case;jade, amber, tortoise shell, gold, and silver inthe latter). These goods were coveted by the

elite of the stratified lowland Tlingit and Shansocieties for use as symbols of prestige, forcompetitive display, and, in the Tlingit case,also for give-away and destruction throughpotlatching. In both exchange systems, headmenor chiefs from highland groups and noblesor princes from lowland groups entered intogift-giving partnerships, which were cementedby the exchange of daughters for marriage. TheBurmese system also involved the Shan elite,who had agricultural surpluses, gifting rice andsometimes valley-bottom rice land to the Kachinelite, who had more marginal subsistence yields.

Flannery’s model of regional exchange,based on these two ethnographic analogs, hascharacteristics beyond scale that are both differ-ent from and similar to the models of local ex-change described above. First, regional exchangeand display of exchanged prestige goods are ex-clusively or largely restricted to the upper es-chelons of the exchanging societies rather thanpotentially open to persons of all levels of pres-tige in any frequency (Dalton 1977, in Renfrewand Bahn 1991b:311; Flannery 1967:81). Lo-cal exchange is typically more open. Second, al-though the exchanges of gifts and daughters inregional exchanges are symmetric and the par-ties involved are structurally equivalent as so-cial elite, their prestige differs. This encouragesemulation of the cultural ways and status sym-bols of the more prestigious elite (e.g., Tlingit,Shan) by the less prestigious elite (e.g., Athabas-cans, Kachin), some practices of which maythen filter down to the remainder of the society.Third, regional exchange may involve simply theexchange of items or persons of value, withoutparallel exchanges of food or utilitarian items, asin the Tlingit–Athabascan case. Regional valu-ables exchange among elite can be motivatedsimply by their desire to raise their prestige andbolster their leadership positions within their owncommunities with the foreign status items theyreceive. In contrast, local valuables exchange istypically paralleled by utilitarian exchange, for-mally or informally.19 Fourth, because the par-ties involved in regional valuables exchange are“strangers” and may speak different languages,the practices of exchange are typically heavilyritualized (see Seeman 1995).


To these characteristics of regional valu-ables exchange can be added a qualification ofHelms (1976:133, 136, 176), which is based onethnohistoric and ethnographic analogy to in-teraction among Panamanian chiefdoms. Helmsposed that leaders in rank societies, to be effec-tive, must evidence knowledge of the supernat-ural, upon which their claims to leadership inpart are typically built. She also notes that totravel beyond a circle of neighboring tribes tounknown territories inhabited by unknown peo-ples/beings is tantamount in some non-Westernsocieties to traveling to little-known supernaturalworlds of the cosmos. The near–far axis and theordinary–supernatural axis may be confoundedphilosophically (but see Huntington and Met-calf 1979; also Eliade 1964).20 Thus, elite whotravel in the course of obtaining and exchang-ing valuables bolster their status not only withrare material symbols of rank, but also with eso-teric knowledge and experience of supernaturalworlds obtained in their journeys, as evidencedby those symbols. This same logic applies to trav-eling elite in egalitarian and emerging rank so-cieties (Netting 1972). Helm’s qualification maynot apply to regional-level valuables exchangeamong groups who are culturally and linguisti-cally different yet know a fair amount about eachother, such as the Shan and Kachin, who knewenough to dislike each other. The interpretationis more likely to apply as the distance of regionalvaluables exchange increases, such as betweenhighland and lowland Mesoamerica, or betweenadjacent northern Hopewellian traditions, wherethe average community member might know lit-tle about the distant lands.

Archaeological evidence for regional valu-ables exchange among Hopewellian societiesthat is in line with the above-described charac-teristics is reasonable to explore, at least con-sidering a broad perspective on the nature ofHopewell. First, differences in sociopoliticalcomplexity of the kind found between the Tlingitand the Athabascans may have occurred amongHavana, Mann phase, and Scioto Hopewell so-cieties (Braun 1979; J. A. Brown 1979:219;Struever 1965; but see Buikstra 1976), andbetween southern Havana or Scioto Hopewelland Goodall focus Hopewell. The organizational

differences among these Hopewellian commu-nities, if real, would have afforded a motivationfor valuables exchange and leadership emulationand would suggest the applicability of Flannery’smodel. It is true that firm statements about differ-entials in sociopolitical complexity among thesetraditions cannot yet be made, because mortu-ary analyses of their social organization have notbeen made or have generally been site-specificrather than regional in scope (e.g., Braun 1979;Brown 1981; Greber 1979; Tainter 1975a, 1977;see also Carr, Chapter 2, Buikstra and Charles;Carr, Chapter 3, Community Ceremonial–SpatialOrganization; and Carr, Chapters 6 and 7, for ex-ceptions). However, differences in the amountsand ranges of material symbols accumulatedin the above-compared Hopewellian traditions,and in their earthmoving endeavors, are clearlyevident and substantial,21 and these visibleconditions may be more directly relevant to thequestion of applicability of Flannery’s emulationargument than social complexity per se—whichwas the variable he emphasized.

A second aspect of Hopewell that invites usto explore the applicability of Flannery’s modelis found in a conclusion of Struever’s (1964:88).He held that fancy Hopewellian artifacts and rawmaterials deposited in mortuary contexts werenot specifically mortuary ceremonial goods but,instead, were status markers used by elite per-sons in rituals and social contexts within com-munity life generally. This he surmised from theoccurrence of such items, to some extent, in do-mestic contexts as well as in burials. Flannery’smodel deals specifically with the exchange offancy items as status markers.

Finally, note that Flannery’s model of re-gional valuables exchange stands distinct fromboth Renfrew’s (1986) concept of “peer polityinteraction” and the “prestige goods economy”model summarized above, and appears moreapplicable to regional-scale Hopewellian inter-action than the latter two. Flannery’s modelposes significant differences among the exchang-ing polities in their socio-political organiza-tional complexity and the positional security andinstitutionalizing of their elite, whereas Ren-frew’s construct does not. Such organizationaldifferences appear to distinguish Hopewellian


societies in certain different, neighboring re-gional traditions, as just mentioned, and give pri-ority to Flannery’s model. Also, Flannery’s ideaspertain to the exchange and emulation of specif-ically elite status items, not valuable items thatwere used locally as currency by non-elites inmaking critical social payments and that weremonopolized by rising elite, as posited in theprestige goods economic model. The restricteddistributions of Hopewellian interaction items toa minority of burials within Hopewellian ceme-teries over the Woodlands again suggests thegreater relevance of Flannery’s model to theHopewellian case.

Unambiguous cases of specific artifacts orartifact classes that were exchanged at a regionalscale are few. Seeman (1979a:330) and Strueverand Houart (1972:74) agreed that platform pipeswere exchanged from Scioto Hopewell commu-nities west into those of the Crab Orchard and Ha-vana traditions. However, Penney’s (1989:174–191) stylistic analysis of 117 effigy platformpipes from the Scioto, Havana, Crab Orchard,and other traditions disclosed only 2 as hav-ing likely been made by the same hand yetburied in different cultural areas—those fromthe Rutherford mound in the Crab Orchard areaand the Bedford mound in the Havana area (Pen-ney, p. 185). Mineralogical analyses of Havanaplatform pipes by Farnsworth (1997), Hugheset al. (1998), and Wisseman et al. (2002) sup-port Penney’s finding (see above). Hopewellware pottery, including bird-effigy vessels, fromthe Havana, Crab Orchard, and Scioto tradi-tions, bears strong resemblances that Strueverand Houart (1972:74) interpreted to represent re-gional exchange. Griffin et al. (1969:1) thoughtthat limestone-tempered Hopewell ware made inthe lower Illinois valley was traded or carriedinto central and northern Illinois and westernMichigan. Of these Hopewell ware pots, only theone from the Newcastle site, Indiana, which re-sembles pots from the Steuben, Knight, and Nor-ton sites in Illinois (Swartz 1971:4, in Seeman1979a:379), and the vessel from the Esch moundgroup, Ohio, which resembles Havana Hopewellvessels (Prufer 1961a:476), were assessed bySeeman (1979a:378–379) to have possibly beenexchanged. Only a rare few Hopewell ware

vessels from the Mann site have been shown,through compositional analysis, to have been for-eign to this site (Ruby and Shriner, Chapter 15).Compositional analyses of Hopewell ware fromsouthern Illinois and Ohio (Fie 2000; Stoltman2000; both summarized above) and a stylisticanalysis of specifically bird-effigy vessels fromthe two regions (Penney 1989:207–225) havenot revealed any foreign Hopwell ware ves-sels there. Copper celts and clay figurines wereonce thought to have been exchanged amongOhio, Indiana, and/or Illinois Hopewellian peo-ples (Struever and Houart 1972:74), but theseconclusions are not consistent with stylistic anddistribution studies (Keller and Carr, Chapter 11;Bernardini and Carr, Chapter 17).

The possibility that obsidian was obtainedfrom the Rocky Mountains by Ohio and/or Indi-ana Hopewell peoples and exchanged from oneor both of these communities to Havana peo-ples in Illinois (Struever and Houart 1972:74)remains a reasonable but still tentative interpre-tation, considering the smaller amounts and sizesand the lesser formality of obsidian specimensin Havana sites than those at the Hopewell site,Ohio, and the Mt. Vernon site, Indiana (Note 5;Wiant 2000). The similarity of Illinois and Ohiospecimens in their percentages from various ob-sidian sources supports this interpretation overthe idea of independent acquisition of obsidianby Havana and Scioto Hopewell peoples. Alter-natively, this case may represent an example ofthe travel of aspiring social leaders from Illinoisto centers of learning in Indiana or Ohio, and/orfrom Indiana to centers of learning in Ohio (seethe following section).

The possibility of regional-scale exchangeremains open for most classes of HopewellInteraction Sphere items, which have not beenstudied.

Interregional, Asymmetric Exchangeof ValuablesExchange of valuables interregionally among“foreigners” has been modeled and explained byHelms (1976; see also 1988, 1993). Her ideasapplied to this geographic-scale complementthose of Flannery’s for regional-scale valuables


exchange, although she did not make this scalardistinction herself.

The interregional expanse of the exchangesthat Helms addresses is on the order of hundredsof linear miles, typically making impractical theparallel exchange of utilitarian and subsistencegoods found in local valuables exchange systemsand some regional valuables exchange systems(see above). Thus, the impetus for interregionalexchange in Helm’s view is not directly materialbut, rather, sociopolitical: to augment and vali-date the authority of leaders with esoteric knowl-edge, ceremonial practices, and material symbolsof knowledge and power sought out from for-eign (i.e., supernatural) realms. As in regionalvaluables exchange, long-distance exchange isundertaken only by leaders of societies or thoseaspiring to become leaders. However, the form ofexchange among leaders differs from that in re-gional exchange: It is asymmetric. Leaders travelafar to study under and to learn esoteric mattersfrom more prestigious leaders, providing theirteachers with gifts and perhaps receiving cere-monial paraphernelia or other valuables that sym-bolize and prove their acquisition of knowledge.Leaders who serve as teachers are perceived aspowerful because of their geographic distancefrom the homelands of their student-leaders, thegreater sociopolitical complexity and perceivedpower of their polities, and the greater elabora-tion of the religious practices, concepts, and oralliterature over which they have command, ac-cording to Helms (1976:129–143, 177).

Helms (1976) based her ideas on the learn-ing networks of high chiefs (quevis, nelas) andshaman-like practitioners (tequinas) of the Cunain Panama. In Cuna culture, a high value isplaced generally on knowing about things, par-ticularly their origins, as a means for control-ling things (Helms, p. 120). In chiefdomship andshamanic leadership, “an understanding of thepowers of nature and of the origins and historyof human society and its relationship with thenatural–supernatural realms legitimized chieflyrule” [and shamanic practice] (Helms, p. 127).Chiefs and shaman were admired for their dis-plays of traditional esoteric knowledge and heldstatus challenges with other chiefs and shamanof similar position to show their control over

“secrets” and the hidden essences of things(purba) (Helms, pp. 73, 126). The special-ized ceremonial languages and metaphors usedby chiefs (Helms, pp. 124–125), their abilitiesto creatively use traditional cultural metaphors(Helms, p. 125), and apparently in prehistorictimes the zoomorphic, gold symbols of their edu-cation in distant capitals of learning in Columbia(Helms, p. 119) each demonstrated their knowl-edge and power. Cuna chiefs and shaman in thelate 19th and 20th Centuries traveled to east-ern Panama and into Columbia to traditionallyknown places of learning to study with teachers(Helms, pp. 129–131), sometimes for years andwith regular trips back to their teachers afterward.

Making one or several educational journeysor “knowledge quests” (Helms 1976:140) toone or several different teachers was essentialto the making of a chief in the Cuna world.Helms argued that those Cuna who were bornof a high-status chiefly line and were thought toinherently have great potential for power (niga,kurgin [Helms 1976: 74]) nonetheless had toactivate it—through their educational stays inforeign places associated with the unfamiliar andsupernatural, through their journeys in trance tomystic levels of the Upper and Lower Worlds ofthe cosmos, and through ritual practice. Her con-clusion is based on a 20th-Century example of aCuna leader and by way of analogy to Polynesianchiefs (Helms, pp. 71–72, 119, 137–139).

In Helm’s theoretical perspective, and inlight of the Cuna analogy, to say that interre-gional valuables exchange had as its goal the ac-quisition of fancy items for a leader to evidencehis or her power would be to miss the point.The commodity sought in Helms’s view is es-oteric knowledge, which could be used in publicceremonial displays to extend the reputation andsphere of influence of a chief, to outcompete ri-vals, and to impress and maintain the supportof followers within the chiefdom (Helms 1976:109). Esoteric knowledge was a more fundamen-tal “scarce resource” (Helms, pp. 175–176) thanmaterial symbols of it. Moreover, Helms chal-lenges us to replace the picture of symmetricexchange between foreign leaders in some ritual-ized gift-giving context, as discussed in the previ-ous section, with an asymmetric one: the image of


a student-leader learning from a renowned leaderin a foreign land and paying in valuables and la-bor, with the return of perhaps a few elite, ma-terial symbols of schooling. In my thinking, inlight of ethnographic analogs, these two viewsof elite valuables exchange are not competing,as Helms (pp. 172–175) seems to argue, but dif-fer in their probability of occurrence accordingto geographic scale and modes of travel. Withgreater distances and travel times among poli-ties, asymmetrical valuables exchange amongelite becomes more probable, and symmetricalexchange less so.

Helms’s idea of leaders traveling long dis-tances to learn esoteric knowledge, includinghow to perform religious ceremonies, recall’sPenney’s (1989) notion of medicine persons orothers journeying afar to learn powerful cere-monies and buy the rights to perform them, asdocumented ethnographically among Plains andWoodlands Native Americans. However, in Pen-ney’s framework, those who bought religiousprerogatives were not specifically communityleaders, but any individuals, with varying de-grees of community recognition, who were seek-ing power in general or power to control specificthings. Moreover, buying of religious preroga-tives in historic North America did not involvethe long periods of learning documented for Cunaleaders.

Helms’s interpretive framework has poten-tial for helping us to understand the interregionaldistribution of at least some Hopewellian valu-ables and concepts, when taking a broad view ofthem. It is true that we do not know the valuesystem of Hopewellian peoples, and whetherit emphasized the learning of esoteric knowl-edge to control life or would have encouragedlong-distance travel to leader-teachers of esotericknowledge. However, the heavily shaman-likenature of Hopewellian ceremonial parapherna-lia and leadership symbols, and the visual com-plexity of their art system, both suggest a richideology that could have been supported by sucha value system.

Examining specific Hopewellian artifactclasses, it is clear that Helms’s interpretive frame-work is not useful for explaining the distribu-tions of several distantly moved Hopewellian

material exotica because their sources were insparsely populated territories without ceremonialcenters of learning. Obsidian brought from theRocky Mountains, copper from the upper GreatLakes and the Ducktown, Tennessee area, andmica from the southern Appalachians, for exam-ple, do not fit the model. However, conch shells,barracuda jaws, shark teeth, and alligator teeth,which were buried in Scioto Hopewell sites butare not found in other sites between Ohio andtheir Gulf/Atlantic coast sources, may well beexplained by Helms’s ideas. Conch shells, bar-racuda jaws, and shark teeth were specificallyused in religious ceremonies in the Southeast,the first for serving the black drink (Hudson1976:229, 373, 398), and the last two for scratch-ing persons (to let blood as a sacred offering)in preparation for participation in ceremonies.Moreover, the items are fairly rare to very rarein Scioto Hopewellian sites, much as the goldzoomorphic artifacts that Helms concludes weregifts from Columbian teacher-leaders to Pana-manian student-leaders. Conchs, barracuda jaws,and shark and alligator teeth could logically havebeen either gifts made to Ohio teacher-leaders bySoutheastern student-leaders or symbols of ac-quired knowledge given by Southeastern teacher-leaders to Ohio student-leaders; the geographicdistribution of the items does not discriminatethe two possibilities. Other reasonable interpre-tations for the northward movement of thesefour Southeastern items include Scioto Hopewellpeoples having bought religious prerogativesand these items from Southeastern persons andthe direct procurement of these items at theirSoutheastern sources by Scioto Hopewell per-sons who journeyed afar in the course of vi-sion and power quests. Long-distance symmet-rical valuables exchange among elite seems lesslikely, given the relatively modest value that thesefour artifact types would have had to peoplesand leaders of the Southeast, where the items arecommon.

The southward movement of galena from itsconcentrating area in Scioto Hopewell centers toCopena sites (about 325 miles) and then to Man-deville and McQuorquodale (about 250 miles),as described above (see Archaeological Evidencefor Long Distance Exchange), could indicate the


travel of leaders seeking training and teacher-student gift/token-giving over a string of learningcenters. Again, the travel of students to foreigncenters could logically have been in either direc-tion. An equally plausible interpretation of thismovement of galena would be the long-distancesymmetric exchange of valuables among elite.Galena is rare in both the Midwest and the South-east, and would likely have been seen as valu-able/powerful to peoples in both regions. An-other alternative interpretation—pilgrimage to aceremonial center—must also be considered.

It is possible that Havana Hopewell aspiringleaders from Illinois ventured to Ohio and/or In-diana to be trained in esoteric issues by mentorsthere and were given small, token gifts of obsid-ian to bring back with them. This interpretation issupported by an apparent westward movement ofobsidian from centers in Ohio and/or Indiana—atleast the former of which directly procured it inthe Rocky Mountains—to Illinois communities.That movement is indicated by the much smalleramounts and sizes and the lesser formality of ob-sidian in Illinois sites than at the Hopewell site,Ohio, and the Mt. Vernon site, Indiana (Note 5;Wiant 2000). Also supporting the interpretationof Havana rising leaders traveling to Ohio or In-diana for training, and weakening the case forindependent acquisition of obsidian by Havanaand Scioto Hopewellian peoples from the RockyMountains directly, is the similarity of Illinoisand Ohio obsidian specimens in their proportionsfrom various obsidian sources (Note 5). Alterna-tively, the data could reflect elite exchange be-tween Havana Hopewell communities and Ohioand/or Indiana communities, with obsidian hav-ing moved westward and other items eastward.Neither the Helms model of student-leader trav-eling to a distant mentor nor the elite exchangescenario, however, accord with the wide, largelysparse, distribution of obsidian among dozens ofvillage sites in Illinois along the Illinois and Mis-sissippi river valleys (Wiant 2000). This distribu-tion suggests relatively open access to obsidian inIllinois, rather than its restriction to elites and toelite training or exchange. If either the travelingstudent-leader or elite exchange situation applyto the Illinois case, this activity was followed bylocal exchange of obsidian within Illinois.

The case of the roseate spoonbill broughtalive from the Southeast to Illinois (see Archae-ological Evidence of Long-Distance Exchange,above) could represent long-distance asymmet-ric valuables exchange of the kind envisionedby Helms, instead of the long-distance sym-metric exchange of valuables among elites. Thespoonbill could have been either a token symbolof acquired knowledge given by a Southeasternteacher-leader to a Midwestern student-leader, ora gift-payment to a Midwestern teacher-leader bya Southeastern student-leader. Again, the alter-native explanation of pilgrimage to a ceremonialcenter, either in the Southeast or in Illinois, alsoremains a possibility.

Finally, the several kinds of fancy, deco-rated, foreign-made vessels found at the PinsonMounds site, Tennessee (Stolman and Mainfort2002:16) could indicate the travel of risingleaders from various portions of the South-eastern United States to Pinson—the premierHopewellian center in the Southeast—for train-ing. Santa Rosa-Swift Creek vessels from thegreater northern Florida area, a Larto Red vesselfrom the southern Lower Mississippi valley, andcheck marked vessels and a fabric impressedvessel, all identified petrographically to havebeen produced elsewhere than Pinson Mounds,are telling. These vessels, and/or their contents,could represent gifts to important teachers atPinson. Other possible interpretations of theseforeign-made vessels include pilgrimage andsymmetrical valuables exchange among elite.The great bulk of foreign-style vessels found atPinson, which were made locally (Mainfort etal. 1997), are more in line with the practice ofpilgrimage, given their substantial quantity there(see Pilgrimage to Ceremonial Centers, above).Other foreign style or foreign-made vesselsfound in the Duck’s Nest Sector of the site(Mainfort 1986:31, 35, 46; 1988:167–168) aremuch more readily interpreted as the remains ofa ceremonial gathering analogous to the historicHuron and Algonkian Feasts of the Dead (Carr,Chapter 12; Mainfort 1986:46).

Helms’s (1976) model informs us of notonly the possibility of aspiring Hopewellian lead-ers having traveled far in their quest for eso-teric knowledge, with accompanying gift giving


and the interregional spread of ritual items. Themodel also suggests, in this context, the possi-ble nature and roles of Hopewellian ceremonialcenters. A great Panamanian Cuna chief-teachermight have as many as 20 to 50 student chiefswho studied with him (Helms, p. 132). These per-sons constituted for the chief a “fund of power”and a source of prestige (Sahlins 1972) in theirritual and mundane labor for the chief, and in theritual gifts they gave to him, during the course oftheir studies. It is possible that some or all of theclusters of domestic debris (apparent residences)and the wooden buildings used for manufacturingritual items within the confines of the Seip earth-works, Ohio (Baby and Langlois 1979; Greber1997:216), indicate, among other interpretations,the areas of tutelage, ritual practice, paymentin the form of ritual manufacture, and tempo-rary residence of local and foreign students ofone or more renowned Ohio Hopewellian leader-teachers. A similar interpretation might apply tosome of the clusters of domestic debris withinthe Mann site (Ruby 1997e). Only further exca-vation and artifact analysis can bear out or refutethese and alternative propositions.

ELITE-ORCHESTRATEDTRANSFERENCE OFRELIGIOUS CULTS

A final means by which Hopewellian materialculture, ideas, and practices may have been dis-seminated over the Eastern Woodlands is throughthe transference of religious cults among clansor other tribal segments, which in turn was or-chestrated by competing Big Men to facilitatesupralocal exchange and local wealth and pres-tige. This mechanism is suggested by way ofanalogy to the Enga regional system of cere-monial exchange and the spreading of cults inhighland Papau, New Guinea, as described byWiessner and Tumu (1999). The introduction ofthe sweet potato to the highlands, perhaps notunlike the dramatically increased productivityof cultivation of Eastern Agricultural Complexplants in the Midwestern United States duringthe Woodland Period (Wymer and Johannessen2002), afforded the possibility of local Big Men

to generate larger local food surpluses. In NewGuinea, such surpluses were used locally andsupralocally to compete for brides and allies inwarfare through the payment of bridewealth andwar reparations, while Big Men who helped tofinance their followers in these matters gainedin prestige. The surpluses were accumulated notsimply within networks of kin locally, but alsothrough two potent networks of ceremonial re-gional exchange—the Tee cycle and the GreatCeremonial Wars exchange festivities—whichgreatly expanded geographically and in the gen-eration of wealth after the sweet potato was in-troduced. These two networks eventually came toconnect more than 355 clans over a distance ofabout 85 kilometers (55 miles). In the Tee cycle,which came to replace the Ceremonial Wars, ini-tiatory gifts moved down the chain of clans, maingifts of pigs, utilitarian goods, and valuables werereciprocated in the opposite direction, and thenlarge kills of pigs and festive distributions of porkmoved in the first direction, repaying those whohad given the main gifts.

Organizing a clan to generate wealth for cer-emonial exchange and articulating neighboringtribal segments and tribes in a milieu of increas-ing wealth, competition, and new and wider so-cial relations were difficult for clans and theirBig Men. So too, were setting agreed-upon timesfor the different stages and ceremonies of theTee and Ceremonial Wars, and maintaining aspirit of cooperation among all exchange par-ticipants over the course of a ritual exchangecycle. These difficulties were overcome by theconscious crafting, innovation, and circulation ofritual cults, which integrated the necessary par-ties. The cults involved sacred objects, rites, andspells, which were intended to improve individ-ual and clan prosperity. One cult—the bachelor’scult—involved young men making voyages topurchase sacred objects from another clan, as apart of their social transformation into adult menintegrated with a broader community. Cults wereexchanged for wealth and, once bought, could bealtered by the purchaser and sold to others. Thus,cults were traded and reworked like material ob-jects, without restriction by any centralized re-ligious authority, and in accord with local needsof the moment and management by local leaders.


The buying and selling of cults that occurred inNew Guinea are similar to the buying and sell-ing of ritual prerogatives that occurred in NorthAmerica, as posed by Penney (1989; see above)to explain interregional Hopewell, but involvedan entire clan, which was led in its decisions bya Big Man, rather than the efforts of one individ-ual.

The Enga system of ceremonial exchangeand cults is instructive when considering howHopewellian ideas, ways, and materials mighthave spread because it shows how several of themechanisms enumerated above may combine toform a regional system of interaction. The Engacase encompassed the spread of cults, buying andselling of ceremonial prerogatives, local valu-ables exchange, intermarriage across communitylines, Big Man-orchestrated competitive displays(e.g., Tee feasts, the Ceremonial Wars), and per-sonally transformative journeys to obtain sacredobjects.

The Enga system is not a reasonable ana-log for Hopewellian interaction among regionaltraditions across the East, given differences inscale, language diversity, and community dis-tribution between the Enga and Hopewelliancases. The Enga system spanned a linear distancemuch smaller than the Eastern Woodlands and,instead, approximated the expanse of a singleHopewellian tradition, such as the lower Illinoisvalley Havana Hopewell, the Scioto Hopewell, orthe Tennessee valley Copena Hopewell. Whilethe Enga spoke dialects of one language, andwould fall within Helms’s category of “nor-mal people,” interregional Hopewell spannedHelms’s “normal people,” “close strangers,” and“foreigners” (see above). Finally, while the TeeCycle, the Great Ceremonial Wars, and specificcults connected a near-spatial continuum (i.e.,cline) of communities, the communities that par-ticipated in Hopewellian ideas and practices hada patchy (i.e., nodal) distribution over the East,possibly restricted to areas of high resource po-tential (Struever 1964:89, 95–96, 99–105). Thesedistinctions imply significant differences in thenature of intercommunity social interaction inthe two cases, with regard to social distance, for-mality, bridging symbolism, and perhaps the fre-quency of interaction.

The Enga case may, however, give insightinto Hopewellian interaction within regional tra-ditions. It is not hard to envision ceremonialevents functionally like the Enga Great Cere-monial Wars having occurred at various pre-scribed earthworks and times in Ross County,Ohio, bringing together communities from sev-eral tens of miles away in competitive displays,exchange, and alliance creation. One can alsoeasily imagine a string of communities along thelower Illinois valley, each focused on a floodplain mound center, having been tied togetherin a cycle of exchange like the Enga Tee. Finally,the dynamic innovation and spread of cults tokeep such exchange systems going among theEnga may have characterized Hopewellian in-traregional exchange, as well. The diverse na-ture of the large ceremonial deposits of coppersymbols, copper earspools, copper breastplatesand celts, smoking pipes, mica sheets, obsid-ian, galena, and quartz crystals found in differentScioto Hopewell mounds (Carr et al. Chapter 13)may evidence the active innovation, spread, andshort life of various cults that helped to organizeand schedule Scioto Hopewellian exchange sys-tems and keep up a spirit of cooperation amongwidespread participating communities.

Speaking against this analogy of Hopewellcorporate ceremonialism to Enga ceremonialcycles, at least in the Ohio case, are Clay’s(1992:79–80) criticisms of the interpretation ofpre-Hopewellian Adena societies as Big Mansocieties, which also hold for Ohio Hopewellsocieties (see Carr and Case, Chapter 5). Clayrightly pointed out that the power of MelanesianBig Men, and we would add their ability specifi-cally to fuel corporate ceremonialism of the Engatype, is based on their capability to amass largesurpluses. In contrast, the rarity of storage pits inOhio Hopewell habitation sites suggests subsis-tence productivity at the level of family consump-tion alone, although recent paleoethnobotanicalsyntheses for the Havana and Ohio Hopewelltraditions (Wymer and Johannessen 2002) mayplace this in debate. Second, Clay notes that theceremonies administeredbyMelanesianBig Menare staged near their own houses, creating an es-sential identification among the Big Man, place,and power. The dispersed settlement pattern


of Ohio Hopewell communities and the use ofOhio earthwork ceremonial centers by leadersfrom multiple communities do not indicate thiskey symbolism. The Enga case is perhaps moreinstructive in showing how competitive displays,the spreading of cults, buying and selling ofceremonial prerogatives, local valuablesexchange, and intermarriage among communi-ties may have been combined in Hopewell lifeand in the spread of practices, ideas, andmaterial forms within a regional tradition thanit is in epitomizing the nature of Hopewellianleadership. Archaeological evidence for theprimarily shaman-like rather than Big Man-likenature of Ohio Hopewellian leaders (Carr andCase Chapter 5) supports this conclusion.

SOCIAL RECEPTIVITY TOFOREIGN WAYS

Of the many mechanisms enumerated above bywhich Hopewellian raw materials, artifacts, prac-tices, and ideas came to be spread across the East-ern Woodlands, some require, in addition, that lo-cal communities were receptive to and acceptingof such foreign elements, so that they gained inpopularity in their new cultural setting. Intermar-riage, spirit adoption, buying of religious prerog-atives, and emulation involved in regional-scale,elite valuables exchange each offer the opportu-nity for the spread of a foreign idea or practicewithin a local community, but contingent uponlocal receptivity.

A society at large can be more or less recep-tive to outside contact, ideas, and practices forvery many philosophical–religious, political–ideological, social organizational, technological,demographic–labor, and ecological reasons(Roe 1995:38–55). The very patchy distributionof Hopewellian material traits across the EasternWoodlands during the Middle Woodland period(Struver 1964) reflects the lack of acceptanceof Hopewellian ideas and practices by manyWoodland societies at large. A well-documentedexample is the persistence of Adena ritual prac-tices among communities in the Hocking andthe central and lower Muskingum valleys (Black1979; Carskadden and Morton 1996:320–321,

326–327), several centuries after their geograph-ically close, Scioto valley neighbors had beenheavily creating and investing in Hopewellianways.

At a smaller scale, different segments andpersonae of a society—males and females,groups of different rank or wealth, leaders andfollowers—may vary from each other in theirreceptivity to foreign cultural elements for rea-sons as diverse as those pertaining to whole so-cieties (e.g., Roe 1979; 1995; see also Cannon1989). Thus, a well-grounded understanding ofthe spread of Hopewellian ideas and practicesand the mechanisms of their dispersal requiresthe study of many different functional categoriesof material culture that were produced and usedby different segments of society, which poten-tially varied in their openness to foreign culture.It is likely that the differing geographic distri-butions of various finished Hopewellian artifactclasses over eastern North America (e.g., Seeman1979a, 1995) reflects in part the differing recep-tivity of different social segments and personaein different regions to the ideas and practices en-meshed with those various artifact classes.22

The topic of the receptivity of a partic-ular kind of social segment/persona to for-eign Hopewellian ways, and its variation acrossregional traditions, is taken up in this bookby Keller and Carr (Chapter 11). They docu-ment similarities and differences among threeHopewellian regional traditions in the style ofterra cotta figurines, which in all probability weremade by females,23 and then infer the varyingreceptivity of female artisans in those differ-ent societies to foreign designs. Illinois HavanaHopewell, Indiana Mann phase Hopewell, andOhio Scioto Hopewell are the regional traditionsexamined. The authors find that, in all three tra-ditions, figurines were probably produced andused in open social–ceremonial contexts ratherthan closed, secretive ones. This would have al-lowed the free spread of visible stylistic traits—such as the natural style and clay medium ofthe figurines—across traditions, which is ob-served. At the same time, female producers offigurines in the three traditions differed in theiracceptance of styles for rendering somewhatless visible, facial features such as the nose,


eyes, mouth, and ears. Figurines from the Mannphase vary widely in the style of these features,sharing in some styles found in the other tworegions. This suggests a wide network of “ac-tive interaction” of female artisans of this tradi-tion with those of others, and the receptivity ofMann phase figurine makers to foreign styles. Incontrast, Havana and Scioto Hopewell figurinesare more uniform and limited in the style oftheir facial features. This implies a strong net-work of artisan interaction within each region,strong grammatical rules in form and produc-tion rather than family or individual-generatedstylistic innovations, and little acceptanceof extraregional styles. The greater receptivityof Mann phase females to foreign figurine stylesis paralleled by their24 acceptance and repro-duction of Southeastern, Swift Creek, compli-cated stamped pottery decoration styles, vesselsof which are common at Mann phase sitesand were made locally, but very rare in SciotoHopewell sites and apparently nonexistent inHavana Hopewell sites (Ruby and Shriner, Chap-ter 15).25 In turn, the openness of Mann phasefemales to foreign styles and their greater in-teraction with neighboring groups may relate inpart to the location of the Mann phase in a ma-jor riverine crossroads—near the conjunctions ofthe Wabash, Tennessee, and Cumberland riverswith the lower Ohio River.

A fruitful extension of Keller and Carr’sstudy would be stylistic analyses of artifactslikely made by men, in order to infer their recep-tivity to foreign styles compared to that of womenin each of the three regional traditions. Docu-menting the interregional spread of Hopewellianideas and practices along multiple lines, possi-bly distinguished by gender or other dimensionsof social segmentation, could prove useful in un-derstanding the distinct geographic distributionsof different Hopewellian material traits, and thesocial–ceremonial nature of Hopewell.

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS ONINTERREGIONAL HOPEWELL

When an actor-based view of the spread ofHopewellian ideas and practices across the East-ern Woodlands is taken, and when ethnographic

descriptions of long-distance human travel andinteraction are considered, a wide diversity ofmechanisms of dispersal and motives for disper-sal of Hopewellian material culture are suggestedas logical possibilities (Table 16.1). Cautious andsystematic review of archaeological evidence rel-ative to ethnographically derived expectations in-dicates that most of these mechanisms probablyoperated in Hopewellian times. The strongest ex-amples are summarized in Table 16.2, followingfrom the above discussion.

From this table, it can be seen that no sin-gle mechanism is a satisfactory explanation ofmuch or all of the spreading of Hopewellianideas, practices, and material culture. This find-ing is fully in accord with the great diversity ofkinds of Hopewellian artifacts and raw materials,their wide range of religious, social, and otherfunctions, their varying contexts of productionand use (e.g., local, nonlocal, mortuary, domes-tic), and the diverse roles of the individuals whowould have used them. When one considers whowas doing what and for what possible socialor individual motives, instead of simply track-ing the movement of objects over a landscape,the reasons for the distinct geographic distribu-tions of different material classes become clearer.One would not, for example, expect galena ob-tained by individual or small groups of medicinepersons or aspiring leaders from multiple soci-eties over the East during vision/power queststo be distributed geographically like ceremonialceramics made by pilgrims at a single ceremo-nial center. By deconstructing the interregionalHopewellian archaeological record specificallythrough personalizing and contextualizing it withsocial roles and motives, interregional Hopewellis made more dynamic and understandable, andalso is opened to being generated from local situ-ations. This last task remains a challenge that hasbeen addressed to date only in the most generalof terms.

CHAPTERS THAT FOLLOW

The four chapters that follow each address inter-regional Hopewellian travel, procurement, andforms of interaction that led to the wide distri-bution of Hopewellian ideas, practices, material

Table 16.2. Mechanisms of Interregional and Regional Dispersal of Hopewellian Raw Materials and Finished Goods,with Strong Evidence

Raw material or finished good Mechanism

Obsidian in Ohio and possibly Indiana Vision/power questing or pilgrimage to a place in naturefrom Ohio and possibly Indiana

Obsidian in Illinois Travel to Ohio or Indiana centers of learning, or elitevaluables exchange between Ohio or Indiana and Illinois

Meteoric iron in Ohio and Illinois Vision/power questing or pilgrimage to a place in naturefrom Ohio and Illinois sites

Copper for peoples within the distribution of copper celts inNorthern and Midsouthern traditions

Vision/power questing or pilgrimage to a place in nature

Cobalt silver at LeVesconte, Ontario, the Converse site,Michigan, and the Tunnacunhee and Mandevillesites, GA

Vision/power questing or pilgrimage to a place in naturefrom these sites

Keweenaw peninsula silver at the Hopewell and Turnersites, OH, and possibly the Liverpool site, IL

Vision/power questing or pilgrimage to a place in naturefrom these sites

Galena in Ohio and Illinois Vision/power questing or pilgrimage to a place in naturefrom Ohio and Illinois sites

Galena from Copena sites to Mandeville, GA, andMcQuorquodale, AL

Long-distance elite exchange or travel to a center of learning

Conch shells, alligator teeth, barracuda jaws, shark teeth inOhio sites from the Gulf Coast/Florida Atlantic area

Vision/power questing, pilgrimage to a place in nature,travel to a center of learning, buying of religiousprerogatives

A carved river mussel shell in Naples-Russell Mound No. 8,IL, from southeastern GA

Vision/power questing or the travels of a medicine person

Effigy platform pipes in the Scioto, Havana, Crab Orchard,and Marksville areas

Buying of religious prerogatives or travel to a center oflearning

A platform pipe at the Rutherford Mound (Crab Orchardarea) and one at the Bedford Mound (Havana area)

Elite valuables exchange (chemical testing required)

Bird-effigy pots in the Marksville, Miller, Havana, CrabOrchard, and Scioto areas

Buying of religious prerogatives or travel to a center oflearning

A Hopewell ware pottery vessel at the Newcastle site, IN,from the area of the Steuben/Knight/Norton Mounds, IL


A Hopewell ware pottery vessel at the Esch Mound(northeast OH) from the Havana area


Rocker-stamped vessels at the Connestee phase Ice HouseBottom site, TN, from southern Ohio

Elite valuables exchange

Connestee-like, simple stamped vessels at several moundsin southern Ohio from the vicinity of the Ice HouseBottom site, TN

Elite valuables exchange

Clay, painted figurines at the Mandeville site, GA, and theKnight mound, IL

Intermarriage, spirit adoption, or buying of religiousprerogatives

“White metal” (silver, iron) overlaid in the centraldepressions, only, of copper earspools at the Esch Mound(northeast OH), Bedford Mound 4 (IL), and Tunacunnhee(GA)

Intermarriage, spirit adoption, or buying of religiousprerogatives

Swift Creek-like complicated stamped pottery made locallyat the Mann site, IN

Intermarriage, spirit adoption, or buying of religiousprerogatives and their spread locally

Decorated ceramics made locally at the Pinson site, TN,similar in style to pottery from the Marksville, SantaRosa–Swift Creek, Tennessee valley, and Mobile Bayareas

Pilgrimage to a ceremonial center

Decorated ceramics found at the Pinson site, TN, butproduced nonlocally and similar to Santa Rosa-SwiftCreek, Larto Red, check-marked, and fabric-impressedstyles

Pilgrimage to a ceremonial center, travel to a center of learn-ing, or elite exchange

Fine-spaced, simple stamped pottery found at the Mannsite, IN, but produced nonlocally and similar in style topottery from the Appalachian Summit

Pilgrimage to a ceremonial center, travel to a center oflearning, or elite exchange

Roseate spoonbill in Gibson Mound 3, IL, from theFlorida/Alabama Gulf Coast

Pilgrimage to a ceremonial center, travel to a center oflearning, or elite exchange


styles, raw materials, and, occasionally, finishedgoods over the Eastern Woodlands. The chap-ters consider four different kinds of Hopewellianitems: metallic celts, metallic panpipes, metal-lic earspools, and raw and worked silver. Thesevary interregionally in a number of their char-acteristics and allow interregional Hopewell tobe resolved into some of its variant contents,geographic expanses, and distributional mecha-nisms, as discussed at the beginning of this chap-ter. The themes that the chapters address, in var-ious combinations, include: (1) the geographicplace(s) of origin of the styles of finished arti-fact classes, (2) the different geographic distri-butions of the four kinds of items and what thisvariation implies about differing forms of inter-regional communication, (3) the different or sim-ilar ideological meaning(s) of each kind of itemacross its own geographic distribution, (4) thefundamental issue of whether the finished itemswere exchanged across traditions, or whetherHopewellian peoples from each tradition pro-cured their own raw materials and manufacturedthe items themselves, (5) the similar or differentmechanisms by which each kind of item came tobe distributed over the Woodlands, (6) the similaror different social roles of those who employeda given kind of item across its geographic distri-bution, and (7) the similar or different rituals inwhich a given kind of item was used across theWoodlands. The conclusions drawn about eachof these seven topics in the four chapters thatfollow are now summarized and integrated.

OriginsOhio has commonly been interpreted as the placeof origin of Hopewellian ideas and practices,which spread from there over the East. Theenormous concentration of certain Hopewellianartifact classes and the diversity of Hopewellianartifact classes in Ohio would suggest this in-terpretation if one indiscriminately accepted thesimple logic that the area of origin of a culturalfeature is that region with the greatest concentra-tion and/or diversity of the feature—an extensionof the old age–area hypothesis (Wissler 1926; seealso Harris 1968:374–377). Although undemon-strated for most material aspects of Hopewell,

one finds this assumption embedded in archae-ological terminology used today, where Ohiois said to be the “core” of Hopewell (Pacheco1996).

Two chapters in this book and other evi-dence refute this position. In Chapter 18, metal-lic panpipes are found through stylistic study tohave had their origins most likely in the UpperGreat Lakes Trempealeau region, not in Ohio.Chapter 19 indicates that earspools of early mor-phology occur as early in the Copena, Havana,and Goodall regions as in the Scioto area. Simi-larly, the style of Hopewell ware made its appear-ance earlier in the Havana region than in Ohio(Griffin 1967:184). These probable or possibleextra-Ohio origins of some primary markers ofHopewell reinforce the view of Hopewell as aninteraction sphere of co-evolving regional tradi-tions (Griffin 1967:184) without one center oforigin, and in this regard, not unlike the laterSoutheastern Ceremonial Complex of Mississip-pian societies (J. A. Brown 1976). Thus, interre-gional Hopewell is to be understood as havingbeen generated in several different, local culturalcontexts, and its study requires a locally contex-ualized and generativet approach.

Artifact Classes with DifferentGeographic DistributionsMetallic earspools, metallic panpipes, and rawand worked silver are each distributed acrossessentially all the major Hopewellian traditionsin the Eastern Woodlands (Seeman 1979a:304,381). In contrast, metallic celts are limited toHopewellian traditions in the northern and mid-southern Woodlands. These different distribu-tions suggest the possibility of different culturalmechanisms of interregional communication andimply the need to deconstruct interregionalHopewell geographically. Following Seeman’s(1995) and Helms’s (1988) lead (see Decon-structing Interregional Hopewell, above), thesmaller distribution of metallic celts may indi-cate interactions among peoples who consideredeach other “close strangers” and who used bilin-gualism; out-of-group foster care, education,and marriage exchanges; pidgins; trade jargons;and ritualized behavioral response sequences to


relate to each other. Seeman (1995:134–135)would equate this relatively small area of closestrangers, who communicated through linguis-tic means, with a Sprachbund: an area of sharedgeneral understandings where people know whatto talk about—in this case, Hopewellian soci-ety and philosophical–religious beliefs. In con-trast, the much more widely distributed ear-pools, panpipes, and silver imply interactionsamong groups who considered each other “out-siders”, spoke mutually unintelligible languages,and were limited to nonlinguistic, artistic formsof communication such as iconography, music,and dance. These persons probably would haveconsidered each other to have been potentiallydangerous yet, by their very unfamiliarity, alsopowerful and attractive to interact with (Helms1988). All of these thoughts about the differ-ent forms of communication in which differentclasses of artifacts participated provide a solidgroundwork for thinking about the ideologicalmeanings of those artifacts, to which we nowturn.

Uniformity and Variability of theIdeological Meanings of Artifact Classesacross the WoodlandsSeeman’s (1995) interpretation of the differentgeographic distributions of celts and panpipesposits only that the two artifact classes were in-volved in different kinds of interregional com-munication. He did not attempt to define whatspecific meanings celts and panpipes might havehad to Hopewell peoples. This issue and therelated one of whether the meaning of a givenartifact class varied across regional traditions aretaken up in each of the following chapters inPart IV.

The most theoretical of the four chapters intheir discussions of artifact meanings is Chapter17, by Bernardini and Carr. It provides a frame-work for understanding the social, symbolic, andsemantic place of Hopewellian artifacts in lo-cal communities and their interregional relations,not simply for copper celts—its subject matter—but also for many other ritual artifact classes.The authors draw from social science distinc-tions made by Marx (1954), Rappaport (1979),

and Helms (1988), and thoughts on Hopewell bySeeman (1995).

Bernardini and Carr argue that coppercelts and other Hopewellian ceremonial artifactclasses each had unique values and meanings,and thus articulated socially in local contexts intheir own unique ways. The value and meaningsof a particular specimen, they propose, werea composite of two independent dimensions:its “canonical” meaning(s) and its “indexical”meanings. Canonical meanings are basic world-view assumptions about the enduring aspects ofnature, society, and the cosmos. In pertainingto things outside of a specific ritual or culturalcontext, they are immutable and unfalsifiable.Indexical meanings are more particular conceptsthat concern the immediate conditions and rela-tions among people in a given ritual or culturalcontext. Being concerned with relationships andthe immediate, they may vary from situationto situation. In the case of copper celts, theircanonical meanings were indicated by theirsimilar shape and material over the northeast-ern and midsouthern Woodlands. Across theHopewellian traditions in these areas, celts mayhave uniformly referred to canoe building andlong-distance journeying and power questing viacanoe, the felling of trees to make earthworksand ritual architecture, the journey of souls to anafterlife, and/or the institutionalized leadershiproles involved in these activities. Ethnographicand archaeological data suggest these interpreta-tions. To own a copper celt thus communicatedan attained level of prestige through achievementin one or more of these arenas. The more prac-tical and variable indexical meanings of celtswere indicated by their different sizes. Largerand smaller celts indicated the differing abilitiesof persons to acquire copper—a substancethat was economically, socially, and politicallycostly, and ideologically charged and potentiallydangerous—and, by extension, the prestige of acelt owner relative to others. This second mean-ing also would have been understood uniformlyacross the geographic areas where metallic celtshave been found. That both meanings wereshared across regions is argued by the authorsfinding little relationship between a celt’s lengthand its distance from the upper Great Lakes


copper source. The lack of correlation impliesthat each Hopewellian tradition with celtsacquired copper from the upper Great Lakesindependently of others, through long-distancejourneying, rather than through interregionalexchange of copper and/or celts. Thus, thevarious regional traditions would have sharedexperientially in the same mode of acquisitionof copper for celts, with all its philosophical–religious, canonical implications listed above. Inaddition, people in each of the multiple regionaltraditions would have understood the expense ofobtaining copper and the prestige differentialsof copper celts of different sizes, that is, theirindexical meanings. The interregional sharing ofthese two dimensions of the value and meaningof copper celts can be considered an example ofa coherent Sprachbund.

In Chapter 18, Turff and Carr explorethe possible meanings that panpipes may havecommunicated within regional Hopewelliantraditions and among peoples from distanttraditions who met. Like Bernardini and Carr(Chapter 17), Turff and Carr distinguish betweenthe canonical and the indexical meanings ofceremonial artifacts. The authors point out thathistoric Native Americans in the northeasternand southeastern Woodlands attributed differentsets of indexical meanings to copper, of whichpanpipes were made. In the Northeast, copperreferenced creatures of both the Upper and theLower Worlds, including the Horned Serpent,Underwater Panther, bear, and Thunderers. Inthe Southeast, copper apparently was associatedwith the sun deity, the sacred fire, blood, life andsuccess, the colors red and/or brown, and the Eastand/or Upper World. All of these meanings, innot spanning the entire Woodlands, are too spe-cific to explain the spread of panpipes across thisarea. More plausible candidates are some verygeneral, canonical meanings that possibly wereattributed to panpipes. One is power, attributedthrough the association of the copper of panpipeswith powerful supernatural beings of one kindor another, through the linking of the copper,silver, and music of panpipes with magicaltransformation, and possibly through the tyingof cedar or sumac, which may have been used instuffing some panpipes, with purification. Other

possible canonical meanings of panpipes includepower obtained by long-distance journeyingto copper and silver sources; the power of thepanpiper in his/her ability to successfully makesuch a dangerous journey and to manage power;and/or humanness, personhood, and sentience,expressed in the multinote sounds of panpipes,which resembled the human voice in songand speech. Any of these canonical meaningswould have fostered mutual respect amongforeigners from different Hopewellian traditionswho met, helped to smooth social interactionsamong them, and given the parties a motive forinteracting. In being effective in aiding socialinteraction across the Woodlands, panpipeswould have spread over this range. Turff andCarr go on to note that it would have been themusical qualities of panpipes associated withhumanness, personhood, and sentience, ratherthan the symbolic referents of their copper, thatwere most fundamental to their wide distributionover the Woodlands. The association of panpipeswith the meanings linked to copper, such aspower, obtained power, and managed power,would have been true of other copper artifacts(e.g., breastplates, celts, headplates) as well, yetthese have smaller geographic distributions. Inaddition, the message of humanness would havebeen particularly important to communicateamong very distant foreigners because, notuncommonly, tribal societies consider others at afar distance to be nonhuman and thus dangerousor unworthy of interaction. Finally, Turff andCarr reject the notion that panpipes imitatedspecific bird calls or other animal sounds, eventhough animals figure importantly throughoutHopewell art, because panpipes in differentregional traditions were different lengths andprobably produced different notes.

A critical conclusion that Turff and Carrreach from their study of panpipes is that interre-gional Hopewell, or at least the aspect of it rep-resented by panpipes, was not a single religion(contra Caldwell 1964), nor was it an ideologicalsystem interwoven with a social structure (con-tra Seeman 1995:123), nor was it a consistentset of material forms and practices in which uni-form ideas might have been expressed. Instead,Turff and Carr pose that interregional Hopewell


was fluid, material–ideological–mental projec-tive process. Panpipes across the Woodlandswere similar enough in their forms, materials, andtonal qualities to have allowed Hopewell peoplesin different regional traditions to have projectedsome meaning(s)—canonical or indexical, moreor less local—onto them, creating familiarity andsome common basis for meeting. Upon meet-ing, persons from different regional traditionsmay have read somewhat different meanings intopanpipes. They almost certainly were not ableto appreciate all the specific, indexical connota-tions that panpipes of copper and their music hadin each other’s cultures, and they may not havebeen able to grasp even some core worldview as-sumptions that panpipes may have differentiallyexpressed in the northeastern versus southeasternWoodlands. However, the roughly similar world-views and beliefs across the Eastern Woodlandsarea, which were rooted in shamanic thought andpractices, would have ensured that the projectedmeanings were similar enough to have formed aneffective framework for interaction.

Like celts and panpipes, earspools appearto have communicated very general, sharedHopewellian concepts of a canonical kind whenHopewell peoples from distant regions met.The case for earspools is presented in Chap-ter 19 by Ruhl. There, Ruhl makes a stylistic–technological analysis of earspools across theWoodlands and finds an interesting contrast.On the one hand, poorly visible stylistic–technological traits provide strong evidence forthe very localized production of earspools, lo-calized design norms, and minimal exchangeof earspools geographically. At the same time,visible aspects of earspool morphology formthe same symbol across the East at large—agleaming metallic ring of light offset from adark center. Very significantly, Ruhl’s chrono-logical seriation of earspools enables her toshow that the style of the ring symbol changedin parallel across the East over the MiddleWoodland period. These time–space–form pat-terns in combination suggest a metaphorical,nonverbal form of interregional communica-tion using a key material symbol—in line withSeeman’s (1995) and Helms’s (1988) modelof communication among widely separated

“foreigners”. Symbolic communications of thiskind, and across great distances, must have beenfairly regular for the ring symbol to have fol-lowed the same stylistic trend across all regionsover the centuries.

The specific canonical meaning(s) of thering symbol are not discussed by Ruhl. How-ever, it can be mentioned that the contrast be-tween light and darkness seen in earspool de-sign is just one example of a fundamentalconcern with light and darkness that fully perme-ates Hopewellian material culture—artifacts, andmound and earthwork soils, alike (see Carr andCase, Chapter 5, for many examples). The con-trast most likely represents a basic worldview as-sumption of Hopewellian peoples in Ohio, whereit has been studied in detail (Carr 1998; Carr andCase 1996; Greber and Ruhl 1989:275–284), andprobably has its foundations in shaman-like ide-ologies (Carr and Case, Chapter 5) that wouldhave been known across the Eastern Woodlandsand more widely.

Contrasting with the uniform, general, ide-ological meanings had by celts and earspools,and probably panpipes, across the Woodlandsis the apparently dichotomous meaning of sil-ver. In Chapter 20, Spence and Fryer documentchemically that Hopewellian traditions across theWoodlands used only two sources of silver, inCobalt, Ontario, where it occurs in pure veins,and in the Keweenaw peninsula of Michigan,where it is intermingled in small quantities withmuch more plentiful copper. Different traditionsused one source or the other, exclusively, and thesource used by a particular tradition was typicallythat closest or made available through neigh-boring traditions that used the source. However,this was not the case for Hopewellian peoples inthe Scioto and Little Miami valleys, who usedonly the Keweenaw source, which was more dis-tant than Cobalt silver available to them throughneighboring Point Peninsula communities andwhich was less rich in silver. Spence and Fryerexplain this anomaly, and the generally exclusiveuse of one kind of silver by each Hopewelliantradition, as resulting from the circulation of twoconcepts of silver among Hopewellian peoples inthe Woodlands. In one view, silver was a rituallyacceptable material in its own right and could be


gotten from the pure silver Cobalt source. In theother view, silver was associated in some essen-tial ideological way with copper and had to be ob-tained from the Keweenaw source to be rituallyacceptable. Hopewellian peoples in the Sciotoand Little Miami valleys would naturally havehad the second concept of silver because theyprocured copper from the Keweenaw peninsula.Spence and Fryer also suggest that the plenti-fulness of silver at the Cobalt source may haveencouraged its association with that place, andwith personal stories about taking arduous jour-neys to that place to obtain it. The personalizingof Cobalt silver procurements could have limitedtheir transfer among persons, including transferto Hopewell peoples in the Scioto and Little Mi-ami valleys from peoples in the Point Penin-sula, Goodall, and northeastern Ohio regions.This limitation would not have pertained to Ke-weenaw silver, which was acquired as a byprod-uct of copper mining, and would explain thespread and common distribution of Keweenawsilver among sites within the Scioto valley. Thus,through several kinds of evidence and lines ofthought, Spence and Fryer were able to resolvethe Hopewellian geographic distribution of silverinto two, apparently ideologically distinguishedcomponents.

Each of the following chapters in this partof the book, by giving ideological meanings tothe whole of the geographic distribution of a rawmaterial or artifact, or by discriminating ideolog-ically different subareas within it, humanize in-terregional Hopewell. The chapters, along withwhat has been presented in this one, fill in theHopewellian landscape with socially, politically,and religiously motivated people who met and in-teracted in social contexts of varying kinds andwith beliefs both shared and distinct.

Whether Finished ArtifactsWere ExchangedThe chapters on celts, panpipes, and earspools inPart IV, as well as an earlier one on terra cotta fig-urines in Part III, each conclude through stylisticstudies that there was little or no interregional ex-change of these finished goods (contra Strueverand Houart 1972). Although celts, panpipes, and

earspools were found at the highest frequencyby far in the Scioto region, peoples of the Sciotowere not normally exporters of these goods topeoples of other regional traditions, and Sciotoburial sites were not typically the resting placeof these goods imported or brought from afar.The Scioto concentration of celts, panpipes, andearspools is, instead, to be understood as a prod-uct of intense, local conspicuous consumption—cooperative and/or competitive—peculiar to thisregion. Part of the cultural context for this con-sumption was a three-community alliance andits periodic recreation in the Scioto–Paint Creekarea, described in Chapter 7 by Carr.

Distribution MechanismsChapter 20, by Spence and Fryer, resolves thedistribution of raw and worked silver over theWoodlands into three possible mechanisms of itsacquisition and dispersal, which occurred in dif-ferent regions. Vision and power quests and/orpilgrimage directly from LeVesconte to Cobalt,Ontario, over 400 kilometers away, to obtainsilver are implied by the silver items found atLeVesconte. The silver represents every stage inthe technological sequence, from acquisition toprocessing: raw ore, derived nuggets, partiallyformed sheets, artifacts, and clippings left fromtheir production. The authors conclude that theremains probably represent a single expeditionto Cobalt. The evidence from the Converse site,Michigan, is similar, with raw nuggets and a par-tially formed sheet. These specimens also sug-gest direct procurement, or perhaps exchangethrough a few hands from Cobalt. In contrast, sil-ver specimens from the Scioto Hopewell regionsuggest multiple expeditions and/or exchange.The specimens all come from the Keweenawpeninsula, where silver occurs infrequently asinclusions within copper, and would have beenobtained fortuitously as a by-product of coppermining. One sheet of silver from the Hopewellsite and silver overlays on buttons, earspools, andpanpipes from the Hopewell, Mound City, andSeip sites in Ohio each are formed from multi-ple small pieces of silver blended together, andeach may represent the accumulated results ofseveral procurement trips or exchange episodes.


The clear conclusion from Spence and Fryer’schapter is that interregional Hopewell was con-stituted by multiple means of distribution, whichvaried situationally and, as reviewed above, prob-ably with belief.

Uniformity and Variability in the SocialRoles in Which Interaction Sphere ItemsWere UsedA further topic that helps to personalize in-terregional Hopewell and reveal its complex-ity through deconstruction is the social roles inwhich interaction sphere artifacts were used. InChapter 18, Turff and Carr document that pan-pipes varied in their specific social and ritualfunctions and in the contexts in which they wereused, both within and among Hopewellian soci-eties across the Eastern Woodlands. These vari-ations occur despite the fact that panpipes as aroughly similar artifact form were spread widelyacross the East. In order to reconstruct the usesof panpipes, the authors begin with the observa-tion that panpipes were taken out of life onlythrough burial in cemeteries, primarily in thegraves of individuals rather than communal rit-ual deposits, and usually one panpipe per per-son, indicating that those buried with panpipeswere typically their owners. Panpipes are foundto have been buried alone with a person a quar-ter of the time, suggesting that the panpiper wasa social role in its own right. The associationsof panpipes with other kinds of grave goods andthe social roles indicated by the goods give in-sight into the structural place of the panpiper ina system of social statuses, the roles with whichthat of the panpiper was bundled, and by exten-sion, the activities in which panpipes were prob-ably integral. The roles associated with the pan-piper turn out to be very diverse, as well as fluidin their combinations. The roles encompassedcommunity-wide leaders marked by celts; sodal-ity members or high achievers marked by breast-plates and/or earspools; clan leaders or mem-bers of import; and many kinds of shaman-likepractitioners, including public ceremonial lead-ers, producers of ceremonial items from exoticraw materials, diviners in general, war or huntdiviners, healers, and keepers of cosmology and

philosophy. Significantly, regional Hopewelliantraditions differ distinctly from each other in theranges of social roles with which that of panpiperwas combined. For example, panpipers buriedwith shaman-like equipment occur most com-monly in the Southeast, while panpipers in thecentral and northern Midwest rarely had suchburial furniture. Considering all role associa-tions, the authors find four broad regions of theEastern Woodlands that were distinguished intheir organization of social roles with that of thepanpiper: the northern Midwest, the Northeast,the central Midwest, and the Southeast. Theseempirical findings clearly make questionable thenotion that interregional Hopewell was a single,complex kind of social organization interwovenwith a symbol system that marked leadershipand/or prestige and that facilitated social inter-action (contra Seeman 1995:123).

In Chapter 19, Ruhl infers that earspools inthe Scioto and Little Miami valleys of Ohio hadboth personal and group aspects to their sym-bolism. They were typically found one pair perburial, suggesting individual use. At the sametime, they also were deposited in large offerings,sometimes bundled together, suggesting a ref-erence to some larger corporate group. Corpo-rate group symbolism, and the precedence of thegroup over the individual, is also implied by thebetter workmanship of earspools found in largedeposits than that of earspools placed in burials.Ruhl goes on to notice that earspools in Ohiowere buried much more commonly with adultmales than females, suggesting their representa-tion of a corporate group of restricted member-ship. In Chapter 7, Carr uses this and other con-textual evidence to conclude more specificallythat earspools marked membership or achieve-ment in a sodality. Interestingly, outside of theScioto and Little Miami valleys, large ceremonialdeposits of earspools do not exist, or at least arevery rare (Ruhl, personal communication, 2003),suggesting differences in the nature of the socialroles marked by earspools in Ohio than else-where, and the unlikelihood that interregionalHopewell was a unified social–symbolic system.

Chapter 17, by Bernardini and Carr, ex-plores the social roles in which metallic celtsmay have been used. The authors suggest several


possibilities, based on the known utilitarian func-tions of the stone counterparts of metallic celts.A metallic celt may have symbolized dugout ca-noe making, canoes, and the long water journeysthat the celt’s owner made or led to the sourcesof valued raw materials, such as the copper fromwhich the celts were made, or to unknown andlearned peoples. A metallic celt also may havereferenced the spirit canoe that a shaman used tomake a trance journey to another world, whichis a common practice cross-culturally. Further,a metallic celt could have symbolized a personwho was involved in or led the clearing of trees tomake earthworks or the cutting-down of trees tomake charnel houses, log tombs, and coffins, allof which served as containers for the deceased.Proven accomplishment and leadership in any ofthese domains may have been represented by acelt, especially given that, at least in Ohio, metal-lic celts were regularly decorated with images ofimportant persons in regalia (Carr 2000c, 2000d;Carr et al. 2000).

It is generally unknown whether metalliccelts marked different ones of these social rolesin different Hopewellian traditions. However,Bernardini and Carr do note that canoe-shapedcoffins, which also would have been constructedwith celts and probably connotated the journeyof the deceased to an afterlife, were unique to theCopena tradition. Further, earthworks and the so-cial roles involved in managing their constructionoccurred in only some Hopewellian traditions. Itseems likely that celts represented somewhat dif-ferent social roles in different Hopewellian tra-ditions and, again, that the idea of interregionalHopewell as a single, complex kind of social or-ganization wedded with a unified symbol systemthat marked leadership is an oversimplification(contra Seeman 1995:123).

Uniformity and Variability in theRituals in Which InteractionSphere Items Were UsedMetallic panpipes, celts, and earspools each wereused in rituals of varying kinds within and amongHopewellian regional traditions. In Chapter 18,Turff and Carr elucidate four fundamental waysin which rituals involving panpipes differed from

each other. Rituals varied in whether they weredirectly or only indirectly related to mortuarytasks, as reflected in the contrast between pan-pipes buried in graves and panpipes buried in aceremonial deposit lacking human remains. Rit-uals also differed in whether multiple panpipersgathered and gave gifts to the deceased, perhapsindicating whether a sodality of panpipers anda sodality-run ritual were involved. Rituals alsovaried in whether panpipes were buried with amature adult or, much more rarely, a child, youngadult, or very old person, the latter three suggest-ing age-related rites of passage such as naming,attainment of puberty, menopause, the passinginto elderhood, and the death of persons at ornearing these ages. Finally, in the case of ritu-als that generated ceremonial deposits lackinghuman remains, the ceremonies differed dramat-ically in the number and role diversity of per-sons who attended. Most such gatherings overthe Woodlands were very small and resulted inthe decommissioning of only one panpipe, withno other or few other items. Focus was on thepanpipe. On the other hand, two gatherings inOhio were enormous, having involved hundredsof gift givers and gifts representing many kindsof roles and persons from multiple local com-munities. Attention was not on panpipes or thepanpiper. Instances of rituals that were uniquein one or more of these ways and very localizedin their geographic distributions include rituals atLeVesconte and Cameron’s Point, Ontario; Tuna-cunnhee, Georgia; and the Hopewell and Turnersites in Ohio. The varied and geographically de-limited nature of rituals of these different kindsclearly shows that interregional Hopewell, or theaspect of it marked by panpipes, was not a singlecult (contra Prufer 1964b).

Chapter 17, on celts, and Chapter 18, onearspools, likewise note that these artifacts wereusually placed in burials, normally one celt or apair of earspools per person, and were aspectsof mortuary rites. However, the chapters also de-scribe occasional large deposits of these items.In the case of earspools, Ruhl attributes one hugedeposit of them to the gathering of a corporategroup, which is identified earlier (Carr, Chapter7) as a sodality. Ruhl notes that both the bundlingof the earspools together with heavy cord and


their higher quality than earspools placed in in-dividual graves suggest emphasis on the groupover the individual in this instance.

In sum, each of the four chapters in PartIV develop finer-grained understandings ofinterregional Hopewell by resolving it intoits variant contents, geographic distributions,and distributional mechanisms. These kindsof discriminations are fostered heuristicallyby inhabiting Hopewellian landscapes withmotivated people who filled a great variety ofsocial roles and operated at both the local andthe interregional scales. In this way, interre-gional Hopewell in its rich diversity of ideas,practices, material forms, and their distributionsis generated from its human creators.

CODA: SO, WHAT WASINTERREGIONAL HOPEWELL?

Hopewell in its interregional expression has com-monly been defined in the past as some onekind of cultural and material content that wasshared broadly across regions of the Woodlandsand/or as some single kind of mechanism bywhich shared content came to be spread acrossregions (Hall, 1977:156). Attempts to find a sim-ple understanding of Hopewell by assigning itone identity—be it ecological (Struever 1964),economic (Struever and Houart 1972), religious(Caldwell 1955), a form of symbolic communi-cation (Seeman 1997:138), or other—have beena consistent aspect of Hopewell archaeology.

The chapters in this and other parts of thisbook, along with some previous publications,show empirically that interregional Hopewellcannot be so simply characterized as one formof content or distribution mechanism. By takinga humanizing perspective that personalizes thearchaeological record with motivated actors insocial roles, that explores the intricacies of lo-cal cultural context, and that is founded in deepand broad empirical data—by thickly describingthe past—it has been possible to resolve inter-regional Hopewell into contents and distributionmechanisms of many different kinds and scales.

Let us step through the phenomena thatempirical evidence firmly shows interregionalHopewell not to have been, and then assembleempirically what it was.

Interregional Hopewell was not a single, co-herent, or high volume economic exchange sys-tem. Many of the artifact classes once thoughtby some to have been exchanged outward andinterregionally from certain centers of produc-tion (Struever and Houart 1972; see also Seeman1979) turn out to have been produced locally atmultiple centers. Stylistic studies and/or materialcompositional analyses of copper celts, metallicpanpipes, metallic earspools, ceramic figurines,bird effigy ceramic vessels, and platform pipesindicate little or no interregional transport ofthese items (Chapters 11, 15, 17, 18, and 19, andcitations above). Likewise, raw materials oncebelieved to have been procured by a particularsociety and then exchanged to others interregion-ally (Struever and Houart 1972) are now knownfrom material compositional analyses to have fre-quently been procured directly from their naturalsources by multiple Hopewellian societies acrossthe Woodlands independent of one another. Thisis the case for copper, silver, obsidian, and prob-ably meteoric iron, but only in part for galena(Chapters 17 and 20, and citations above). Inaddition, Seeman (1979a) showed that if someHopewellian artifact classes and raw materialswere traded, trade did not occur through a sin-gle, hierarchically structured network of sites,or regularly, as Struever and Houart (1972) hadmodeled. These conditions are indicated by weakcorrelations among the regional spatial distribu-tions of artifact and raw material classes, as wellas a lack of fit of these distributions to central-place, geographic models of exchange that fo-cus on site size and the diversity of goods tradedthrough a site.

Interregional Hopewell was not a singlekind of social organization. Hopewellian soci-eties across the Eastern Woodlands varied in thesocial roles they encompassed, as indicated bythe different kinds of material social role mark-ers found in them (Seeman 1979a:381, Table 13).Social roles were bundled into social positions indifferent combinations in different regional tra-ditions. For example, the northern Midwest, thecentral Midwest, the Northeast, and the South-east were distinguished from one another by theroles that were associated with that of the pan-piper (Turff and Carr, Chapter 18). Role bundlingalso varied over time, over the Middle Woodland


period. In Ohio, the multiple roles of the classicshaman became increasingly segregated amongdiscrete specialists over time, and an incipientpriest-like role marked by plain copper head-plates seems to have emerged by the end ofthe period (Carr and Case, Chapter 5). Further,Hopewellian societies likely varied in their kin-ship structure (Field et al., Chapter 9). Evenwithin the limited area of Ohio, strongly patri-lineal, less strongly patrilineal, and matrilinealkinship systems are evident from multiple linesof evidence. Also, gender relations and the rel-ative prestige given to men and women variedamong Ohio Hopewellian societies (Field et al.,Chapter 9; Rodrigues, Chapter 10).

Interregional Hopewell does not appear tohave been a coherent cult, ritual, or ritual system,from what evidence has been analyzed in detail todate. Metallic panpipes perhaps give the best un-derstanding of this (Turff and Carr, Chapter 18).They are one of only five Hopewellian social-ceremonial artifact classes (Seeman 1979a:381,Table 13)—panpipes, earspools, conch shell ves-sels, mica mirrors, and metallic beads—thatare distributed across all eight of the majorHopewellian traditions of the Woodlands, andthe only class that is restricted temporally to theMiddle Woodland period. Nevertheless, peoplesin different regions differed considerably in howthey used panpipes ritually. Regions varied in thesocial and ceremonial roles associated with pan-pipes, in whether panpipes were used only formortuary rites or also more broadly ritually, inthe size and role diversity of gatherings that ledto the burying of panpipes, perhaps in whetherpanpipers were organized into a local ceremonialsociety, in whether panpipes were used in age-related rites of passage, and in the age-sex dis-tribution of those who were buried with and pre-sumably owned panpipes. The Woodlands canbe divided into four broad regions (listed above)that differed from one another in their ceremo-nial organization and content in these regards.Further, the different arrays of ceremonial ar-tifacts and raw materials that characterize dif-ferent regional Hopewellian traditions (Seeman1979a:306–308; 382–384) do not indicate a sin-gle, pan-Woodlands cult or ritual system. Theidea that interregional Hopewell was specificallya burial cult is negated by the great differences

found in the sizes, layouts, and contents of mortu-ary facilities in Ohio compared to those in Illinois(J.A. Brown 1979; Struever 1965).

Interregional Hopewell was not a consis-tent symbolic-meaning system of shared, spe-cific, indexical meanings. Ceremonial raw mate-rials and religious concepts that have deep rootsin time in the Eastern Woodlands, such as cop-per, raptorial birds, serpents, and bears, never-theless had significantly different symbolic as-sociations and indexical meanings in the historicnortheastern and southeastern Woodlands (Turffand Carr, Chapter 18). This was probably the caseduring the Middle Woodland as well, to judgefrom extensive regional variations of the kindsjust mentioned in ceremonial content and cere-monial role organization (Field et al., Chapter9; Keller and Carr, Chapter 11; Turff and Carr,Chapter 18; Ruhl, Chapter 19). The two dis-tinct meanings that seem to have been given tosilver by Hopewellian peoples in different re-gional traditions (Spence and Fryer, Chapter 20)illustrate the conceptual diversity of interregionalHopewell.

Interregional Hopewell was not a singlemechanism of dispersal of raw materials, arti-facts, artifact styles, and cultural practices andideas. Nine forms of interregional interaction andprocurement, which have ethnohistoric analogsin the Eastern Woodlands or more broadly inNorth America, have some to substantial ev-idence that they operated among Hopewelliansocieties interregionally during the MiddleWoodland. (Table 16.2). A minimum of fourgroups of these mechanisms are most readilydistinguishable in their archaeological signa-tures (Table 16.1), and one or more mecha-nisms from three of the groups very likelyoccurred: (1) vision/power questing and pilgrim-age to a place in nature; (2) perhaps the travelsof medicine persons or patients for healing; (3)the buying of religious prerogatives to manufac-ture and use ceremonial items, spirit adoption,and intermarriage; and (4) pilgrimage to a cere-monial center, valuables exchange among elite,and travel to a center of learning for mentoringin esoteric knowledge and ceremony (Table16.2). Interregional Hopewellian connectionswere a composite palimpsest of multiple kindsof discrete activities by socially different kinds


of actors with different kinds of needs andmotives.

Interregional Hopewell was not a phe-nomenon, of whatever kind, that originated inone place in the Eastern Woodlands—Ohioor elsewhere. Of the five Hopewellian social-ceremonial artifact classes that are essential ar-chaeological markers of interregional Hopewell,in that they are distributed across all eight majorHopewellian traditions in the Woodlands (listedabove and in Seeman 1979a:381, Table 13), atleast three are now known to have had their ori-gins of manufacture and social-ceremonial usein separate portions of the Woodlands, and not inOhio. Copper earspools, as technologically com-plex forms, appeared earliest in the Havana andCopena traditions. They appeared later in Ohio,as fully realized forms, without obvious tech-nological antecedents there (Ruhl, Chapter 19).Panpipes that are simplest in form and in the ma-terials from which they are made, and that pre-sumably were earliest, were concentrated in theTrempealeau tradition in the Upper Great Lakesarea. Outward from there, the simple panpipeclass decreased in its frequencies in central Mid-western traditions, and was almost entirely miss-ing from southeastern Hopewellian traditions.Formally and materially more complex kinds ofpanpipes increased in frequency and complex-ity from north to south, with the most complexand presumably latest kinds having been mostfrequent in the Southeast and missing from theTrempealeau tradition and neighboring GoodallFocus (Turff and Carr, Chapter 18). Conch shellceremonial vessels had their origins, obviously,in a third area of the Woodlands—along theGulf Coast. A geographically more restricted yetstill interregionally distributed artifact form, ce-ramic ware with bird designs, appeared earliest inthe Marksville tradition (Penney 1989:111, 119;see also Griffin 1967:184; Prufer 1964a:58), notOhio. In sum, important markers of interregionalHopewell had both northern and southern pointsof origin. The diverse geographic origins of“Hopewellian traits” was recognized early on byGriffin and some other archaeologists: “It is er-roneous to speak of an origin for Ohio Hopewell,or for any Hopewellian focus. There were manyorigins for many different traits, and these werecombined in the different areas into regional

associations. These are isolable blocks of cul-ture traits.” (Griffin 1946:74; see also Maxwell1947:26; R. Morgan 1952:92).

Although the Ohio Hopewell tradition isknown for the most numerous examples, moststylistically elaborate examples, and/or the mostdiverse versions of many classes of interregion-ally distributed Hopewellian items, it does notnecessarily follow that Ohio was the place ofinnovation of them, as some earlier researchersthought (e.g., Deuel 1935:430; 1952:264; Ritchie1937:185). Some aspects of Ohio Hopewellianmaterial culture, practices, and beliefs did havedirect antecedents in earlier Adena ways in Ohioand adjacent locales. Yet, peoples of the OhioHopewellian tradition were also avid collectorsof cultural practices and fancy artifact classesfrom distant places and peoples, just as they wereavid collectors of exotic, fancy raw materials,for a variety of social, political, and religiousreasons.

So, if interregional Hopewell was not asingle kind of economic exchange system, socialorganization, cult or ritual system, indexicalsymbolic meaning system, or mechanism ofdispersal of raw materials, artifacts, artifactstyles, and cultural practices and ideas, whatwas it? The easiest answer to give is thatthe question, itself, is misleading, because itassumes that interregional Hopewell had somesingular identity. The search for an interregionalHopewell of one nature derives historicallyfrom the attempt of Eastern Woodland archae-ologists to fill the void created when it becameevident that Hopewellian similarities acrossthe Woodlands could no longer, with anthro-pological appropriateness, be interpreted andtermed monolithically a “Hopewell Culture”.The Midwestern Taxonomic System (McKern1934, 1939), accompanied by McKern’s critiqueof the improper use of the term “culture” inWoodlands archaeology, was a key intellectualdevelopment that helped to produce that void.Yet the taxonomic system also perpetuated themonolithic view of Hopewell, by recognizingboth a Woodland-wide “Hopewellian Phase” andvarious more localized “Hopewellian Aspects”or “Foci”. (A well referenced discussion of thishistory of concepts and terms is given in Chap-ter 2, Note 2). In this vein of thought, the right


question to ask might be “What is interregionalHopewell”, placing emphasis on the intellectualconstruct and its history of development, ratherthan on some empirically based, monolithic,cultural phenomenon of the past. Monolithic in-terregional Hopewell in this view, then, is ahistorical product of archaeological intellectualthought.

Although this first answer is reasonableand historically correct, it by itself is not sat-isfying to me, and would not be satisfyingto the scores of archaeologists who, familiarwith the Hopewellian archaeological record, seesimilar cultural features that cluster in timeduring the Middle Woodland period and thatare spread broadly in space across the EasternWoodlands. So, again, what was interregionalHopewell?

Interregional Hopewell was an interactionsphere (Caldwell 1955), but not of one nature orscale. Varying combinations of localized peoplesin different cultural traditions created connec-tions with each other in different ways through agood diversity of means, and varyingly sharedraw material classes, artifact classes, artifactstyles, and cultural practices and ideas. Inter-regional Hopewell was a composite palimpsestin its contents, their geographic expanses, andin mechanisms of interaction, following Hall’s(1977) trichotomous distinction.26 The bound-aries of expanse of interregional Hopewell arefuzzy rather than clear cut, from an archaeologi-cal viewpoint, because interactions were of mul-tiple kinds that linked differing sets of peoplesand places to varying degrees and with variationthrough time as localized conditions and needschanged (see also Seeman 1996:306, 312). Theinteractions were clothed almost completely inphilosophical- religious concepts, symbols, andceremonies (Tables 16.1, 16.2), but had local so-cial, economic, political, religious, and demo-graphic ramifications, more or less so, depend-ing on the particular kind of interaction. In thisregard, the interactions should probably not belabeled “religious” or “mortuary-religious”, asCaldwell (1955:137, 139) did.

The differing geographic distributions ofdifferent Hopewellian raw materials, artifactclasses, styles, cultural practices, and ideas thatthe Woodlands archaeological record exhibits re-

flects the different roles that these media playedin the lives of different local peoples. It also re-flects the differing localized conditions, needs,and preferences of peoples in different regionaltraditions and, thus, the kinds of interregionalconnections that peoples in one or another re-gional tradition did or did not search out, andthe kinds of exotic practices and ideas that theydid or did not accept. The different media (ma-terial, behavioral, and conceptual) had differentqualities, such as size, visibility, rarity, durability,malleability, and portability, which determinedtheir differential suitability to particular roles andtheir varying utility or desirability in different lo-cal contexts and in different forms and scales ofinteraction.

Despite all of the above-mentioned vari-ations in interregional Hopewell, there is afabric—a seeming gestalt—to its forms and waysthat no well-familiarized archaeologist can deny.This quality of interregional Hopewell derivesfrom some very basic, shared philosophical-religious concepts—canonical meanings—andtheir most essential symbolic expressions in ma-terial (and presumably ceremonial) forms thatserved as vehicles for and facilitators of inter-regional and local interactions and local life-ways. The concepts were shamanic world viewassumptions and cosmological constructs thathad deep and widespread roots in the EasternWoodlands and that served as foundational ele-ments for the more particular Woodlands NativeAmerican belief systems and religions built onthem through prehistory and historically. Someof the most essential of these concepts include:transformation in a variety of guises, “seeingthrough”, darkness versus light, the tripartite cos-mos, the creatures and qualities of these realms,the four directions and solstices, and the axismundi (Carr and Case, Chapter 5 and 1995;Carr 1997, 1998, 1999a, 199b, 2000a, 2000b).These widely shared, historically deep, foun-dational elements are seen in the raw materi-als, artifact classes, artifact styles, and culturalpractices of Hopewellian peoples, and create thefabric of their cultural world that archaeologistsintuitively sense as Hopewellian: the figure-ground reversal structure that runs through muchof Hopewellian art; the directional symmetrythat is common in Hopewellian art and earthen


architecture; the zoned and tripartite structure ofMiddle Woodland ceramics, especially Hopewellware; the creatures that commonly were renderedin Hopewellian art; the attention given to con-trasts between darkness and light in Hopewellianart, artifacts, and earthen architecture; the shiny,reflective, translucent, and transparent raw ma-terials that Hopewell peoples favored; raw mate-rials that naturally, or with human manipulation,transform between shiny or light and dull or dark,and sometimes back again, or that are simul-taneously shiny/light and dull/dark; the distantjourneys that, as a metaphor for and facilitatorof transformation, were required to obtain manyHopewellian raw materials; mortuary practicesthat emphasize staged processing of corpses, dis-memberment, and cremation; burial mounds asaxis mundi and earthworks that were aligned tosolstices; and so on. The light and dark, ring-shaped image created by the form of copper ear-spools (Ruhl, Chapter 19), which occur in all themajor Hopewellian regional traditions across theEastern Woodlands, is one specific, shared ex-pression of some of the foundational conceptsand general kinds of materials that give interre-gional Hopewell its distinctive nature. So, too, isthe panpipe, which is found in all Hopewellianregions and which, through its copper material,appears to have connoted power by reference tothe creatures of the Upper and/or Lower Worlds(Turff and Carr, Chapter 18).

Cross-regional Hopewellian interactionswere made possible by the essential, widelyshared, shamanic concepts that some kinds oflocal material productions (e.g., earspools, pan-pipes), and perhaps some kinds of locally cre-ated ceremonies, embraced in vivid manners.The basic Woodland-shared, shamanic qualitiesthat such material items and ceremonies effec-tively expressed allowed Hopewellian peoplesin different regional traditions to project somemeaning(s)—canonical or indexical, more orless local—onto them, creating familiarity andsome common basis for meetings of interregionalscope, and making such items and ceremoniesattractive, leading potentially to their interre-gional spread. Foreign Hopewellian persons whomet and gathered would not have known or un-derstood all of the specific indexical meanings

that such items or ceremonies had in each other’scultures. However, what meanings the partiesprojected onto the items or ceremonies, in shar-ing essential, Woodlands shamanic concepts, oft-times appear to have been “close enough” to haveserved as an effective context for interaction andthe cross-regional spread of those items or cere-monies.

The widely shared, historically deep, basicshamanic concepts and their generalized materialand ceremonial expressions enumerated abovebecame elaborated during the Middle Woodlandas an aspect of and in support of increasing socialcomplexity in select areas and cultural traditionsof the Eastern Woodlands that we have come tocall Hopewellian. At least some of the particu-lar areas in which societies became more com-plex were characterized by one or more critical,natural environmental and ecological conditionsthat spurred on social change (Struever 1964; seealso Ruby et al., Chapter 4). In some areas, so-cial change was tied to increases in populationsizes and densities, as in the expansion of cen-tral Illinois valley Havana peoples into the lowerIllinois valley (Ruby et al., Chapter 4; Charles1985, 1992, 1995; Farnsworth and Asch 1986;see also Styles 1981). In other areas, such as theScioto valley, this may not have been the case(Wymer 1987a; see also Seeman and Branch,n.d.), and other environmental or socioculturalfactors seem to have been important (Ruby et al.,Chapter 4). Interregional Hopewell was gener-ated from local sociocultural and natural envi-ronmental conditions and dynamics.

The cultural character of a given Hopewel-lian regional tradition was a product of sev-eral things: the previous history of its peoplesin expressing and working out, in their ownlocal ways, materially and ceremonially, the ba-sic foundational shamanic concepts of the Wood-lands (e.g., Adena material culture and practicesin Ohio); the peoples’ further, unique innova-tions and elaborations in expressing materiallyand ceremonially those shamanic concepts dur-ing the Middle Woodland as societies becamemore complex; and the peoples’ emulation, re-sisting, and/or reworking of particular materialand ceremonial expressions created by others inother Hopewellian regional traditions. In some


instances, particular local material or ceremonialexpressions of basic shamanic concepts came tohave very wide distributions across the Wood-lands, such as earspools and panpipes mentionedabove; in other instances, the expressions spreadonly so far—all depending on the social roles thatthose material forms or ceremonies fulfilled, theutility or not of those roles in the context of theparticular conditions and needs within other re-gional traditions, and how well the forms or cer-emonies meshed with cultural ways and prefer-ences within other traditions. The geographicallydiversified nature of interregional Hopewell inits content and distribution mechanisms, but alsocertain aspects of its definable, shared fabric, de-rived from local matters. It is in this light that thisbook has emphasized the linkages between inter-regional and local Hopewell, their common na-ture in addition to their distinctive qualities, andthe generation of interregional Hopewell fromlocal scenes (Carr, Chapter 2).

Acknowledgments: I thank Ben Nelson, ofArizona State University, for our discussion of re-gional and interregional exchange in Mesoamer-ica, and Polly Wiessner for our conversations onthe transference of religious cults in New Guinea.These discussions provided me fertile ground forthinking about the nature of extralocal distribu-tions of fancy Hopewellian artifact classes andraw materials.

NOTES

1. Our use of the term deconstruct has no linkage to thepostmodern deconstructivist school of thought in the hu-manities and social sciences.

2. An analogous study in Chapter 11, by Keller and Carr,shows differences in the amount of prestige and the mark-ers of prestige given to Hopewellian women in the Ha-vana tradition in Illinois versus the Mann phase in Indi-ana versus the Scioto tradition in Ohio. However in thiswork, the specific nature of the differences in social or-ganization among the three geographic areas is less clearthan in the case presented by Field et al. in Chapter 9.

3. The roots of Ohio Hopewellian animal impersonationin earlier Glacial Kame and Adena practices is clearlyevidenced in actual animals masks and medicine bags(Converse 1981; Webb and Baby 1957:61–76) and inthe Adena engraved tablets (Carr 1999b; Webb and Baby1957:83–101).

4. See Basso (1996) for a Native North American view ofplaces that is broader and encompasses that presentedhere.

5. Obsidian from Ohio Hopewell sites has a high totalweight—300 pounds was found in Mound 11 of theHopewell site, alone. The obsidian occurs as large fin-ished bifaces in a few sites, as well as smaller tools, corefragments, blades, and debitage (Hatch et al 1990:463).The large total amount of obsidian and the large sizeof some specimens suggest its direct acquisition fromits source in the Wyoming–Idaho area. In contrast, ob-sidian from Illinois Hopewell sites has a very low totalweight (about two kilograms), occurs as small specimensscattered over many sites with a few pieces each, and islargely debitage (Wiant 2000). The small total amountof obsidian and the small maximal size of specimenssuggest indirect acquisition by some means. Only threeunaltered obsidian nodules are known from Illinois—from the Albany mounds in northwest Illinois (Herald1971; Wiant 2000). One large, 25-pound obsidian boul-der supposedly from the Meridosha site, lower Illinoisvalley, cannot currently be confirmed for its provenience,antiquity, or source (Wiant 2000).

Ohio Hopewell sites do not differ significantly fromIllinois ones in the percentages of obsidian from Obsid-ian Cliff versus other sources like the Camas–Dry Creekformation. Tabulating specimens analyzed by Hatch etal. (1990), Griffin et al. (1969), and Hughes and Fortier(1997) reveals that 30 of 37 (81.1%) assayed specimensfrom Illinois came from Obsidian Cliff, Wyoming, while48 of 54 (88.9%) assayed specimens from Ohio camefrom or possibly came from this source. The similarityof these two areas in their percentages of obsidian fromdifferent sources does not support the hypothesis that per-sons from both areas independently and directly acquiredobsidian by long-distance travel to the Wyoming–Idahoarea. Instead, it suggests acquisition by one of these ar-eas and disperal to the second, leading to the similarityin percentages. The much larger specimens and muchgreater amounts of obsidian found in Ohio imply that itwas Ohio Hopewellian persons who obtained obsidiandirectly from the Wyoming–Idaho area, while IllinoisHopewellian persons got it indirectly, through the handsof Ohio Hopewellian persons.

Less is understood about obsidian found at the Mt.Vernon site, Indiana. Formal, large bifaces of the kindsfound in Ohio, and ovate preforms, are known from theMt. Vernon mound (Seeman 1995:129) and suggest ac-cess to large pieces of obsidian, through either directlong-distance travel to the Rocky Mountains or exchangewith Ohio Hopewell peoples. The quantities of thesespecimens compared to those found in Ohio sites is un-known, given the incomplete and unsystematic excava-tion of Mt. Vernon. The ovate preforms suggest thatobsidian was worked at Mt. Vernon and that formedpoints were not necessarily brought into the site fromOhio. The percentage (60%) of obsidian that sources toObsidian Cliff, Wyoming, is lower than that found in


Ohio and Illinois sites, but the sample of assayed arti-facts is small (total n = 10) and of unspecified formaltypes (Shackley 1997), prohibiting sound comparison.

6. Keweenah silver at the Liverpool site, Illinois, may havebeen acquired directly from the Keweenaw peninsularather than through down-the-line or nodal exchange.The few silver specimens from Illinois that have beenanalyzed by Mauer et al. (1976) and Spence and Fryer(Chapter 20; 1990, 1996) all source to Cobalt, Ontario,save those from Liverpool. The silver at Liverpool thusmay not have been obtained from communities withinthe region and may have been obtained from afar. How-ever, in contrast to the strong cases for direct acquisitionof silver that can be made for LeVesconte, Hopewell,and Turner, where silver manufacturing debris occurs, nosuch debris is reported from Liverpool. This leaves openthe possibility that the silver at Liverpool was obtained infinished form from communities outside of the Havanaregion by other processes, rather than procured directlyfrom the Keweenaw peninsula by the occupants of Liv-erpool. Logical alternatives to direct acquisition wouldbe long-distance elite valuables exchange and travel to acenter of learning. Stylistic analysis of panpipes acrossthe Eastern Woodlands (Turff and Carr, Chapter 18) doesnot, in general, indicate the long-distance dispersal of fin-ished panpipes, but the panpipe from Liverpool was notincluded in their study.

7. Especially convincing examples of similarity in artifactstyle and content are the raven pipes from Mound City,Ohio, and the Rutherford and Bedford mounds in Illinois,plus the fact that, of the 14 animal species representedon Illinois pipes, 13 are found on Ohio pipes (Penney1989:183–185, 285–288).

8. The homogeneity of figurine styles in the Havana, andperhaps Scioto, regions is less definitive evidence of alack of interregional exchange of female artisans andfigurines. The homogeneity suggests the infrequency ofexchange of female or figurines and/or the low receptiv-ity of figurine producers in these traditions to styles fromother traditions.

9. Copperas Mountain also is a source of pyrite nod-ules. Pyrite shaped into hemispheres that were proba-bly used for divination were deposited at the Hopewellsite (Shetrone 1926:190–191), which is not far fromCopperas Mountain, but in a different branch of PaintCreek valley. However, no pyrite is reported from Seip(Shetrone and Greenman 1931:455–458, 509), which isdirectly adjacent to Copperas Mountain.

10. The closed-in nature of the Appalachian Plateau com-pared to the openness of the Till Plain province in RossCounty may have been perceived by Hopewellian peo-ples as a dark/light dichotomy, or Lower World/MiddleWorld dichotomy, given the commonality of thesethemes in their material culture generally (Carr and Case,Chapter 5; Carr 1998; Carr and Case, 1996).

11. A good example of this situation is the use and construc-tion of Russell Brown Mound 3 at the Liberty earth-works, two or three centuries after the heyday of Liberty

when the Big House of the Edwin Harness Mound wasin operation. The Big House has a weighted-average,calibrated radiocarbon date of a.d. 309 ± 32 (Greber1983:89), whereas three calibrated dates from RussellBrown Mound 3 have means that span the period of a.d.490 to a.d. 665 (Seeman and Soday 1980:93).

12. Griffin (1958:7, Griffin et al. 1970:8; Braun et al.1982:62–62) and Stoltman (1979:135) did think thatsome finely made Hopewell ware vessels in northern Illi-nois, southwestern Wisconsin, and Ohio had been tradedthere from their core area of occurrence in the lower Illi-nois valley.

13. Carr and Sears (1985:85) note that while meteoritefalls—sources of iron—are much more common inthe Southeast than the Northeast, meteoric iron inHopewellian sites is more common in the Northeast thanthe Southeast. This complementarity suggests the possi-bility of systematic interregional exchange of meteoriciron from south to north. Concordant with this possi-bility is the co-occurrence of a variety of meteoric ironartifacts (Carr and Sears, p. 80) and Copena-style BigPipes (Shetrone and Greenman 1931) at the Seip–Pricermound.

14. The terms local, regional, and interregional, in refer-encing space rather than social relationships, are poorsubstitutes to Helms’s descriptors, normal people, closestrangers, and foreigners, which bridge more easily tokinds of valuables exchange. Nonetheless, the spatialterms are more easily used as adjectives and do refer-ence archaeological landscapes well.

15. Ohio Hopewellian community and mating network sizesare known from the work of Pacheco (1996; Pacheco andDancey n.d.), and Ruby et al. in Chapter 4. Pacheco’s sur-vey data on the central Muskingum valley, as analyzed byRuby et al., indicate that local symbolic communities inthe Dresden subregion and the upper Jonathan Creek sub-region had catchment diameters of about 6 to 11 kilome-ters. A study of the distances among earthwork-moundcenters in the Scioto valley–Paint Creek region by Rubyet al. (Chapter 4, Table 4. 6) indicates that local symboliccommunities there had modal nearest-neighbor separa-tions and diameters of about 8 to 10 kilometers. Sus-tainable communities (mating networks), also definedfrom earthwork-mound center distances, were separatedfrom neighbors by and had diameters of 16 to 18 kilo-meters, or 21 kilometers, depending on the measure.These inter-community distances are all smaller than theapproximately 25 kilometer maximum distance of ori-gin of fine vessels brought into McGraw–a radius fromMcGraw that equates to a 50 kilometer diameter area.Together, these estimates imply that vessels at McGrawcame from within its local symbolic and sustainablecommunities, and well as sometimes from outside ofthem, from up to two to three local symbolic commu-nities away and from immediately adjacent sustainablecommunities.

16. Fie’s (2000a) table 52 shows that one fine ware vessel andone coarse ware vessel both were probably manufactured


at the Macoupin habitation site and came to be depositedat the Sandy Creek Church habitation site. Similarly,two fine ware vessels and four coarse ware vessels wereprobably made at the Sandy Creek Church habitationsite and ultimately were deposited in the Smiling Danhabitation site.

17. Unexpected relative to Hall’s model is Fie’s finding thatsome coarse wares (n = 26 of 304) in lower Illinois val-ley sites were derived from outside of the area, while nofine wares were. This pattern may indicate visitation bysmall family groups from adjacent regions (Fie n.d.) sim-ilar to that clearly evidenced at the Massey and Archiesites (Farnsworth and Koski 1985), rather than extralocalexchange of utilitarian vessels and staples, per se.

18. Given the common historic Native American view thatpower can be acquired only by exchange, it is unlikelythat the items would simply be given away and received.They would probably be acquired by the recipient witha small exchange gift. Penney’s (1989) concept of buy-ing of religious prerogatives is one manifestation of thisthought process, as is the leaving of tobacco or other of-ferings in the place of any object removed from naturefor use.

19. The emphasis placed here on the status-building moti-vation for regional exchange was not that preferred byFlannery (1967:81). He held on to the idea that regionalexchange could have an underlying ecological purposeof distributing food from zones of agricultural surplus toless fortunate areas, in line with Sander’s (1956; Sandersand Price 1968:188–191) idea of regional Mesoamericansymbiosis.

20. The equation of greater geographic distance with a transi-tion from the natural to the supernatural is complementedor contradicted in at least stratified societies by the no-tion of the kingdom as the cosmos, with the center—thecapital and the king—being the most sacred part (Hunt-ington and Metcalf 1979:123; see also Eliade 1964:264).In simpler societies with shamanic cosmologies, the ideaof the omnipresent, sacred “Center of the World” or axismundi, found in each person’s own self, own house, andown village (Eliade 1964:260–265; see also 259–274,477–482, 487–494) also complements or contradicts theequation of distance with sacredness. More in line withHelms’s idea is the paradoxical equation of the verticalaxis mundi, which connects this world and those aboveand below it, with a horizontal bridge or difficult hori-zontal passage (Eliade 1964:482–486).

21. Seeman (1979:391–397, Figure 36) reported the rich-ness and sizes of Hopewellian sites across the EasternWoodlands in terms of the total number of kinds of In-teraction Sphere goods (finished items and raw materi-als) recovered from each site and the amount of movedearth encompassed in the mounds and embankments (ifany) of each site. On these measures, the Ohio Hopewelltradition far outranks the Havana tradition, which in turnoutranks the Mann phase and Goodall tradition. Twosites alone, both in Ohio, have 30+ kinds of Interac-tion Sphere goods and sizes of 672,000–1,8999,000 ft3:

Hopewell and Seip. Sites with 22–26 kinds of InteractionSphere goods and sizes of 131,000–204,000 ft3 includeTurner, Liberty, and Mound City, all in Ohio. Sites withonly 7 to 17 kinds of Interaction Sphere goods and sizesof 6,000 to 4,37,000 ft3 include Knight, Bedford, Baehr,Montezuma, Naples, Havana, Ogden-Fettie, Rutherford,Davenport, Klunk, Gibson, Albany, and Norton in Illi-nois; Newcastle in Indiana; and Cincinnati, Esch, Ater,Tremper, and North Benton in Ohio. The Mann site inIndiana and Goodall site in Michigan fall in a group of 42sites with only 5–10 kinds of Interaction Sphere goodsand sizes of 1,000 to 157,000 ft3. Only a few third-ordersites occur in traditions outside of the Scioto, Havana,and Mann areas: Crystal River in Florida, Wilson in theCrab Orchard area of Illinois, and Tunacunnhee in Geor-gia. All other regional Hopewellian traditions have onlyfourth or fifth order sites in Seeman’s typology.

Ruby (1997a:400) calculated the volume of thefive largest Hopewellian mounds in the Eastern Wood-lands and found them to be restricted to the Scioto andMann areas: Hopewell Mound 25, Ohio (49,000 m3),Mann mound IU9, Indiana (17,000 m3), Seip-Pricer,Ohio (14,700 m3), Mann mound IU1, Indiana (13,200m3) and the GE mound, Indiana (11,000 m3).

Walthal et al. (1979:202) calculated that the typ-ical Ohio Hopewell burial mound required 50 timesmore labor than the typical Copena mound. In addition,Ohio Hopewell communities built massive earthworks,whereas Copena communities did not.

22. Geographic distributional differences in artifact classescould also reflect whether or not various social segments/personae existed in particular regions over the East.

23. There is a strong worldwide and North American cross-cultural trend for women to make pottery and work soft,pliable materials, while men work hard, tough-to-processmaterials (Driver 1969; Murdock and Provost 1973).

24. Here it is assumed that females also made the Southeast-ern complicated ceramic vessels, as in Note 23.

25. Swift Creek complicated stamped sherds were found atthe Twenhofel site (Caldwell n.d.)—a Crab Orchard tra-dition site in Jackson County, Illinois, but apparently notin Havana sites in Illinois.

26. Here, as throughout this book, interregional Hopewell isdefined in terms of regional cultural traditions and so-cieties that shared practices, ideas, and material formsto various degrees, and the cultural interconnections andmeans of interconnection among these societies. Dis-tant places in nature from which Hopewellian peoplesprocured raw materials (e.g., Obsidian Cliff, Wyoming,the Keweenaw peninsula, Michigan) are not included inthe geographic expanse of interregional Hopewell, al-though the travels to such places for various purposes,as cultural practices and as practices more or less sharedamong traditions, are included in the concept of inter-regional Hopewell. From this perspective, then, inter-regional Hopewell can be spoken of as an “interactionsphere” rather than more broadly as a “sphere of inter-action and procurement”.

carr_2005_rethinking interregional hopewellian “interaction”(1)

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