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Ritualised craft production at the Hopewell periphery: new evidence from the Appalachian Summit

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 January 2015

Alice P. Wright  and
Erika Loveland
Alice P. Wright
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, Appalachian State University, ASU Box 32016, Boone, NC 28608-2016, USA (Author for correspondence; Email: wrightap2@appstate.edu)
Erika Loveland
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, Western Michigan University, 1903 W Michigan Avenue, Kalamazoo, MI 49008-5433, USA
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Abstract

Ritual items made of thin mica sheet are among the most spectacular of the special objects from the Hopewell sites of the Ohio Valley. Hitherto it has generally been believed that the mica was imported in raw material form from sources in the Appalachian Summit and cut into shape in the Hopewell core. Recent excavations at Garden Creek, a ritual enclosure on the margin of the source area, throws doubt on this model through extensive evidence for mica-working at this site. The Garden Creek community may have been drawn into the Hopewell sphere through its proximity to the mica sources, and the people of Garden Creek may have carried cut mica and crystal quartz as offerings to the major Hopewell centres in the course of pilgrimage.

Keywords

Ohio HopewellAppalachian SummitGarden CreekMiddle Woodland periodmicacrystal quartzgeometric enclosuresprehistoric pilgrimage
Type
Research
Information
Antiquity , Volume 89 , Issue 343 , February 2015 , pp. 137 - 153
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd., 2015 

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