Mound Builders, Hopewell Culture

PreColumbian Cultures of North America

Mound Builders, Hopewell Culture

                People of the Hopewell tradition were ancestral to many modern Indian nations. I believe that they are representative of a culture extending farther back then the time of mega fauna and the atlatl. They  had maintained a recognizable way of life going back thousands of years, perhaps 10,000 and more years.

                The Hopewell people were a Native America culture that flourished in settlements mostly along the Mississippi River, the Ohio, and  Missouri and their tributaries from about 100 BC to about 400 AD. There is evidence that they continued almost intact for another 100 years. It was a dispersed culture which traded widely and were connected by that trade. However, they also had much commerce with other cultures.

                Mega-fauna existed well after the Pleistocene, but seemed to have flourished during part of that time. The Pleistocene existed during periods of Ice Ages about 2,580,000 BP to about 11,700 BP. That is one might say it ended just before Noah's flood. We do not yet have much evidence of the doings of people during those days.

                I believe that ancestors of the Hopewell did use the atlatl to successfully hunt what we might call giant animals. Today an atlatl is often call a spear thrower and that is what it is. It is a simple implement with which to launch a spear. There are some who use it for hobby or sport today and who say it is much more powerful than any bow and arrow. It  is most often used a much closer range than a good bow may be used.

Their are tribes today still remember songs or chants of their hunters using the atlatl to kill animals which do not exist today. I believes the the families and their tribe ate well.

                By the way an animal called mega-fauna which weighed 100 pounds was called small. A sizeable one might weigh 3,000 pounds. Most of them in most places were extinct after about 40,000 BP. Could direct ancestors of the Hopewell been hunting mega-fauna before the end of our recent Ice AGE. Many of them were much like animals existing today but much larger. I have heard of Indians hunting an animal the size of an elephant, but looking like a sloth, a ground sloth. When did that happen. Some say that there was mega-fauna around only 300 years ago. Mass extinctions certainly happened long before than. However, if you check around you may find that in North America there was a variety of mega-fauna living at least as recently as 13,000 BP. Anyway, at a certain and a certain place, there certain mega-fauna eaten by certain people less than 1,000 years ago. Please let me know what you discover.

                Well, back to the Hopewell about the time of Christ or a little before. Then, and even after 500 AD the Hopewell people like many other Native Americans were matrilineal. As an example, in such cultures a man and a woman might have joined under the name of the woman's family. The children of such a union may have had the responsibilities and privileges of the female line. If I, as a male, were a married member of the culture my surname would likely become that of my wife's mother, grand mother and great grandmother. My children might bear that name. The land we lived on might be affiliated with that name. I might be known for the doings of my mother's family. I have not describe the Hopewell here, but rather have given an example of matrilineality .

                I am far from sure of the ways matrilineality of the Hopewell affected their culture.Tell me what you know or find out. By doing so we may both learn more of how our patrilineality affects us. The wise have often told the value of self-knowledge.

                The Hopewell have been called Mound Builders and came from a long line of such builders of earthworks. They built more than elaborate mounds. They also made tools, and artworks of stone, wood, bone, cooper, and a number of other materials.They also remembered how to make an atlatl.

                Evidence of their works and commerce have been discovered from the tip of what is now Florida and the mouth of the Mississippi to the Great Lakes, and from the Rocky Mountains to the Appalachian Mountains. Some say to the Atlantic Coast of North America.

 

                    More on this blog.

 

 

 

                                                        RCS