Encyclopedia of Native American Tribes

MOUND BUILDERS 179
nuh, comes from an estate near Chillicothe, Ohio, where
a large mound stands. The peoples of the Adena culture
also built mounds in territory that is now Kentucky,
West Virginia, Indiana, Pennsylvania, and New York,
primarily along the Ohio valley.
Most of the Adena earthworks were burial mounds.
Earthen hillocks were built up over burial pits or loglined
tombs. To make these imposing mounds in honor
of their deceased leaders, the Indians dug up earth with
sticks, bones, and shells and carried it to the burial site in
woven baskets or animal-skin bags. With each new burial,
another layer of dirt was dumped on a mound, making
it even higher.
Adena Indians buried objects along with their leaders,
just as the ancient Egyptians buried objects with their
pharaohs under the great pyramids. At Adena sites,
archaeologists have found beautifully crafted tools and
ceremonial objects, including a wide range of stone,
wood, bone, and copper tools; pottery; cloth woven
from plant fibers; bone masks; stone pipes; stone tablets,
often with bird designs; ornaments made from a mineral
The Adena Pipe, made
from catlinite
called mica; pearl beads; and stone and copper gorgets
(worn over the throat).
In addition to burial mounds, Adena Indians constructed
mounds with symbolic shapes. A famous example
is the present-day Serpent Mound near Peebles,
Ohio. This earthwork is a rounded mound about 2 to 6
feet high, 4 to 20 feet across, and 1,348 feet long. When
viewed from above, it has the shape of a snake, with head
and jaws seeming to close on another mound (possibly
representing an egg) and a coiled tail. (It is assumed the
Serpent Mound is of the Adena culture rather than
Hopewell because a nearby burial mound has yielded
Adena artifacts, but no artifacts have been found in the
serpent itself.) Other Adena earthworks have geometric
shapes, ridges of earth laid out in circles and usually surrounding
the burial mounds.
Adena Indians were primarily hunter-gatherers. They
found enough game and wild plant foods in their homelands
to be able to live in permanent villages of poleframed
houses covered with mud and thatch. Some
among them might have grown sunflowers and pumpkins
for food. Many of them eventually cultivated
tobacco for smoking rituals.
It is not known for certain what became of the Adena
Indians. Some of them might have been the ancestors of
the Hopewell Indians whose culture came to displace
them. Or perhaps Hopewell Indians were outsiders who
invaded Adena territory and killed off remaining Adena
peoples.
Hopewell Culture
The Hopewell (or Hopewellian) culture lasted from
about 200 B.C. to A.D. 700. Like the Adena culture, it
was centered along the Ohio valley. Yet archaeologists
have found Hopewell mounds and objects over a much
wider area composed of the Illinois river valley, the Mississippi
river valley, plus many other river valleys of the
Midwest and East.
Hopewell Indians established a wide trading network.
At Hopewell sites, archaeologists have found objects
made of raw materials from distant locations, including
obsidian (black volcanic glass) from as far away as the
Rocky Mountains, copper from the Great Lakes, shells
from the Atlantic Ocean, mica from the Appalachian
Mountains, and alligator skulls and teeth from Florida.
Hopewell peoples were highly skilled craftsmen. They
shaped raw materials into exquisite objects, such as stone
pipes with human and animal carvings; pottery with
designs; ceramic figurines; obsidian spear points and
knife blades; mica mirrors; shell drinking cups; pearl
jewelry; gold and mica silhouettes (delicately carved in
flat profiles); and copper headdresses and breast ornaments.
Like Adena peoples, Hopewell Indians placed these
objects in tombs and under mounds. The Hopewell burial
mounds were generally larger than Adena mounds.
Many of them covered multiple burials and stood 30 to
40 feet high. Other Hopewell earthworks represented
creatures. Still others served as walls, as much as 50 feet
high and 200 feet wide at the base. These are often laid
out in geometric shapes. At a Hopewell site in Newark,
Ohio, over an area of four square miles, are found walls
or enclosures in different shapes, including circles, parallel
lines, a square, and an octagon.
The existence of these mounds indicates that
Hopewell Indians had a highly organized society. Vil-