Hopewellian Copper Earspools from Eastern North America

Building the Ohio Hopewell Chronology: An Incremental Approach to Historical Reckoning

“…The floor deposit at Tremper may be the scene of the earliest large-scale Ohio Hopewell ritual events given that Class 1 and Class 2 AMS dates from the Tremper mound floor are slightly earlier than any of the Class 1 and Class 2 dates from the two best-dated mounds at Mound City—specifically, Mound 10 and Mound 13. This early position of Tremper fits with most previous analyses based on stylistic and trait list similarities (e.g., Prufer 1968:148–149; Ruhl 1996; Seeman 1977; Shetrone and Greenman 1931:493; Webb and Snow 1945:204–217; see also Gehlback 1988), and also, with gorget and pipe styles from Tremper that occur in early Havana Hopewellian contexts to the west (Farnsworth 2004:414; Farnsworth et al 2016; Meinkoth 1995:55; Tankersley et al 1990:223–224). At Tremper, in contrast to Mound City, most of the platform pipes were made of exotic western Illinois Sterling pipestone and Minnesota catlinite, and they equally mark the introduction of new platform pipe styles with deeper temporal roots in the Illinois Valley (Emerson et al 2013; Farnsworth et al 2021).…”

“…The ending of activities at Seip circa 1640 14 C years BP, or 355–500 AD as modeled, is consistent with the presence of certain object stylizations, including steatite Copena-style pipes and also plummets similar to those found at Crystal River, Cincinnati, and Mann Mound 3 (Thompson et al 2017:202). The six Turner dates, although a small sample, suggest that site differences when compared to Scioto Valley centers may have more to do with distance than time, contrary to previous discussions based in large part on artifact styles that have placed Turner as the latest of the major site centers (Prufer 1968:148–149; Ruhl 1996).…”

“…The temporal relationships among the Big Six have been examined previously. This began with a comparison of trait lists (Shetrone and Greenman 1931; Webb and Snow 1945) and was followed by chronologies based on some of the earliest 14 C dates (Griffin 1958; Prufer 1968), and even later, examinations of stylistic cross-ties (Seeman 1977), seriations (Ruhl 1996), and obsidian hydration (Hughes 1992; Stevenson et al 2004). Beyond noting that Tremper is early in the sequence, there is little agreement, prompting (Griffin 1983:264) to state that all such chronology-building efforts were inconclusive, and Lynott (2015:60) to comment that “ Ohio Hopewell archaeology suffers from a disarray of radiocarbon results.” By assembling a comprehensive dataset and evaluating it from the perspective of temporal hygiene, we begin to unmuddy these waters.…”