Archaeoastronomy and Landscape at the Hopeton Earthworks, Ross County,
Ohio
Paper presented at the annual Society
of American Archaeology conference, 2001 April, New Orleans
Christopher S. Turner
We will be looking at landscape in Ross Co. Ohio. The greatest
concentration of earthworks in the US occurred here. I call your attention to
the clustering of mounds called the Chillicothe NW group.[1]
Here was the type-site Adena mound, containing the well-known tubular pipe. In
this Squier and Davis draft[2],
the Scioto River is the principal feature. Seen are the Chillicothe NW group,
the Reformatory Circle, Mound City, Hopeton, and the hills or small mountains
to the east side of the valley. Note that the highest peak, Mt Logan, has a
mound on its summit.
The river winds through the
glacial terraces, passing at Chillicothe from the glaciated plains of central
Ohio to the unglaciated highlands of the Ohio River valley area. It was at this
fecund ecotone, that Paleo and Archaic peoples left their traces.
Evidence of Early Woodland occupation is abundant.
Chillicothe was a primary focus of the Adena culture, named for the type-site
Adena mound located here. Terminal Archaic/incipient Early Woodland diagnostic
artifacts from this vicinity suggest at least seasonal occupation from 1000 BC.
Adena inhabitants would have been familiar with the Great Seal Range opposite
them in the valley.[3]
This ridge presented such a dramatic view to early European settlers that the
first governor, having built his mansion on the bluffs overlooking the Adena
mound, from there conceived the Great Seal of the State of Ohio. Curiously,
this image captures exactly what the Hopewell observed as they monitored
sunrise over the same mountain range.
Going east from Adena onto the glacial terraces, the
Great Seal Range appears larger. It was here that the Hopewell constructed the
Mound City cemetery.[4]
Mound City has absolute dates ranging from the first century BC to the second century AD. South of Mound City was a large imperfect
circle, now worn and ignored in the farm fields of a nearby prison, hence its
name: the Reformatory Circle .[5]
Prior to its destruction, no accurate surveys were made of its design. These
Squier and Davis maps are good to indicate general form, but lack sufficient
accuracy to make archaeoastronomical analyses.
The mimetic quality of the tumuli at Mound City has long
been noted.[6]
This is Sugarloaf behind mound #13. Perhaps it was from Mound City that the
decision was made to create Hopeton. As we shall see, Hopeton was uniquely
adapted to the Great Seal range. The range is simply too far from Mound City to
index all of the year’s sunrises along the horizon.
Hopeton is one of about what was once a score of large
geometrical earthworks.[7]
It is one of the few of such groups that survives, albeit in a worn down
state. It is one of the few that has
reliable carbon dates: the earthwork was constructed, at least initially, in
the first century AD. , later than the Adena type-site and the earliest dates
for Mound City.
In another paper, I posit that Hopeton[8]
and the Newark Ohio Fairground Circle were the two earliest constructed of the
Hopewell Geometric Earthworks. They both index the May Cross Quarter date.[9],[10]
The Eastern Agricultural Complex was becoming, or had become, a primary staple
by this time, and these calendrical monuments were likely built in response to
the need for accuracy in subsistence scheduling.[11]
Detailed discussion of this topic is outside the range of this presentation.
These are the Hopeton rising sightlines I computed in
1983.[12]
. Shown are the summer solstice rise,
the North Lunar Maximum, the North Lunar Minimum, Equinox, and the South
Lunar Minimum.
The eastern wall is curved
slightly, as if focused on gateway 3. The gateway is backsight for the largest
number of rising events at Hopeton.
Could Hopeton have originally been intended as a singular
backsight, with a single long wall with breaks to mark the foresights? [13]Had
this been so, the wall would have had to have been over 2000 feet in length to include
the winter solstice and the South Lunar Maximum events. This would have been
precluded by the topography of nearby Dry Run.[14]
By folding the wall back on itself, the calendrical azimuths in question could have
foresights established in a more compact form.[15]
Lastly, by developing additional backsights, the entire range of rising
phenomena could be indexed in a relatively small area.[16]
The NW corner of the Hopeton polygon became the backsight for the Winter
Solstice rise.[17]
The use of the gap between Bunker Hill and Mt. Ives[18]
is strongly indicative of the intentional use of extant landscape features as
horizon foresights for the indexing of calendrical dates.[19]
Hopeton ws doubtlessly placed to utilize this gap.[20]
The north and south sides of Hopeton act as sightlines
for the May Cross Quarter date.8 As at
the Newark Fairground Circle, this the most civically salient calendrical date
is easy to identify, as compared to the matrix of solar and lunar dates marked
at Hopeton and other geometric earthworks. To me, this suggests that the
primary function was to mark planting time for the dispersed hamlets, this
without the risk of creating a “Big Man”. Anyone could locate and sight along
the axis of the Fairground Circle or sight along the north or south sides of
Hopeton. Hence the basic shape of the Hopeton polygon can be deduced from
observational parameters, with social processes inductively examined.
Berle Clay has modeled Adena mound distributions in
Kentucky as peripheral to the territories of multiple mobile bands.[21]
Pacheco / Dancey Hopewell models interpret Ohio Hopewell Geometric Earthwork
loci as being corporate centers for the dispersed hamlets.[22]
I believe that the Newark geometric earthworks, Hopeton,
and perhaps others were so-located to take advantage of horizon foresight
features. Consider Hopeton:14 it
could only be placed exactly where it is:
·
Further west would have subjected it to inundation. All of
the Ohio groups are placed on the highest of the locally available terraces.
·
It could not be placed further east, not even a little, as
the land is hilly and broken as it approaches the Great Seal Range.
·
Further south, and the aforementioned Dry Run intervenes.
·
While there is some leeway, had Hopeton been placed further
north, the use of the Great Seal Range to mark the summer solstice rise would
have been lost entirely.23,24,25
So
what is possible here is this: Adena/Hopewell occupied the west side of the
valley .There was a movement toward and an adapting to the Great Seal Range,
culminating in the creation of the Hopeton calendar. This is further suggested
by the apparent alignment of four Hopewell enclosures.26 Note that I say alignment and not
sightline. These four polygons are more or less axially aligned, themselves and
one to the other.
The Reformatory Circle5
may have been a preliminary attempt, this from the west side of the river, at
monitoring sunrise along the Great Seal Range. This site, like Mound 43 and
others in the Chillicothe NW group, show mixed Adena/ Hopewell traits. Here were copper bracelets and mica together. The
Hopewell style basin was made not of clay, but of packed sand. The central
tumulus is not found in Hopewell, and it contained no sand strata as at many
Mound City mounds. A ditched enclosure is uncommon in Hopewell compared to
Adena, yet it is of the monumental dimensions found in Hopewell. Fayette
thick-like pottery finds add to the unusual mix.
I disagree with Berle Clay’s classing this site with the
Peter Village enclosure.27 Is this
not rather a transitional Adena-Hopewell geometric-calendrical earthwork,
perhaps THE earliest?
In manipulating a set of backsights and foresights at
Hopeton, the Hopewell arrived at a closed polygonal earthwork. This was the
precursor to and the progenitor of all later more refined Hopewell shapes.28 There is at Hopeton no attempt at
geometric regularity, yet the enclosure is replete with sightlines. Subsequent
squares29 and octagon30, while yielding a geometric symbolism,
incorporated fewer accurate sightlines than the freeform Hopeton group.
In 1983, I mapped scattered FCR concentrations on the
Great Seal Range.31 Many correspond with
Hopeton sightlines. All rising phenomena from Hopeton are keyed to either these
FCR concentrations or topographic features, i.e. gaps or peaks. On the ridge,
associates of the Hopeton skywatchers set and managed signal fires on the
appropriate calendrical dates. These burned stone cairns were fixed accurate
foresights when ablaze. Their presence lends a time element to the ridge: when
on Sugarloaf by the summer solstice cairn, one can then travel to the equinox
area on Sand Hill, where there are burned sandstone outcroppings, and then on
to the winter solstice gap at Mt. Ives. Hence to walk the ridge is to pass
through the entire year. Keepers of these fires would have had strong seasonal
associations with the cairn loci, as would the observers at Hopeton itself,
when using particular sightlines at particular seasons only.
Out of the range of Hopeton rising events is the mound
atop Mt. Logan.32 It had been vandalized
by Squier and Davis times, but warrants further investigation before it is
gone. It is on private land. The classic Adena postmold pattern may be beneath,
perhaps yielding insight into Adena calendrical observations.33
Lastly, a comment on trails as landscape defining
features. I believe that Lepper’s Great Hopewell Road, not the embankments but
the trail per se, is the local section of the much larger Natchez Trace. They
are on exactly the same azimuth. The Trace was probably in full form c.400BC.
Along its length between the Newark-Flint Ridge area and Natchez Mississippi
are Adena, Hopewell, McFarland, Copena, and Miller sites, including Bynum and
Pharr, with Marksville quite close to Natchez34
itself, all showing strong Hopewell presence. The Camino Real35 left Natchez for Mexico. Along it at
the Texas-Louisiana border the Coral Snake Mound yielded copper including an
earspool, and this Marksville-style ceramic36,37.
Just as the local landscape in Chillicothe was a matrix
of “known places, places of reference”,3
so the trails were corridors of familiarity, each being a “piece of home” so
long as it was contiguous with the trail.2
Due to its prominence along the trail, Sugarloaf was a
place of great importance. Its top must have been stripped bare of trees, where
great fires burned to aid in signaling. None of the Hopeton calendrical
sightlines use Sugarloaf’s peak. I believe this was intentionally done to not
confuse the two functions of signaling and calendrics.
Social processes can be deduced from landscape. For
instance, exacting control of peak and ridge signal fires would demand the
agreement from the populace that these areas were off-limits to
non-specialists. Increasing acreage of EAC cultivar plots would have been
allotted to an increasing population by clan heads or chiefs.
Whatever chiefdoms existed in Ohio Hopewell were
dwindling c. AD 450.38
Enclosures were no longer constructed, elaborate burials ceased, exotic item
use declined. EAC farming, though, increased,
with subsequent Newtown villages, though lacking in hierarchy as at
later Mississippian sites. The increased sedentism and nucleation in Newtown
indicates that the people were being tethered to the local landscape, almost
certainly because of their EAC farming, leaving behind the centuries old trail
and the associated exotic procurement. Though these clans diminished,
skywatcher clans likely continued on. Absolute dates at some enclosures span
the entire Late Woodland. Ft. Ancient
villages were by Baum and near Hopeton. At Ft. Ancient itself, the Kern
effigies39, marking solstice, were constructed c.
AD 1100. Thus the use of horizon calendars can be surmised from Early Woodland
Adena ridgetop observation areas, through Hopewell, to Ft. Ancient.
In Hopewell, mortuary model
paradigms are overemphasized. The role of skywatcher clans has been virtually
ignored. The current symbolism heavy “cult of the dead” versions of Hopewell
must continue to give way to broader interpretations.
REFERENCES
Carskadden, Jeff and
James Morton
1996 The Middle Woodland-Late
Woodland Transition in the Central
Muskingum Valley of
Eastern Ohio: A View from the Philo Archaeological
District. In View from the Core: A Synthesis of Ohio
Hopewell
Archaeology, edited by Paul J. Pacheco, pp. 318-405.
Ohio Archaeological
Council, Columbus, Ohio.
Church, Flora
1997
Beyond
the Scioto Valley: Middle Woodland Occupations in the Salt
Creek Drainage. In Ohio Hopewell
Community Organization, edited by William S. Dancey and Paul J. Pacheco.,
pp. 332-363. Kent State University Press, Kent, Ohio.
Clay, R. Berle
1986
Circles
and Ovals: Two Types of Adena Space. Southeastern
Archaeology
6:46-56.
1991
Adena
Ritual Development: An Organizational Type in a Temporal
Perspective. In The Human
Landscape in Kentucky’s Past: Site
Structure and Settlement
Patterns, edited by Charles
Stout and Christine Henley, pp. 30-39. Kentucky Heritage Council, Frankfort,
Kentucky.
Dancey, William S.
and Paul J. Pacheco
1997
A Community Model of Hopewell Settlement. In Ohio Hopewell
Community Organization, edited by William S. Dancey and Paul J.
Pacheco, pp. 9-40. Kent State University Press, Kent, Ohio
Greber, N’omi B
1991 A
Study of Continuity and Contrast Between Central Scioto Adena and
Hopewell Sites. West Virginia
Archaeologist 43(1&2):1-26.
1999 Combining Geophysics and
Ground Truth at High Bank Earthworks, Ross
County, Ohio. Ohio Archaeological
Council Newsletter, 11(1):8-12,
Columbus.
Hively, Ray and Robert
Horn
1982
Geometry
and Astronomy in Prehistoric Ohio. Archaeoastronomy
supplement to the Journal for the
History of Astronomy 13(4):S1-S20.
Holmes, W.H.,
1892, “Notes Upon Some Geometric Earthworks, with
Contour Maps”, American
Anthropologist, v:363-373.
Jensen, Harold P.
Jr.
1968 Coral Snake Mound. Bulletin of the Texas Archaeological Society 39:9-44.
Lepper, Bradley T
1998a The Archaeology of the Newark Earthworks. In Ancient Earthen
Enclosures of the Eastern
Woodlands, edited by Robert
C. Mainfort and Lynne P. Sullivan, pp.
114-134. University Press of Florida, Gainesville.
Myer, William E.
1928
Indian
Trails of the Southeast. Bureau of
Ethnology Annual Report
volume 42:727-854.
Mills, W.C.
1914 Archaeological
Atlas of Ohio, Columbus,
Ohio.
Pickard, W.H. and L.A.G. Pahdopony
1995
Paradise Regained and Lost Again:the Anderson Earthwork, Ross
County,
Ohio (33Ro551). Hopewell
Archaeology: the Newsletter of Hopewell
Archaeology in the Ohio River Valley 1(2):3-6.
Ruby, Bret J.
1996
Current
Research at Hopewell Culture National Historical Park. In
Hopewell Archaeology: The
Newsletter of Hopewell Archaeology in the Ohio River Valley, Volume 2(2), October 1997, edited by Bret
J. Ruby and Mark Lynott. The National Park Service Midwest Archaeological
Center and Hopewell Culture National Historical Park, Lincoln, Nebraska and
Chillicothe, Ohio.
Thomas, Cyrus
1894
Report on the Mound Explorations of the Bureau of Ethnology. Twelfth
Annual Report of the Bureau of American
Ethnology, Washington DC.
Turner, Christopher
S.
1982
Hopewell
Archaeoastronomy. Archaeoastronomy
5(3):9.
Center for Archaeoastronomy, College Park, Maryland.
1983
An Astronomical Interpretation of the Hopeton
Earthworks.
Manuscript on file at the Hopewell
Culture National Historical Park,
Chillicothe, Ohio; and at the Ohio
Historical Center, Columbus.
1999 Calendrical Sightlines at the Hopeton
Earthworks. Paper presented at the
66th Annual Meeting of the Eastern States Archaeological
Federation,
Kings Island, Ohio.
2000 Hopewell Subsistence
Scheduling: The Ohio Geometric Earthworks as
Calendrical Devices. Poster presented at the Perspectives on the Middle
Woodland at the Millenium Conference, Center for American Archaeology,
held at Pere Marquette State Park, Grafton, Illinois, July 2000.
White, John R.
1986
The Kern Effigy: Evidence for a Prehistoric Ft Ancient Summer Solstice
Marker. North American Archaeologist 7(2):137-165.
1987
Kern
Effigy #2: A Ft Ancient Winter Solstice Marker?
Midcontinental Journal of
Archaeology 12(2):225-239.
FIGURES
1. From Mills Archaeological Atlas of Ohio. Area north
of Chillicothe, Ross Co. Dense concentration of mounds called “Chillicothe
Northwest Group” by Greber (1991).
2.
Draft version of Squier and Davis map, Chillicothe environs. Hopeton,
Mound City, Rerformatory Circle and the Chillicothe NW group are all visible in
this and figure one (Library of Congress Archives).
3. photo: View of Great Seal Range from Adena
estate area.
4. photo: Mound City, December 2000.
5. Squier and Davis (1848) map of Mound City
and the Reformatory Circle.
6 photo:
Mound City, with Sugarloaf Mountain behind Mound 13.
7. Squier and Davis map of the Hopeton earthworks.
8. Hopeton with “May Day” sightlines plotted.
9. Newark Ohio Fairground Circle with
sightline plotted (map from Holmes 1891).
10. photo: Sunrise at
Fairground Circle.
11. Chronology chart
showing use of Eastern Agricultural Complex vs. maize.
12. Rising events at
Hopeton (plotted on Thomas (1894) map).
13. Proposed early
version of Hopeton.
14. Immediate
surroundings at Hopeton (USGS).
15. Proposed development
of Hopeton polygon.
16. First use of
multiple backsights (proposed).
17. Squier and Davis map
of Hopeton with winter solstice rise plotted.
18.
photo: Just before dawn at winter solstice 1998. Note marker spotlight.
19. photo: Crack of
dawn…
20. photo: Telephoto of
same showing gap in mountains. See figure 31 also.
21. From Clay (1991), indicates model of Adena
earthwork distribution (figure “b”). Clay
suggests that.Kentucky Adena mortuary mounds witness “the need for the
type of intergroup alliances expressed in
ritual monuments”.
22. From Dancey &
Pacheco(1997), indicates model of Hopewell enclosure distribution. Model posits enclosures as corporate centers.
For Hopewell habitation without such “centers” see Church (1997), Carskadden
and Morton (1996).
23. Squier and Davis map of Hopeton showing
summer solstice rise sightline.
24. Before sunrise, summer solstice 1999. Note
marker light.
25. Sunrise.
|
26. Schematic map indicating
relative positions of four earthworks:
1.Hopewell
type site
2.Anderson
3.Mound
City
4.Hopeton
27. Clay (1987:51). The
Reformatory Circle was a contemporary perhaps, but nothing of the “mining camp”
descriptions attending the Peter Village enclosure pertain to it.
28. Three plats from
Thomas (1894). Best absolute dates suggests a microchronology consistent with
an advancing geometric expression. (Hopeton, High Bank, Newark Octagon)
29. Rising events author
calculated in December 1982 for the Baum earthworks. Solstices only. Square.
30. Lunar sightlines as
plotted from Hively and Horn (1982). Achieving a near-regular octagon came at
the expense of excluding solar events; viz:Hopeton & High Bank.
31. USGS 7.5’ Great Seal
Range. Indicated are FCR loci per Turner (1983).
32. Photographed
December 2000. On top of Mt. Logan.
33. Postmold pattern
from the Robbins mound.
34. Once extant trails
in the vicinity of Natchez, Ms. From Myer (1928).
35. The Camino Real, the
great trail leading to Mexico from Natchez.
36, 37. Hopewell style ware from the Coral Snake
Mound, at the Texas-Louisiana border along the Camino Real (Jensen 1968).
38. Timeline suggests
the continuance of any skywatcher clans after the demise of trade/mortuary
heirarchies.
39. From White (1987), map
showing location of the Kern effigies.
Figure 19. This is the crack
of dawn at the Hopeton Earthworks, December 1998, as seen from gateway 5,
siting toward gateway 11, the location of the spotlight marker in the distance.
The gap along the horizon is between Bunker Hill to the left or north, and Mt.
Ives to the right or south. The patterns in the foreground were made by dragging
my feet on the frost on the grass. It was very cold out. The mountain at far
right is Mt. Logan.
Figure 20. Telephoto view of
the solstice sunrise at Hopeton as seen between Bunker Hill on the left and the
two northern peaks of Mt. Ives on the right. Taken December 1998 from gateway 5
at Hopeton.
Figure 25. When I had first
tried to observe this, circa 1980-2, the site was under private ownership.
It was very rewarding to
finally witness this sunrise and others at Hopeton in 1998-99. The above image
was of the first such
event, evoking the beauty of
the enriching experience.
[1]
From Mills Archaeological Atlas of Ohio.
[2]
Draft version of Squier and Davis map, Chillicothe environs.
[3]
View of Great Seal Range from Adena estate area.
[4]
Mound City, December 2000.
[5]
Squier and Davis map of Mound City and the Reformatory Circle.
[6]
Mound City, with Sugarloaf Mountain behind Mound 13.
[7]
Squier and Davis map of the Hopeton earthworks.
[8]
Hopeton with “May Day” sightlines plotted.
[9]
Newark Ohio Fairground Circle with sightline plotted.
[10]
Sunrise at Fairground Circle.
[11]
Chronology chart showing use of Eastern Agricultural Complex vs. maize.
[12]
Rising events at Hopeton.
[13]
Proposed early version of Hopeton.
[14]
Immediate surroundings at Hopeton (USGS).
[15]
Proposed development of hopeton polygon.
[16]
First use of multiple backsights (proposed).
[17] Squier and Davis map of Hopeton with winter
solstice rise plotted.
[18]
Just before dawn at winter solstice 1998. Note marker spotlight.
[19]
Crack of dawn…
[20]
Telephoto of same showing gap in mountains. See figure 31 also.
[21] From Clay (19xx), indicates model of Adena
earthwork distribution (figure “b”).
[22] From XX (19xx), indicates model of Hopewell
enclosure distribution.
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