The purpose of this research is to examine the economy of the Hopewell, the name given to the culture of North American indigenous peoples that flourished particularly in the Ohio Valley but that reached beyond the Mississippi Valley of North America. The plan of the research will be to set forth the archeological context in which Hopewell culture is properly viewed and then to discuss inferences that have been made about the shape and content of the culture's economy.
Partly though not entirely because of the influence of cultural anthropology that has emerged as a critique of Eurocentrism, it has become a commonplace of contemporary archeological commentary that to dismiss as primitive the prehistoric cultures of the indigenous peoples of North America is a grave mistake. The evidence of excavated sites is very much to the contrary, that the societies exhibit complex levels of social organization. The major Hopewell period is agreed upon as lasting the second century B.C. to fourth century A.D., although there is evidence of continuity in organized social activity as far back as 1000 B.C. and as far forward as A.D. 1500.
The evidence of Hopewell culture, centered in the southern part of Ohio but ranging into Illinois, derives principally from so-called mound building or earthworks construction. The Hopewell Culture National Historic Park, located in Chillicothe, Ohio, is the site of the Mound City Group, where a large concentration of mounds is to be found (Austin 165). The site of the largest mounds is Newark, Ohio, some 60 miles north of Chillicothe. Hopewell culture belongs to the so-called Middle Woodland category of mound-building peoples; the other, Late Woodland category is called Mississippian. Three purposes have been identified with mound construction: burial, public platforms, and ceremonial or monumental (Shetrone 32ff, et passim; James 37). However, the exact cultural function of the earthworks is a matter of debat...