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PARKS
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Hopewell Culture National Historical Park - Exploring Mound City
As you walk through the grounds, remember that Mound City primarily represents the burial aspect of the Hopewell era. The people who built Mound City and other Hopewell earthworks did not spend their whole lives concentrating on death, but led active, varied lives. For example, some of their workshops have been excavated at nearby Seip Mound, within the earthwork complex. Future work may reveal similar activities at Mound City or nearby. You should begin your visit at the visitor center.
Location
Mound City is the only unit of Hopewell Culture National Historical Park currently open to visitors. Mound City is located on State Route 104, 3.2 kilometers (2 miles) north of the U.S. 35 intersection and 4.8 kilometers (3 miles) north of Chillicothe, Ohio.
Hours and facilities
The visitor center is open every day except January 1, Thanksgiving, and December 25. Hours are 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Labor Day through mid-June with extended hours in summer. The grounds remain open during daylight hours. Group tours must be arranged well in advance. Mound City has a small picnic area. Food, campgrounds, and lodging are available nearby.
For your safety
Camping, campfires, and portable stoves are prohibited. Watch for squirrel holes and uneven ground in the mound area.
Administration
Hopewell Culture National Historical Park is administered by the National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior. Contact: Superintendent, Hopewell Culture National Historical Park, 16062 State Route 104, Chillicothe, OH, 45601. (614) 774-1125
Beginning Your Visit
The visitor center has educational exhibits , books and other items can be purchased chased here. A staff member is on duty to answer questions. An observation deck on the roof provides a view of Mound City and a taped introductory trails begin here.
The plan of Mound City reflects creativity as the earthwork is formed in the shape of typical Hopewell house with entrances at both ends. Perhaps the placement of the mounds was meant to create a landscape in miniature, in imitation of the land forms to the east. As you view the site from the roof, try to visualize the past as it would have been lived. from the Hopewell era to the Shawnee, and the soldiers of Camp Sherman.
Inside A Mound
When Squier and Davis excavated this unusual elliptical mound, it revealed a definite internal structure. At the center was a low, circular clay platform. In the concave top of the platform were ashes and cremated human remains, many fragments of pottery stone and copper implements, and a large number of broken spear points made of flint, garnet, and obsidian The platform was covered with a low earth mound, which in turn was covered with in five alternating layers of sand and earth. The entire mound was capped with a thick layer of gravel and pebbles. Other mounds show equal care in construction, but vary in detail and number of layers.
The mounds vary considerably in the number of burials and the kinds of artifacts they contain. One mound within the complex contained a quantity of fossil mammoth or mastodon bones, and another contained finely crafted pottery vessels decorated with images of ducks and eagles; others contained various ornaments of copper and shell, stone pipes, and other goods. The types of burials followed the lines of status within the society. The mounds at Mound City may be monuments to leading craftsmen. or to successful traders. The intrusive burial in the top of this mound is only one of many that occurred widely after the mounds were built, and after the demise of the Hopewell system reflecting a period of social change.
Mica Grave Mound
The artifacts shown here all came from this mound, first excavated in 1921 Among others recovered here-and now on exhibit in the visitor center - are elk and bear teeth, copper ornaments large obsidian points and a cache of 5,000 shell beads. Two copper headdresses were found, one with three pairs of copper antlers, the other representing a bear with hinged ears and legs attached with rivets. A section of the mound has been removed to show an elaborate multiple burial All four individuals were cremated, as were the other original burials of Mound City.
Among the ashes were obsidian tools, raven and toad effigy pipes, a copper headpiece in human shape, and other grave goods. There are sixteen other cremations known from this mound: a later intrusive burial in the side of the mound was discovered in 1963 when the mound was reexcavated. The effigy pipes. headdresses, and other artifacts were used in ceremonies, and may also have been badges of rank or status. Since historic Indians are known to have had clans named after animals, the raven and other animal effigies may have been symbols of lineages, clans or other social group.
Some archeologists suggest that Hopewell society, at least in the Scioto area, was divided into a system of ranked lineages, much like the ruling families of Hawaii in the early 1800's. Each of the main burial centers such as Mound City and Seip would have been used by one or more of the lineages to bury the most prominent individuals.
Charnel House
When a prominent person died, the body was taken to a charnel house. Cremation took place on a low clay platform. Burial offerings were often placed in the cremation fire as well. The ashes, and additional offerings were then transferred to a shallow grave in the charnel house floor, and covered wit a low earth mound. After several people had been buried, the charnel house was remove and individual burials covered with a mound.
Towns On The Scioto?
Squier and Davis found many mound and earthwork sites along the banks of the Scioto River, a major Hopewell center. The river was a major source of food-including fish shellfish, waterfowl-and water. Spring floods scoured the banks, providing a natural clearing for a garden plot on which to cultivate corn and other food plants. The size, location, and number of towns or villages are not fully known.
Death Mask Mound
This is the largest and one of the oldest of the 23 mounds contained in the 5.26 hectares (13 acres) of Mound City. Thirteen individuals were buried here, accompanied by falcon effigies made of copper, and fragments of human skull that had been cut and drilled, perhaps to form part of a "death mask" used in ceremonies.
Excavation of this mound, the only one undisturbed by the building of Camp Sherman revealed an original subterranean charnel house replaced by a surface charnel house. After the second one was demolished, earth was heaped to form the mound.
Mound Of The Pipes
In the number and value of its relics." Squier and Davis reported, "this mound far exceeds any hitherto explored....lntermixed with much ashes, were found not far from two hundred pipes, carved in stone...The bowls of the pipes are carved in miniature figures of animals, birds, reptiles, etc. All of them are executed with strict fidelity to nature. and with exquisite skill."
The collection of pipes from this mound was later sold to an English collector and is now in the British Museum. The exhibit in the visitor center has replicas of these along with original items from other mounds. The Mound of the Pipes may be a monument to a master pipe carver. As you contemplate the pipes in the exhibit, remember that smoke was thought by the Indians to be a form of communication with the spirit world.
From the perspective of the archeologist, one of the most intriguing and challenging aspects of the Hopewell era is the great diversity in the way people were buried. There are cremated, flexed and extended burials and a variety of types and amounts of grave goods.
It is not yet possible to say what all these burial differences mean in terms of the structure of life in the Hopewell era. One feature emerging from work at Seip and several other sites, but by no means common is a differentiation into three groups of burials within a large mound. This may reflect functionally distinct groups within society, such as those among the historic Shawnee, with one group providing the chiefs, another in charge of certain ceremonies, and so on. Mound City, Seip, Hopewell, and other burial sites probably began as villages and slowly evolved into burial centers.
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