The Hopewell Culture of Ohio (100BCE-500CE): A Brief Survey of Copper Ear Spools
Researching the Eastern Woodland cultures is a bit dry; no human sacrifices, no giant temples, no crazy gold/silver/jeweled stuff. For the most part, these cultures came into existence, then were not in existence, and time moved on while history only mentions then every now and then. It's no wonder that I'd never heard of these guys. Most of the articles I came across were dry as toast, barren of personality, especially the ones printed in scholarly journals. However, trudging through a couple articles and reports, one discovers that the Eastern Woodland cultures made some very interesting creations which warrant a closer look at them. This little essay explores the Hopewell culture of the Ohio area who produced and wore beautiful copper ear spools.So first, who are these Hopewell people? Quite possibly, many readers of this paper have never heard of the Eastern Woodland people or the Hopewell before. (Perhaps you Ohioans know a thing or two, though). They lived around the area east of the Mississippi River in what is now Ohio, Illinois, extending on up to Iowa. They continued the mound-building traditions of the Adena people (1000BCE-100CE, the culture that built the Great Serpent Mound in southern Ohio) and built ceremonial and burial mounds in the shapes of circles, squares, and octagons (Ohio). From these mounds archaeologists have pulled many objects which tell of how the Hopewell people lived, what they held dear, how they organized their society, and how they perceived the dead and ancestors. Like other forest dwellers (These areas used to be heavily forested, though not much anymore.), the Hopewell took most of what they needed from the earth, the trees, and animals. They had an organized society, for the large earthworks would require groups of people to mobilize and work together to build. They revered the dead, as the mounds stand testament to their commitment to honor ancestors with a lasting effigy. And last, some objects found inside the mounds tell of extensive trade with far away places: mica from North Carolina, obsidian from Wyoming, and copper from Lake Superior (“Expeditions”). What is unfortunately not in the mounds are items of everyday use. Warren K. Moorehead, the premier archaeologist of the Hopewell mounds during the late part of the 19th century, wrote that “the majority of the forms are both well worked and highly polished and in addition they represent complicated forms. In brief, little that was common or ordinary seems to have been placed in mounds...”(“Stone” 230). Unlike a site like Pompeii, Italy where daily and ceremonial life have been frozen in time under layers of ash, most of what the Hopewell people were has decayed over time, with only the ceremonial and ritualistic ones surviving in the mounds.
Among the ritual objects in the mounds, the copper ear spools are of special interest which have been recovered from numerous mounds. In fact, spools of similar construction to those found at the Hopewell sites have been unearthed from Wisconsin to Florida (Ruhl and Seeman). Size and complexity of these spools vary between 2 and 6cm, with 4cm being the average size (“Expeditions”). Visual designs varied greatly, as did the techniques used for construction of the spools. Figure 1 (below) illustrates the construction of an earspool.
In a report for American Antiquity, authors Ruhl and Seeman write, “[S]tyle types correlated with increasing ear spool diameter, with changes in certain construction details, and with the location of ear spools within graves (653).” What can be deduced from this observation then is that the Hopewell used ears spools as symbols of status or power, societal organization, and importance within the group. In the same article, Ruhl and Seeman also point out that all the ear spools which are currently known come from some kind of ceremonial or burial area, with both male and female bodies possessing spools. It is interesting to note that the spools were not only found near the ears, but in extended burials (burials where the body is lying down with the legs outstretched), spools are found placed in the hands or around the body. The shape of the spool to a viewer is that of a ring, thought to be a significant shape in the Hopewell culture, as it occurs over and over again throughout the society. As time passed, the ring remained present, but there was a shift toward over time toward spools which were more impressive and yet more cheaply made. (Ruhl and Seeman)(“The Hopewell”)
The Hopewell are one of many North American cultures who practiced the art of what Professor Lucien Carr referred to as “bodily mutilation, or, if the term be preferred, of ornamentation,” by decorating their ears with unique copper ear spools (“Stone” 251).
Figure 2: Copper and shell objects. The Field Museum, A108265c; Cat. Nos. 56080, 56091, 56114, 56128, 56200, 56201, 56371, and 56751. (Note: The objects pictured above are from several different proveniences within the Hopewell site.)(“Hopewell”)
Works Cited
Moorehead, Warren K. Stone Ornaments Used By Indians in the United States and Canada. 1917. Davenport: Gustav's Library, 2005.
Moorehead, Warren K. The Hopewell Mound Group of Ohio. 1922. Davenport: Gustav's Library, 2005. 15 Sept. 2008 <http://stoneartifact.comearspools.jpg>.
Ohio History Central. “Hopewell Culture.” 2008. 16 Sept. 2008
<http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/entry.php?rec=1283>.
Ruhl, Katharine C., and Mark F. Seeman. "The Temporal and Social Implications of Ohio Hopewell Copper Ear Spool Design." American Antiquity 63 Oct. 1998: 651-662. JSTOR. Society for American Archaeology. Univ. of Richmond Libraries, Richmond, VA. 21 May 2008 <http://newman.richmond.edu:2125>.
United States. Dept. of the Interior. National Park Service. “Expeditions into Ohio's Past.” 30 May 2008. 16 Sept. 2008 <http://www.nps.gov/hocu/forteachers/curriculummaterials.htm>.
United States. Dept. of the Interior. National Park Service. “Hopewell Archaeology.” 1 Sept. 2004. 15 Sept. 2008 <http://www.nps.gov/history/mwac/hopewell/v6n1/three.htm>.