Hopewell Mound Group: Cultural Landscape Inventory, Hopewell Culture National Historical Park, National Park Service

Hopewell Culture National Historical Park is located in Ross County, near the town of Chillicothe in south-central Ohio. The 270-acre Hopewell Mound Group is one of the park’s five noncontiguous mound sites, together containing a total of 1,170 acres. Situated along the North Fork of Paint Creek, the mound group landscape is considered to be one of the most singly important sites in Ohio, as well as in New World prehistory. This earthwork served as the “type-site” for the Hopewell culture, since excavations performed here would establish the framework of what is now classified as the Hopewell culture. The period of significance for the Hopewell Mound Group corresponds to the period during which Native Americans of the Hopewell culture occupied the Ohio Valley, approximately 200 B.C. to 500 A.D. In the cultural landscape inventory, the term Hopewell is used to describe a broad network of beliefs and practices shared by different Native American groups over a large portion of eastern North America. The culture is characterized by the construction of enclosures made of earthen walls, often built in geometric patterns, and mounds of various shapes. The Hopewell culture is also displays extensive trade networks and use of waterways to import goods from distances as far as the Rocky Mountains and parts of the Atlantic coast. The Hopewell Mound Group is significant for its distinctive construction, as well as for having yielded a considerable amount of prehistoric information. The mounds demonstrate the complexity and stability of the culture, highly specialized and able to organize elaborate construction efforts. This particular site appears to have been a corporate center for a variety of activities, including the ceremonial preparation and burial of the dead. At least eighty-five burials have been removed from the site, including both extended burials and cremations. Although no written records remain from the Hopewell peoples, the earthworks and archeological remnants contribute to a fuller image of this prehistoric culture. This earthwork was named for Mordecai Hopewell, the landowner whose property included the Hopewell Mound Group. The landscape has the general shape of a parallelogram, 1,800 feet long on the east and west sides and 2,800 feet long on the north and south. Archaeologists estimated that the walls were originally 35 feet wide at the base and enclosed an area of 111 acres. A smaller square enclosure is connected to the east side of the parallelogram. Remnants of the east, west and north walls are still visible. Two earthwork features are located within the earthen parallelogram, one circular and one D-shaped. Three of the seven mounds in the D-shaped enclosure are joined. Their original size is estimated to be 500 feet long, 180 feet wide, and 30 feet tall, making this the largest known mound constructed by the Hopewell culture. The Hopewell Mound Group has been subjected to numerous excavations since at least 1845, and possibly as early as 1820. Negative impacts to the site include archeological excavations, pot hunting, erosion, vegetation, animal infestation, agriculture, railroad construction, and modern development. Despite extensive excavations and significant landscape alterations, the site still offers considerable possibilities for expanding knowledge about the social, ceremonial, political, and economic life of the Hopewell people.