The 1848 publication of Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley by Ephraim G. Squier and Edwin H. Davis marks not only the jumping-off point for American archaeology as an academic discipline but the beginning of our nation’s fascination with the mounds and earthworks of central Ohio and the ancient Americans who built them. Today we call these ancient Americans the Ohio Hopewell. They flourished in the fertile landscape of the middle Ohio Valley at roughly the same time as the Golden Age of the Roman Empire.
As the focal point of their research, Squier and Davis mapped and excavated dozens of mound and earthwork sites in south central Ohio, centering on Davis’s hometown of Chillicothe, Ross County. Some of the mounds they excavated, like those at Mound City (now a National Park Service site designated Hopewell Culture National Monument at Mound City), contained impressive examples of artifact styles rich with symbolism based on geometric and zoomorphic designs. Not long after their seminal publication, these two nascent archaeologists had a falling out. Unfortunately for modern Americans, a large portion of their collection was sold by Davis to the Royal British Museum in London. Even today, many of the most beautiful carved Hopewell effigy pipes and mica cutouts from sites like Mound City are displayed in London, rather than in the United States.
As is common for many Neolithic-stage populations, the Ohio Hopewell mounds contain the tombs and bodies of the honored dead (predominantly, but not exclusively, males) for whom the monuments were built. Thus, America’s earliest significant attempt at academic archaeology represents a glorified form of grave robbing. Ironically, archaeology most clearly reveals its delicate balance between the humanities and social science when it uses the dead for data, as both social role and social status are often well marked in burials. Today, the excavation of ancient human remains is restricted by the Native American Graves and Repatriation Act, passed in 1991 to redress over a century of mistreatment of Native American dead by a scientific community who viewed them as nothing more than specimens. Sadly for the ancient Hopewell dead whom they disturbed, the mound excavations of Squier and Davis would most likely not have been acceptable under the provisions of this Act.
Nonetheless, their research set the stage for the next 150 years of Ohio Hopewell archaeology.
Hopewell: Culture or Cosmology?
In addition to their work at Mound City, in 1845 Squier and Davis also mapped and excavated another key Ross County site located on the north fork of Paint Creek, which we now call the Hopewell Earthworks. This mound and earthwork cluster is considered the type site and lends its name to the entirety of the Hopewell cultural phenomena. The Hopewell name comes from the family name of the landowner, Capt. M. C. Hopewell, who owned the farm during the second major excavation at the site. When Squier and Davis worked there earlier in the century, the property was owned by the Clark family, so accordingly in Ancient Monuments they called it Clark’s Works. However, the name Hopewell certainly has a ring to it that Clark does not; so goes the serendipity of the naming of archaeological names. This second excavation was directed in 1891-1892 by archaeologist Warren K. Moorehead and was conducted during his explorations to collect artifacts for exhibition at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago.
The Hopewell Earthworks includes an oblong embankment that stretches lengthwise west to east along the terrace of the north fork of Paint Creek. This embankment is called the Great Enclosure. The embankment walls in the Great Enclosure are estimated to have been around 35 feet wide and upwards of 6 feet high, meaning that people on the outside could not have easily looked in upon the enclosed space. It encloses over 110 acres and has a square shaped earthwork attached to its east side, each side of which is almost exactly 850 feet in length. The Hopewell Square has openings, or gateways, located halfway down along each of its four walls, with the gateway along the west edge opening into the Great Enclosure, and an additional two openings in the northeast and southeast corners respectively. Rectangular mounds are placed across the mouth of each of the four gateways located along the midpoints of the square so that again, even as one enters this enclosure from these gateways, the entrant cannot look directly in upon the enclosed space.
Within the Great Enclosure there were at least 40 mounds ranging in size from small and inconspicuous conical mounds only a foot or two high to large and massive loaf-shaped mounds (the exact number is impossible to know because various forms of degradation and destruction have taken place at the site, beginning with the Squier and Davis excavations). These mounds are placed throughout the enclosure in no apparent pattern, although some archaeologists believe there is significant symbolism in their placement and that alignments are linked to astronomical phenomena. The largest loaf-shaped mound in the Great Enclosure is a tripartite, conjoined, multi-layered mound labeled Mound 25. The mound itself was encircled by a low D-shaped embankment approximately 2000 feet in circumference, which had the straight side of the D located along the north edge. The immensity of Mound 25 is difficult to convey. At an estimated size of just over 30 feet tall, 550 feet long, and 180 feet wide (equivalent to three stories high and three city blocks long), it is by far the largest of all of the Ohio Hopewell mounds. Mound 25 is also one of the two largest man-made earthen structures in North America, being surpassed only by Monk’s Mound, which is located near St. Louis, Missouri at the site of Cahokia, a large Mississippian center that may represent the only urban site in North America. Dating to the 9th-11th centuries, Cahokia was almost 600 years later than Hopewell.
Mound 25 at the Hopewell Earthworks is at the heart of what many archaeologists mean when they use the term Hopewell. It contains the most impressive burials, altars, and artifact deposits, in terms of both quantity and quality, of all of the Hopewell mounds, in Ohio and beyond. The mound and its remains appear, at many levels, to represent the ideological or cosmological center of the Hopewell world. It is important to note that the mound covers the remains of a large, multi-roomed, wooden structure, on the floor of which were buried the Hopewell dead. This structure was undoubtedly the location of the critical social interactions and expressions of ritual knowledge that define Hopewell cosmology. The mound-building activities not only closed the use of this structure but put an end to the use of the ritual knowledge in this location, making Mound 25 a monument.
The term Hopewell was first used to represent a prehistoric culture at the turn of the 20th century. The term was popularized following analysis and synthesis of Moorehead’s collections and in association with other major mound and earthwork excavations that had taken place in south central Ohio up to that time, including the third and final major expedition at the Hopewell Earthworks led in 1922-1925 by Ohio Historical Society archaeologist Henry C. Shetrone. However, exactly what is meant by the cultural term Hopewell has undergone considerable revision and refinement since its inception. Likewise, the term Ohio Hopewell now has a specific meaning of its own too, independent of the broader concept of Hopewell. Originally, Hopewell was confined to Ohio (i.e., Hopewell = Ohio Hopewell in modern terminology), but mound excavations in other parts of the Eastern Woodlands clearly showed a broad similarity with the archaeological remains excavated in Ohio. The core area in Ohio, centering on the Chillicothe region, is also sometimes referred to as Scioto Hopewell in the literature, although herein Ohio Hopewell is used as the more inclusive cultural term.
Archaeologist Joseph Caldwell proposed a concept in the 1950s that he called the Hopewell Interaction Sphere to link these widespread mound-building traditions together. However, instead of a monolithic Eastern Woodlands culture, Caldwell viewed Hopewell as a pan-Eastern ideology or cosmology, centering on the rituals of mortuary ceremonialism. The Hopewell Interaction Sphere functioned as an exchange network that moved the raw materials and finished symbolic artifacts deposited in the mounds with the dead, but more importantly, it moved the ideology that grounded these customs. Thus, as a result of Caldwell’s contribution to Hopewellian studies, regional “cultures,” traditions, or phases within Hopewell emerged. Current research suggests a broadly similar time frame for all of these regional groups, which are now encompassed within what is known as the Middle Woodland period, approximately 2200 to 1600 years before present (B.P.), or 200 BC. to AD. 400.
Next to Ohio Hopewell, the Havana Hopewell, centered in the Illinois River Valley, appears to be another significant regional expression during the Middle Woodland period. Including these two important core areas in Ohio and Illinois, at least 12-18 Hopewellian regional cultures are spread throughout the south as far as Florida, along the Mississippi River corridor from Louisiana to Wisconsin, out the Missouri River as far west as Kansas City, across the upper Midwest, and into the Ohio River Valley as far northeast as the Upper Great Lakes in upstate New York. Conservatively, it has been estimated that there were over 20,000 mounds erected by Eastern Woodland peoples over the span of about 1500 years. Yet, with few exceptions, Ohio is the primary location of the Hopewell earthwork-building tradition, especially of the large geometric variety like the Hopewell Square and the complex geometric constructions at Newark, Ohio, in Licking County, which included an octagonal earthwork attached to a large circle (large enough to encompass an 18-hole private golf course, which has been rented in perpetuity from the Ohio Historical Society), another large circle, two large squares, several small circles, an elliptical enclosure, dozens of mounds, and miles of parallel embankments linking the complex together.
Origins
The origins of the Hopewellian mortuary ritual ceremonialism can be found in the Late Archaic and Early Woodland period cultures occupying the Great Lakes and upper Midwest in the millennia preceding the Middle Woodland period. In the Late Archaic period, approximately 5000-3000 years ago, the ideology that focused cultural energy on mortuary ritual ceremonialism emerged in these regions. Important individuals were buried in prominent locations with rich symbolism. Symbolism was present in artifacts interred with the burials, but also in the construction of the burial tombs and the methods of treatment of the dead. Rubbing corpses with red ochre was practiced by some of these cultures. Burial locations were chosen that included visible natural knobs or prominences, shell middens, and sometimes glacial kames. Names given to identify some of these cultural complexes include Old Copper, Red Ochre, Glacial Kame, Orient, and Meadowood. Very little definitive knowledge exists concerning the broader questions of settlement and social organization for most of these peoples, although evidence seems to point to most of them being seasonally mobile hunters and gatherers, some of whom began to experiment with the plants that later became the EAC crop system.
The presence of ceramic technology in Eastern Woodlands cultures about 3000 years ago has been used to create one of the period boundaries between the Archaic and Woodland periods. During the Early Woodland period, approximately 3000 to 2200 years ago, the first burial mounds were erected in the middle Ohio Valley. Meadowood people, in Ohio and upstate New York, may have been among the first people to erect small earthen mounds for the dead. Some of the people who erected these mounds were the direct ancestors of the Ohio Hopewell. One of the clear purposes behind building the mounds, besides the obvious function of providing a final resting place for the dead, was the social separation of ritual and domestic space. What the Hopewell later accomplished with the separation of space by their earthwork and mound centers is a logical conclusion to this practice.
In the middle Ohio Valley, beginning about 2500 years ago, a distinctive burial ceremonial complex had emerged that focused on the building of dispersed conical mounds. This complex is today known by the term Adena. It, too, was named at the turn of the 20th century, based on the excavation of a 26-foot-tall conical mound by Ohio Historical Society archaeologist William C. Mills on the Adena Estate of Governor Thomas Worthington in Chillicothe, Ohio, less than a mile from the Hopewell Culture National Monument at Mound City. The Adena are also known to have constructed small geometric circles, sometimes encircling mounds and sometimes not. The Adena are logically the clear ancestors of Hopewell, at least in places like the Chillicothe and Licking regions of central Ohio. However, the Adena did not evolve into Hopewell throughout their range, creating a complex dual-tradition phenomenon that has vexed archaeologists who prefer simple ancestor-descendant relationships between cultural traditions. In peripheral locations, like the Muskingum River Valley and the Hocking River Valleys of southeastern Ohio, the Bluegrass Region of northern Kentucky, the White River Valley of eastern Indiana, and the Kanawha River Valley of West Virginia, Adena communities appear to have existed until as late as A.D. 200-300, living alongside contemporary Hopewell communities located in the Scioto, Licking, and Miami Valleys in south central Ohio.
Symbolism
Hopewell symbolism is generated in several different mediums and scales. The exact meaning of these symbols is, of course, shrouded in mystery, but there is scholarly consensus about the self-evident iconography in some mediums, like the effigy pipes. A dominant Hopewell motif is the raptorial bird. This motif occurs in the form of stylized eagles, hawks, or falcons on ceramic vessels, on copper plaques (cold hammered from nuggets collected near Lake Superior), on shells collected on the Gulf Coast, on pipes carved from Ohio pipestone, and on carved mica sheets (collected in western North Carolina). Other animals, like waterfowl, deer, and bear, are also common motifs in Ohio Hopewell art. Human forms are more rarely depicted, but human hands cut out of mica and copper are known, and a series of ceramic figurines were recovered from mound contexts, which provide insight into clothing and hair styles (men may have used the “Mohawk” hair style).
Next to the zoomorphic forms, there were an abundant number of geometric forms represented in Ohio Hopewell symbolism. The overriding principle seems to be symmetry. Circles, commas, and squares are common; examples of swastikas have been recovered as well. Geometric forms are expressed in the earthworks. In the case of the large squares, circles, and the two known octagons, a convincing case can be made for elaborate astronomical alignments. The solstices are marked, but so, too, are still stands of the moon. Alignments to bright stars and constellations are less well marked by Hopewellian astronomy but do appear to have been important in some cases.
The underlying symbolism in Hopewellian art, burial customs, and earthen architecture has been interpreted in a variety of ways. Some view the earthworks as a symbolic great house capable of bringing together all the members of a community within one socially circumscribed place. The symbolism expressed by artifacts, on the other hand, seems to have functioned at various societal scales, conveying social status and marking social boundaries. Individuals displayed artifacts that sent messages to observers; some of these messages could only be understood locally, while others were more universally understood across regions. The mortuary rituals may be interpreted as marking cults of world renewal. These cults served to incorporate individuals from divergent age-sets, but also from neighboring communities, into inclusive social identities, which dampened conflict and promoted within- and between-group cooperation.
Finally, some of the symbolism is clearly representative of magical or shamanistic practices. In some cases, such as the way obsidian is used, there is an implication of cross-country treks to the very edge of the known world; the obsidian in Ohio Hopewell mounds and earthworks was obtained from the Yellowstone region in the western United States, a distance of upwards of 1800 miles from the Ohio Hopewell centers. Some unique burials may be interpreted as representing shamans, and if so, include the ritual tools or paraphernalia that Hopewell shamans used in their craft.
Settlement, Social Organization, and Subsistence
When the great Hopewell earthwork and mound centers were first observed by Euro-American settlers, the assumption was that only a complex society with a centrally organized political system, itself supported by full-time intensive agriculturalists, could have carried out such a cultural achievement. In fact, scholars like Squier and Davis linked Hopewell, via the trait of mound/pyramid building, to the classic Mesoamerican civilizations in order to provide the level of complexity they perceived to be necessary to account for the archaeological record. Few agreed with Squier and Davis, although some sort of Mesoamerican connection based on symbolism continued to be discussed well into the mid-20th century.
Similarly, it was also widely popular during the 19th century to explain the Hopewell earthworks as the product of some mysterious lost civilization.
Some, like the emerging Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormons), saw this civilization as evidence for the presence of the Lost Tribes of Israel in North America; others saw the mounds as evidence of a Phoenician presence or even a Viking presence linked to the classic Greenland sagas relating the travels of Leif Eriksson and his kin. These explanations are now collected together under the rubric of the “Myth of the Moundbuilders.” In all of the various versions of this myth, the explicit assumption at the center is that Native Americans, as typified by the “savage” tribes encountered by Europeans upon contact with the New World, could not possibly have built the earthworks and mounds. This perspective is clearly an extension of the prevailing view of progressive cultural evolution that dominated 19th-century thought. Native Americans were placed so low on the cultural development ladder that supporters of the myth could not perceive how they could accomplish works of such civilized complexity.
The height of absurdity was reached when, in order to strengthen their claim, adherents to the Mound-builders myth began planting fraudulent tablets and other similar evidence in the mounds for excavators to recover. Some of these, like the Newark Holy Stones from Licking County, Ohio and the Davenport Tablet from Iowa, took generations to expose as frauds, while others, like the Bat Creek Tablet from Tennessee, still have supporters who believe in their authenticity. Ultimately, the foundations of the myth unraveled from the ground up as a result of the extensive mound explorations sponsored by the Bureau of American Ethnology, which were led by archaeologist Cyrus Thomas. He clearly identified ancient Native Americans as the mound-builders in his classic 1890-1891 Report on the Mound Explorations of the Bureau of American Ethnology, debunking the “Myth of the Moundbuilders” and setting the stage for a productive period in Hopewell archaeology that eventually led archaeologists to focus on habitation sites, subsistence patterns, and community organization, rather than myopically continuing the efforts that focused on digging up the Hopewell mounds.
One aspect of the Moundbuilders myth that did not fade with Thomas’s research was the assumption that Hopewell populations relied on some form of intensive agriculture. No one could envision how ancient Americans could have built the mounds and earthworks without a reliable food source. Most assumed that this crop system would be based on the same system of food production seen across the Americas: the “three sisters” of corn (maize, Zea mays), beans (Phaseolus vulgaris), and squash (Cucurbita pepo). When Europeans first arrived, the three sisters were prevalent among the Northeastern Iroquoians and Algonquians, the Southeastern “five civilized tribes,” the Southwestern Puebloans, and throughout Mesoamerica and South America. Yet, even by the mid-20th century there was no concrete evidence supporting this assumption for Ohio Hopewell. Then, in the first major excavation at an Ohio Hopewell habitation, a couple of carbonized corn cobs were recovered in a sealed midden context that seemed to solidify the case for Hopewellian maize agriculture. This excavation was conducted in Ross County by Olaf Prufer in 1963, at a site he called the McGraw site. While the legitimacy of these cobs has been debated, at this time they do seem to represent real examples of Ohio Hopewell corn. However, what has failed to materialize is widespread evidence of an intensive maize agriculture lifestyle that supported the mound- and earthwork-building activities of the Hopewell people.
Instead, abundant evidence has been collected suggesting that the Ohio Hopewell populations were food producers, but that they cultivated an extensive array of indigenous starchy and oily seeds instead of the three sisters. These crops have come to be known as the Eastern Agricultural Complex (EAC), and except for widespread use of squash (especially the bottle gourd (Langenaria sp.), but also relatives of the pumpkin and summer squashes, (Cucurbita pepo sp.)) and an occasional ear of corn, the EAC is composed of locally derived woodland species. Individual aspects of the complex appear to have evolved as domesticates in the Eastern Woodlands beginning between 3500-4500 BP, but did not take form as a fully integrated food producing system until the Early-Middle Woodland periods, approximately 2500-2000 years ago. The list of starchy seed plants includes Goosefoot (a type of chenopod, Chenopodium berlandieri), Maygrass (Phalaris caroliniana), Erect Knotweed (Polygonum erectum), and Little Barley (Hordeum pusillum), while the oily seed list includes only two plants, Sunflower ( Helianthus anum) and Marsh Elder (Iva annua).
Smithsonian archaeologist Bruce Smith refers to the EAC complex as a form of low-level food production, which probably contributed no more than 20-40% of the calories the Hopewell populations needed to sustain themselves. He believes that the EAC complex contributed a reliable and predictable food source for Hopewell populations, but at caloric levels far below those contributed by intensive agricultural systems based on maize, beans, and squash (or the wheat, barley, and lentils crop system of the Fertile Crescent). Rotating small garden patches, most likely relying on a slash-and-burn method for forest clearance, is the consensus view of how these crops were cultivated. No evidence, or need, seems to have existed for water supplementation such as irrigation canals. Wood charcoal evidence recovered from Hopewell earth ovens and storage pits indicates that the EAC crop system began to produce the first significant cultural effects on the mature Eastern Woodlands deciduous forest—effects that were considerably magnified by populations utilizing the same crop system, but much more extensively, during the following Late Woodland period, beginning after A.D. 400. It should also be noted that it was not until after about A.D. 900 that intensive agriculture centered on the three sisters took a serious foothold in Eastern Woodlands populations.
The relatively low caloric input from the EAC crops required Hopewell populations to maintain an active practice of collecting natural, seasonally occurring plants and animals; by necessity they continued to practice the hunting-gathering techniques evolved in innumerable local environments by their Archaic ancestors. Whether or not the Ohio Hopewell populations were tethered to the land by their crop system, and could therefore be considered a sedentary population as opposed to a seasonally mobile population, is a current point of major contention in the Hopewell literature. It is clear, though, that the limitations on sources of reliable protein created by the lack of domesticated animals in the Eastern Woodlands, as elsewhere throughout the Americas, put a premium on the hunting of large wild animal species during the Middle Woodland period. Of these wild animals, the white-tailed deer (Oedocoileus virginiana) is by far the most important game species, typically comprising over 75% of faunal remains recovered from Eastern Woodlands sites, Ohio Hopewell sites included. After deer, almost every conceivable mammal, fish, and bird species that could be hunted or collected was utilized. Turkey, elk, bear, rabbit, raccoon, and a variety of waterfowl, fish, and shellfish appear frequently in the faunal record alongside deer. On the plant side, emphasis appears to have been placed on collecting a variety of nuts, including hickories, walnuts, hazelnuts, and acorns. Likewise greens, tubers, and berries were also collected when seasonally available. The unique system of Hopewell land management has led some archaeologists to argue for a distinct Hopewell niche. They argue that the gardening system produced a synergistic effect on the landscape that increased the carrying capacity of local environments by creating artificial breaks in the mature climax deciduous forest. Abandoned garden patches promote the growth of forest edge plants such as berries and hazelnuts, which attract animals such as deer and raccoons. The higher local carrying capacity, combined with the EAC food production, may have provided these populations with the necessary resources to limit their seasonal mobility.
Even though evidence for this component of Ohio Hopewell culture is now relatively abundant, there remains a great deal of controversy surrounding the interpretation of settlement, social organization, and subsistence patterns. An index fossil artifact type that characterizes Ohio Hopewell sites is the small delicate blades, called bladelets, produced from prepared cores of the highest quality cherts and flints, like those found on Flint Ridge in Licking County, or the Harrison County cherts of southern Indiana. Evidence indicates that Ohio Hopewell populations were dispersed across the landscape in small family or extended family groups, rather than aggregating together in towns centering on the earthworks. Over 150 years of excavations at earthwork and mound centers failed to produce much evidence of permanent habitation at these sites. Consequently, it was Prufer who began to look for evidence of Hopewell habitations in the river valleys away from the great centers. His McGraw excavation, though admittedly limited to the midden deposit, formed the cornerstone for his central thesis that came to be known as the Vacant Center model. Prufer’s interpretative framework for Ohio Hopewell settlement patterns included the following key elements: (1) the general settlement pattern is based on territorially defined, vacant ceremonial centers, supported by dispersed dependent villages; (2) these dispersed habitation sites were small, consisting of no more than one to a few families, so he referred to them as hamlets or farmsteads; (3) the dispersed habitation sites were semi-permanent, meaning they shifted their households and gardens frequently, although specific locations were inhabited year round; (4) the dispersed habitation sites practiced some level of food production; and (5) these dispersed groups periodically congregated at the earthworks to conduct rituals, like the mound burials, which also served to socially integrate Hopewell communities and provide the interaction context for creating mating networks and other kinds of social bonds.
Additional research, especially in the Licking River Valley, 60 miles northeast of the Chillicothe region, has produced additional support for Prufer’s model. This research, conducted by William S. Dancey and Paul J. Pacheco, has produced a refinement and revision of Prufer’s model into what they call the Dispersed Sedentary Community-Vacant Ceremonial Center model of Ohio Hopewell community organization. However, some archaeologists argue that the available evidence can also be interpreted as supporting a view of Ohio Hopewell communities that moved seasonally as the resources they were dependent upon became available. Yet, all archaeologists are in general agreement that the Hopewell populations were neither dense nor plentiful in number. Thus, it is assumed that they represent a tribal society, most likely organized along the lines of segmentary lineages. The conundrum of building massive earthworks and mounds, even if they were built slowly over time, all the while relying on potential natural resource fluctuations, remains a central mystery for those attempting to understand Ohio Hopewell.
Demise
The demise of Ohio Hopewell from the archaeological record has long been considered a classic example of cultural collapse. Internal conflict, invasion by outsiders, climate change in the direction of cooler temperatures, population pressures, adaptive transformation, and even simple cultural fatigue have all been offered as explanations for the demise of the Hopewell. Yet, none of these explanations is fully accepted or supported by available evidence.
Some archaeologists see these changes occurring in what were formerly Adena groups, peripheral to Hopewell, as perhaps central to an explanation for the Hopewellian demise. Throughout the middle Ohio Valley, beginning as early as A.D. 300, a new kind of cultural arrangement in the form of aggregated villages was spreading, ultimately at the expense of Hopewellian communities. These village communities continued to cultivate EAC crops but did so more extensively, utilizing the greater manpower available in village arrangements to make larger garden patches, and presumably extracting a greater caloric return from the crop system. The necessity for hunting and gathering was, of course, never eliminated in these populations, even when they began to farm the three sisters, because of the lack of domesticated animals to provide a reliable source of protein. In this scenario, Hopewell populations are simply replaced, or out-competed by the new social arrangement. It is also true, however, that the social integrative function of Hopewell earthworks and mound centers is replaced in nucleated villages by the day-to-day, face-to-face interaction of the community. Whatever explanation is finally accepted for the end of Hopewell, it is clear that after about 600 years of stability, by approximately A.D. 400, the earthworks and mounds we attribute to Ohio Hopewell were no longer being built in the Ohio core area.
References:
- Byers, A. M. (2004). The Ohio Hopewell episode: Paradigm lost, paradigm gained. Akron: University of Akron Press.
- DeBoer, W. R. (2004). Little Bighorn on the Scioto: The Rocky Mountain connection to Ohio Hopewell. American Antiquity, 69(1), 85-107.
- Romain, W. F. (2000). Mysteries of the Hopewell: Astronomers, geometers, and magicians of the Eastern Woodlands. Akron: University of Akron Press.
- Woodward, S. L., & McDonald, J. N. (2002). Indian mounds of the middle Ohio Valley: A guide to the mounds and earthworks of the Adena, Hopewell, Cole, and Ft. Ancient people. Newark: McDonald and Woodward Publishing.
