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Transcript of Hopewell geometric earthworks
Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 23 (2004) 331–356
www.elsevier.com/locate/jaa
Hopewell geometric earthworks: a case study in thereferential and experiential meaning of monuments
Wesley Bernardini
Department of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Redlands, 1200 E. Colton Ave., USA
Received 15 October 2003; revised 3 February 2004
Abstract
Archaeological landscapes with dispersed settlements often contain widely spaced, morphologically similar, non-res-
idential monuments (e.g., Neolithic megaliths and enclosures, Eastern Woodlands conical burial mounds, Southwestern
great kivas, and Hopewell geometric earthworks). These monuments are commonly interpreted as ‘‘village surrogates,’’
places at which members of a local, dispersed community gathered to express and reproduce social ties. Some applica-
tions of the village surrogate model have privileged referential meaning (what a monument symbolized) at the expense
of experiential meaning (how monuments were experienced), obscuring important variability in relationships between
monuments and use-groups. Focusing on a cluster of five likely contemporary Hopewell geometric earthworks in south-
central Ohio, this paper emphasizes that the construction of monuments in dispersed settings was not always experi-
enced as the aggregation of autonomous, isomorphic communities. An analysis of labor involved in earthwork
construction demonstrates that in the Hopewell case, a very widely dispersed population, not exclusively affiliated with
individual monuments, gathered repeatedly to build a related set of ceremonial centers. Parallels with the Chaco Phe-
nomenon of northwest New Mexico are explored, and the importance of distinguishing between referential and expe-
riential meaning in the broader study of prehistoric monuments is discussed.
� 2004 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
The construction of large-scale monuments by dis-
persed populations was not uncommon in prehistory.
Examples include the Neolithic henges and enclosures
of Europe, Woodland Period mounds in the eastern
United States, and great houses and great kivas in the
American Southwest. Hopewell geometric earthworks,
built between ca. A.D. 1–500 in and around southern
Ohio, are among the most impressive examples of such
monuments, consisting of earthen embankments ar-
ranged into precise geometric shapes up to 5.2m (17ft)
tall and more than 300m (1000ft) in diameter (Fig. 1).
0278-4165/$ - see front matter � 2004 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserve
doi:10.1016/j.jaa.2004.06.001
E-mail address: [email protected].
Monuments in dispersed social landscapes have typi-
cally been interpreted as focal points for a surrounding
community. In the absence of a large, fixed settlement,
monuments are thought to have served as ‘‘village surro-
gates,’’ venues at which relationships among a local,
dispersed populationwere created, symbolized, and repro-
duced (Hodder, 1984; Sherratt, 1984, 1990). Hopewell
earthworks have been interpreted using a variant of the
‘‘village surrogate’’ idea, the ‘‘vacant ceremonial center
model’’ (DanceyandPacheco, 1997a),whichproposes that
each earthworkorganizedanumberof small, dispersed set-
tlements into a community through group ceremonies.
In the case of Hopewell earthworks, and other simi-
lar monuments, the village surrogate interpretation is
d.
Fig. 1. The Seip Earthworks. Reproduced from Squier and Davis, 1848: pl. XX. Note that the north arrow is misdirected by 90degr,
and actually points east.
332 W. Bernardini / Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 23 (2004) 331–356
supported as much by the lack of data as by the presence
of it. For example, few residential sites have been docu-
mented in the areas surrounding Hopewell earthworks,
and those that are known are small and ephemeral
(Pacheco, 1996). The monuments themselves are often
nearly devoid of artifacts outside of mortuary contexts.
Thus, the strength of the village surrogate model is its
ability to reconcile large-scale, empty monuments on
W. Bernardini / Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 23 (2004) 331–356 333
the one hand, and dispersed, isolated settlements on the
other. Yet as often employed, this interpretation is al-
most entirely post hoc, with little direct confirmation
of the behaviors it implies.
In this context, it may be useful to draw a heuristic
distinction between ‘‘referential’’ meanings of mon-
uments—what (we think) they symbolized to the
people who lived around them—and ‘‘experiential’’
meanings—how activities at a monument were physi-
cally experienced by participants (Hodder, 1994). Refer-
ential meanings can carry experiential implications, and
physical experiences can generate referential meanings,
but the two can vary independently within a population
or over time. For example, only part of a population
may participate in certain events at a monument, pro-
ducing for them a particular experiential meaning that
is not shared by a wider group. Similarly, an experiential
meaning grounded in participation in an event may be
supplanted by only distantly related referential meanings
in later non-participant generations, a process of reinter-
pretation that probably begins as soon as construction
ends (Bradley, 1993).
As the Hopewell village surrogate example illustrates,
referential meanings can be deceptively circular (monu-
ments are centrally located because they organize the
surrounding population; dispersed settlements cluster
around a monument because they use it as a central
place). Such circularity can be especially difficult to
break when, as in the case of Hopewell earthworks,
there are so little available data directly pertaining to
the behavior being explained (e.g., material residue of
gatherings at monuments by local communities; evi-
dence of the dispersed settlements themselves) to provide
‘‘resistance’’ to interpretation (Wylie, 1994).
One benefit of the proposed heuristic division is that
it encourages more critical examination of physical
experience separate from inferred meaning. It also per-
mits the experiential aspect of meaning to be explored
as an independent variable, rather than simply as an
implication of referential meaning. For ‘‘vacant’’ monu-
ments like Hopewell earthworks, where little but earthen
architecture remains for analysis, experience may be
productively measured through energetic analysis
(Abrams, 1994)—the quantification of a manual con-
struction event in terms of the number of people in-
volved, the duration of the project, the area from
which participants were drawn, etc. Establishing the
energetic parameters of experience helps us to under-
stand the nature and social scale of the relationships ex-
pressed and created among participants in a common
venture.
This study presents an experiential analysis of Hope-
well earthwork construction, an energetic assessment of
the experiences of the people who built them. The results
of this analysis show that some earthworks in the core
Scioto Valley and Paint Creek areas of the Hopewell sys-
tem were not constructed by local populations affiliated
with each earthwork, as assumed by the village surrogate
(and vacant ceremonial center) model. That is, earthwork
construction was not �experienced� by participants as the
convergence of a local community. Instead, earthwork
construction was the product of labor pooled at a regio-
nal level, and thus was experienced as a much larger so-
cial phenomenon than previously recognized. This
conclusion reorients Hopewell research from questions
about the intra- and inter-community dynamics of earth-
work polities (e.g., papers in Dancey and Pacheco,
1997b) to questions about pan-regional ceremonial sys-
tems. It also demonstrates the importance of distinguish-
ing between referential and experiential meaning in the
broader study of prehistoric monuments.
Referential and experiential meaning
The concepts of referential and experiential meaning
are well illustrated by a consideration of Neolithic tombs
(Hodder, 1994). It has long been suggested that linear
Neolithic tombs �mean� houses for the dead (Childe,
1949). This referential meaning is inferred from a num-
ber of formal similarities between long barrow tombs
and earlier long houses, including an elongated trapezoi-
dal shape of similar length and width, an entrance at the
broader end, a northwest–southeast alignment, and a
linear internal division (Hodder, 1984, 1990). Tombs
are also often built on top of earlier long houses (Hod-
der and Shand, 1988), apparently referencing the older
structures in space as well as form. Thus, it seems likely
that a Neolithic citizen of north-west Europe would
have understood linear tombs to symbolize �houses for
ancestors.�To accept a broad referential meaning for all tombs,
however, is to ignore the many different ways in which
people can experience a monument at any one point in
time, or over time (Bradley, 1993; Holtorf, 1998). As
Hodder (1994, p. 85, italics added) notes,
Even if the tombs were called �houses� of the ancestorsand were built on house or settlement sites, they presum-ably came to have meaning in their own right as associ-
ated with a specific set of activities. Those who dug thesoil together, who carried the stone or timbers to makethe chambers, who carried in the dead, moving asideearlier remains of their ancestors, who gave gifts, who
burned, mounded over and closed the tomb, in theirjoint activities developed a common tradition. For themthe tomb acted less through reference and more through
direct experience.
For those involved in the communal labor project,
the experiential significance of asserting common
ancestry and continuity of rights likely superseded the
334 W. Bernardini / Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 23 (2004) 331–356
broader referential meaning of tombs in society. Once
tombs were closed off and moved into their ‘‘afterlife’’
(Bradley, 1993), it was no longer possible to experience
meaning through them directly, and they ‘‘came to act
as reference points on the landscape (e.g., Barrett
et al., 1991), now being meaningful less through direct
experience and more through reference to the past.
Thus, ‘‘the meaning of tomb material culture may have
shifted through time from referential to experiential to
referential again’’ (Hodder, 1994, p. 85).
Like Neolithic tombs, Hopewell geometric earth-
works have lately come to be interpreted through the
lens of a homogeneous referential meaning—in this
case, as ‘‘village surrogates.’’ This blanket interpretation
obscures potentially important variability in the ways
that sub-groups on the landscape experienced monu-
ments. Decoupling referential from experiential mean-
ing can provide productive new insights into this
variability.
Fig. 2. The broadest territorial definition of the Hopewell
phenomenon.
Fig. 3. Primary distribution of Hopewell geometric earthworks.
1 As usual for Hopewell there is at least one exception, at the
Turner Site.
Hopewell geometric earthworks
The Hopewell phenomenon is usually defined by the
presence of one or more non-utilitarian goods, often
(but not only) recovered from mortuary contexts, such
as copper celts, mica cutouts, and bear canines (Struever
and Houart, 1972). In its most extreme definitions,
Hopewell covers most of eastern North America in the
Middle Woodland Period (ca. A.D. 1–500), from Ontar-
io to Louisiana and from New York to Florida (Fig. 2).
There is, however, an increasing recognition that defin-
ing the boundaries of the Hopewell phenomenon
through a composite of diagnostic artifacts encompasses
a tremendous range of local variability in social and rit-
ual organization (Carr et al., 2002).
This study focuses on the core area of the Hopewell
phenomenon, widely agreed to be centered on the Scioto
Valley of south-central Ohio, but defined more specifi-
cally here by the distribution of geometric earthworks.
The distribution of Hopewell geometric earthworks cov-
ers a much smaller territory than Hopewell artifacts,
with the densest concentration centered on the modern
town of Chillicothe (Fig. 3). As their name implies, geo-
metric earthworks are composed of embankments of
earth arranged into various geometric shapes, including
circles, squares, octagons, and ‘‘roads’’ (parallel
embankments of earth). The scale of these constructions
is immense, with individual geometric shapes enclosing
areas of 30 acres or more, equivalent to more than 25
football fields.
Hopewell geometric earthworks were the most visi-
ble products of Hopewell society, yet despite their
prominence, their use (intended or actual) remains un-
clear. Unlike conical burial mounds, the most common
Middle Woodland earthen construction, geometric
earthworks were not used as repositories for the dead
or their associated offerings,1 though earthworks some-
times enclosed spaces in which burial mounds were con-
structed and mortuary rituals were performed.
Although geometric earthworks consisted of high walls
and ditches, they were almost certainly not used for de-
fense since their embankments contain many openings
and often have interior ditches, rather than exterior
W. Bernardini / Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 23 (2004) 331–356 335
ones. Earthworks are generally free of trash or habita-
tion debris, though some exceptions are known (in most
of these cases, occupation seems to predate earthwork
construction; see below). Some scholars have proposed
that earthworks were astronomical observatories (Hive-
ly and Horn, 1982), noting alignments through gate-
ways and mounds. Most researchers attribute a
symbolic meaning to the precise geometric arrange-
ments that comprise the earthworks, for example, as
representations of winter and summer moiety ‘‘big
houses’’ (DeBoer, 1997), or as broader materializations
of ancient cosmologies (Romain, 1996). Beyond these
outlines, little is known about the details of geometric
earthwork construction and use, and until recently little
field research had been conducted on them (but see Gre-
ber, 1999, 2002; Lynott, 2003; Lynott and Weymouth,
2002).
ig. 4. The vacant ceremonial center model of hopewell
ettlement. Redrawn after Dancey and Pacheco (1997, Figure
.2).
Village surrogates
The presence of isolated monuments within dispersed
settlement systems is common, especially in prehistoric
North America and Europe. An insightful explanation
of these monuments, presented most clearly by Euro-
pean archaeologists, views monuments in dispersed set-
tings as ‘‘village surrogates’’ (Hodder, 1984; Renfrew,
1976; Sherratt, 1984, p. 129; Sherratt, 1990, p. 148–
149). That is, in the absence of an actual nucleated
village, members of a dispersed population created,
reproduced, and symbolized a community through the
construction and use of a central monument. Among
European examples, Neolithic megaliths (Chapman,
1981; Renfrew, 1976; Sherratt, 1990) and enclosures
(Evans et al., 1988) have been profitably interpreted in
this manner. Similar interpretations have been made
for monuments in dispersed settings in North America.
For example, Woodland period conical burial mounds
in eastern North America have been interpreted as
markers of a group�s investment and ancestry in an area
(Buikstra, 1979; Buikstra and Charles, 1999; Charles,
1985). Late Woodland period animal effigy mounds in
Wisconsin, often occurring as lines of repeated figures,
are thought to have been built during seasonal aggrega-
tions of totemically affiliated groups of mobile foragers
(Benn, 1979; Storck, 1974). In the American Southwest,
isolated great kivas have been interpreted as integrative
facilities at which the residents of surrounding dispersed
farming settlements converged to conduct ceremonies
and exchange goods, mates, and information (Adler,
1990). Isolated Chacoan great houses (outliers) in the
American Southwest, many of which are associated with
a great kiva, are also frequently interpreted as focal
points of dispersed communities (Breternitz et al.,
1982; Marshall et al., 1979; Lekson, 1991; but see Maho-
ney, 2000).
The vacant ceremonial center model
Many Hopewell researchers accept a variant of the
village surrogate model for Ohio Hopewell geometric
earthworks known as the ‘‘vacant ceremonial center
model,’’ variously defined by Prufer (1964a, p. 71;
1964b;1965, p. 137)., Pacheco (1996), Smith (1992),
and most recently by Dancey and Pacheco (1997a).
The model was originally borrowed from Mesoamerica
where it was used to explain Mayan ceremonial com-
plexes, though subsequent discoveries of substantial
activity and occupation at these complexes led to the
dropping of the term in that area (Morley et al., 1983).
The vacant center model proposes that Ohio Hope-
well peoples organized themselves into settlements, or
‘‘hamlets,’’ of one to a few households that were distrib-
uted around a ceremonial earthwork center. The central
assumption of the model is that a single earthwork
served as the ceremonial center for each community of
dispersed hamlets. Schematically, then, the vacant center
model envisions the Hopewell landscape as divided into
autonomous polities, each consisting of an earthwork
surrounded by its associated, dispersed community, as
depicted in Fig. 4. Under the vacant center model, ham-
lets should be clustered around earthworks, with bound-
aries or gaps in settlement between these dispersed
communities.
Unfortunately, the settlement pattern data needed
to evaluate the expectations of the vacant center model
are lacking for the Hopewell period and for Ohio in
general. A recent tabulation of Middle Woodland (ca.
F
s
1
336 W. Bernardini / Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 23 (2004) 331–356
A.D. 1–500) habitation and non-mortuary sites in Ohio
compiled in 1997 contains only 91 sites for the entire
state (Dancey and Pacheco, 1997a, Table 1.1), many
of which are marginal candidates for residential status.
The few areas that have been intensively covered by
systematic block surveys are concentrated almost exclu-
sively in the immediate area of known mounds and
earthworks (e.g., Lynott, 1982; Lynott and Monk,
1985; Seeman, 1981) and thus do not cover potential
community boundary areas. Further, of the suspected
habitation sites identified from surface remains or sho-
vel testing, few have been tested extensively enough to
determine the relationship between surface and subsur-
face expressions. Dancey (1991, p. 68), for example,
acknowledges that ‘‘[The Murphy Site] may be the
only comprehensively documented [Middle Woodland
Period habitation] site in central Ohio (if not all of
Ohio).2’’
Critiques of the village surrogate model
As research on monuments in dispersed settlement
systems has progressed, some of the original formula-
tions of the village surrogate model have been chal-
lenged. As initially conceived, the village surrogate
model hypothesized that increasing reliance on agricul-
ture and a resultant increase in territoriality motivated
the construction of fixed markers to legitimize control
of restricted resources. Recent research has, however, re-
vealed that ‘‘full-scale agriculture was more the excep-
tion than the rule’’ (Chapman, 1995, p. 39) among
monument builders in dispersed settlement systems.
Without fixed investments to defend, monuments may
have been constructed along lines of movement rather
than in the centers of defended territories, and thus
may not correspond in direct ways to local communities
(Bradley, 1993; Chapman, 1995).
The village surrogate model can also be critiqued for
focusing on the distribution of monuments rather than
the surrounding dispersed settlements. Habitation sites
are typically difficult to identify archaeologically in dis-
persed settlement systems; in fact, somewhat circularly,
2 The lack of settlement pattern data does not reflect a lack
of effort by current Hopewell researchers, who have focused
increasing energy on the collection of such information (e.g.,
Dancey, 1991, 1992; Pacheco, 1988, 1993). Rather, it is the
cumulative product of several factors, not least of which is the
longstanding bias towards mortuary contexts over the first 100
years of the development of Hopewell archaeology, leaving
considerable ground to be caught up. The study of Hopewell
habitations is also not helped by the rapid and deep burial of
sites in the eastern Woodlands, extensive site disturbance by
timber cutting and farming, and the wooden architecture of
prehistoric Hopewell settlements, all of which conspire to make
detection of small residential sites difficult.
it is often the ephemeral nature of the dispersed commu-
nity that supports the interpretation of monuments as
fixed, central gathering places. When small sites are
archaeologically visible and adequate survey data are
available, as for example in the American Southwest,
it is clear that the settlement patterns of dispersed sites
do not often conform to the expectations of the village
surrogate model. For example, dispersed settlements
near Chacoan great houses often do not follow the
boundaries of Thiessen polygons separating hypotheti-
cal great house territories (Mahoney, 2000); while small
groups of structures generally do cluster around great
houses, contemporary settlements can be found up to
13miles distant in seeming ‘‘no man�s lands’’ (e.g., Ba-
ker, 1991).
Finally, variability in the function of morphologically
similar earthworks is being increasingly recognized. Sub-
stantial differences in labor investment are often masked
under headings assigned to monuments built in the same
form. For example, Late Woodland period thunderbird
effigy mounds in Wisconsin can be found with wing-
spans of as little as 15m (50ft) to as much as 770m
(2500ft) (Rosenbrough and Birmingham, 2003), imply-
ing use-groups of very different scales. In Illinois and
Ohio, Ruby et al. (2004) document the variety of ways
in which earthen enclosures and mounds can organize
surrounding populations of different sizes and
compositions.
Ethnographic cases have helped to broaden the range
of potential uses of morphologically similar monuments.
For example, while some of the smaller ceremonial cen-
ters used by the Chachi of northwest Ecuador organize
local dispersed communities, the largest and oldest cen-
ter, Punta Venado, serves a much broader population
drawn from at least five distinct communities located
along 16km of river-front territory (DeBoer and Blitz,
1991). A similar pattern of convergence on a single cer-
emonial center by a broadly dispersed population was
also recorded for the Mapuche of south-central Chile
by Dillehay (1990). The Mapuche�s biannual nguillatun
ceremony, hosted in rotation by different local groups,
draws up to 8000 attendants. Significantly, an individual
is ‘‘invited to several different ceremonies each year, as a
member of their own lineage and as an outsider’’ (Dille-
hay, 1990, p. 227); attendance is not limited to members
of the local community.
The recognition that not all monuments in dispersed
landscapes are created equal opens up an exciting range
of possible interpretations. For example, a single com-
munity may build and use multiple monuments with dif-
ferent functions, and multiple communities may
converge on a single monument. The following section
approaches a set of Hopewell geometric earthworks with
an eye toward such variability, and finds evidence for a
very different pattern of use than previously attributed
to these sites.
Fig. 5. The Scioto and Paint Creek Valleys of Ohio showing the
location of the five tripartite Hopewell geometric earthworks
included in the analysis.
Fig. 6. The five tripartite earthworks of the Scioto and Paint
Creek Valleys. North varies for each site.
W. Bernardini / Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 23 (2004) 331–356 337
Tripartite Hopewell earthworks: a unique set
Significant differences in scale, morphology, and
placement on the landscape are evident within the
known assemblage of Hopewell geometric earthworks.
In particular, morphology appears to differ in important
ways across time and space, with local clusters of earth-
works exhibiting strong similarities in the kinds and
arrangements of shapes they contain (DeBoer, 1997).
This study focuses on a set of five uniquely similar
earthworks located in the Scioto and Paint Creek Val-
leys of south-central Ohio (Fig. 5). The five sites are:
Seip and Baum in the main Paint Creek valley; Frank-
fort in the North Fork of Paint Creek; and Liberty
and Works East in the main Scioto valley. These earth-
works represent some of the largest monuments ever
constructed by Hopewell groups, and are located in
what most researchers agree was the ‘‘core’’ of Hopewell
activities. They receive special attention here because
their morphological similarities suggest that they were
built and used within a relatively short time of each
other. The ability to identify earthworks that were likely
built and used within a single human generation is extre-
mely unusual for Hopewell archaeology, since absolute
chronological control is relatively poor.3
Each of the tripartite earthworks consists primarily
of three conjoined shapes (Fig. 6): a square with sides
of approximately 305m (1100ft) in length; a large circle
or partial circle with a diameter of approximately 460m
(1500ft); and a smaller circle with a diameter of about
200m (650ft). While many Hopewell earthworks con-
tain combinations of circles and squares, these five sites
stand out for their tripartite configuration and the stan-
dardized dimensions of their component shapes. Outside
the Scioto Valley area, only the Marietta earthworks
(160km [100miles] east) contains a square of this size,
and this complex lacks circles altogether. With two
exceptions (Newark and Seal), the 460m diameter circle
and 200m circles are exclusive to the five tripartite earth-
works, and neither exception includes a comparable
305m square.
Squier and Davis (1848, p. 56) were the first to point
out the similarities of this set of earthworks: ‘‘This work
[Liberty] is a very fair type of a singular series occurring
in the Scioto valley, all of which have the same figures in
combination, although occupying different positions
with respect to one another, viz. a square and two cir-
cles.’’ The authors went on to comment (Squier and Da-
vis, 1848, p. 57): ‘‘That there is some hidden significance,
in the first place in the regularity, and secondly in the
3 Despite a modest number of radiocarbon dates (Greber,
2002) and an important artifact seriation (Ruhl, 1992), the
construction and use of most sites cannot be dated to intervals
smaller than a century or more.
arrangement of various parts, can hardly be doubted.
Nor can the coincidences observable between this and
the other succeeding works of the same series be wholly
accidental.’’ Succeeding scholars have also pointed out
the striking similarity of this set of sites. For example,
Greber (1979, p. 36) noted that ‘‘within the central Sci-
oto–Paint Creek area, the series of five sites identified
by the tripartite earthwork design form a regional
subunit.’’
The strong morphological similarities among this set
of five earthworks is very likely the result of close inter-
action between the people who planned and built them.
Greber (1997a, p. 219) notes that ‘‘the five square enclo-
sures are almost identical in size, construction material,
338 W. Bernardini / Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 23 (2004) 331–356
iconographic detail, and their nonrandom orientations
on the landscape. This strongly suggests that each was
part of one overall architectural design likely to have
been built over a relatively short time span.’’ The simi-
larities among the earthworks are so strong that it is
not unreasonable to consider that they were all laid
out by the same person or group of people with the req-
uisite ritual and architectural knowledge (James Mar-
shall, personal communication, 2002)—a ‘‘unique
relatively short time within the Ohio Hopewell period
when political and social ties were strong enough within
the central Scioto to provide a basis for the close eco-
nomic and symbolic sharing’’ (Greber, 1997b, p. 246).
The case for contemporaneity of these five earth-
works rests primarily on their pronounced morphologi-
cal similarities. No absolute dates are available from
embankment contexts of the tripartite earthworks; C14
dates from mound contexts at Seip and Liberty overlap
generally for the two centuries between A.D. 200–400
(corrected) (Greber, 2003a). Copper earspool assem-
blages (Ruhl, 1992), again from mound (rather than geo-
metric earthwork) contexts are more similar than they
are different [e.g., a Brainerd–Robinson similarity coeffi-
cient (Shennan, 1997, p. 233) of 118 out of 200], though
this offers only weak support for contemporaneity. Fur-
ther support for the assumption that the tripartite earth-
works were planned and built by contemporaneous
groups of people is found in their construction details,
discussed below.
Energetic analysis
Energetic analysis is a quantitative method of esti-
mating the physical and social parameters of the experi-
ence of construction (Abrams, 1994). Such an analysis is
based on an assessment of the number of person-hours
of labor invested in construction of a monument, which
is then converted into estimates of numbers of laborers
and durations of construction for each monument.
Labor estimates
The first step in evaluating the organization of labor
for Hopewell earthworks is to calculate the person-hours
involved in their construction. These calculations re-
quire measurements of embankment dimensions and
knowledge of the source of construction materials.
Unfortunately, virtually all Hopewell earthworks have
been severely damaged by agricultural and construction
activities; some, like Frankfort, have been completely
destroyed. Others exist as barely visible outlines trace-
able on aerial photographs. As a result of this tragic
destruction, it is necessary to consult historical refer-
ences to obtain most of the necessary embankment
dimensions.
The profiles of embankment walls are described as
being trapezoidal before they were damaged by plowing.
Basal width of the larger earthworks was consistently
measured at about 15m (50ft) (Squier and Davis,
1848; Thomas, 1889). Squier and Davis (1848, p. 51) de-
scribe the walls of the square at the Hopeton earthworks
(about six and one half kilometers [4miles] northwest of
Works East) as resembling ‘‘the heavy grading of a rail-
way, and are broad enough, on the top, to admit the
passage of a coach.’’ Similarly, Shepherd (1887) de-
scribes the top of the walls as wide enough ‘‘to admit
the passage of a four-horse wagon.’’ From these descrip-
tions, the width of the top of the embankment of the
Hopeton square is conservatively estimated at 2.4m
(8ft, or 16% of the width of the embankment�s 15.2m
[50ft] wide base). Based on this description, the volume
of earth in Hopewell embankments is calculated assum-
ing that they are trapezoidal prisms, using the following
formula:
V ¼ h=2ðb1 þ b2Þ � embankment length:
Thus, to calculate the volume of an embankment it is
necessary to obtain measurements of its height, basal
width, and top width. Because historic descriptions for
the five sites included in this analysis are incomplete,
especially regarding embankment widths, it is necessary
to extrapolate from observations of nearby earthworks
to fill in missing values. Table 1 presents historic records
of embankment dimensions from 14 nearby Hopewell
geometric earthworks in southern Ohio, comprising 29
individual observations of different geometric shapes
within them. The earliest recorded heights of squares or
octagons before substantial damage from plowing at
nine sites average about 3m (10ft), with a range of 1.8–
3.7m (6–12ft), excluding the unusually low square
embankment at Liberty. Historical reports of wall
heights for circular embankments were slightly lower,
about 2.3m (7.4 ft), with a range of 1.2–3.7m (4–12ft),
excluding the unusually high walls of the Fairground
circle at Newark. The basal width of both square and cir-
cular embankments averaged about 4.8 times the height
of the wall, for a mean width of 12.2m (40ft). For all
sites, the width of the top of the embankment (the b2measurement) is estimated at 16% of the basal width,
based on the Squier and Davis observations at Hopeton.
Embankment lengths (sides of squares and circum-
ferences of circles) for the five sites included in this
analysis were measured from maps generated from
ground-truthed aerial photographs produced by Mar-
shall (1996), who shared unpublished maps of Works
East and Frankfort (personal communication, 2002).
Where river erosion or modern disturbance has rendered
portions of the earthworks invisible, maps from Squier
and Davis (1848) were used to obtain an image of what
Table 1
Embankment height and basal width (all measurements in feet)
Site Shape Date of observation
1817 1820 1848 1879 1887 1889 1892
Baum All walls 10 Height
Base
Seip All walls 10 Height
Base
High Bank Octagon 11.5 11 7.5 5 Height
50 50 60 Base
Circle 4.5 4.5 2 2 Height
37 Base
Hopeton Square 12 12 5 Height
50 Base
Circle 5 5 2 Height
41 Base
2 Smaller circles 2 Height
Base
Parallel walls 2.5 Height
Base
Liberty Square 4 4 1.5 Height
Base
Circles 3 4 .5 Height
Base
Frankfort All walls 5.5 Height
Base
Newark Octagon 10 5.5 2.5–5.9 Height
43 Base
Fairground circle 13–17 12 5–14 Height
50 35–55 Base
Observatory circle 6 6 4.5 Height
Base
square 10 Height
38 Base
Ellipse 12 Height
50 Base
Small circles 4.5 Height
Base
Parallel walls 4.5 Height
Base
Marietta Large square 6–10 6–10 5.5 5.5 Height
25–36 25–36 20–30 20–30 Base
Parallel walls 5 5 Height
42 42 Base
Circleville Circles 10 10 Height
Base
Square 10 Height
Base
Portsmouth Eastern parallel walls 4–6 Height
Base
Western parallel walls 6–10 Height
Base
Cincinnati Ellipse 3–6 Height
Base
(continued on next page)
W. Bernardini / Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 23 (2004) 331–356 339
Table 1 (continued)
Site Shape Date of observation
1817 1820 1848 1879 1887 1889 1892
Alexanders-ville All walls 5–6 Height
50 Base
Mound City Square 3–4 Height
Base
circle 5 Height
25 Base
Hopewell D-shape 6 Height
35 Base
Data from Brown (1817), Atwater (1820), Squier and Davis (1848), MacLean (1879); Shepherd (1887), Thomas (1889), and
Moorehead (1892).
340 W. Bernardini / Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 23 (2004) 331–356
was likely the intention of the original architects and fill
in missing pieces for measurement. Embankment
dimensions used in labor calculations are provided in
Table 2.
Excavation and transport
The labor involved in the construction of an earth-
work involves two primary tasks: excavating the earth
to be used, and transporting that earth to the desired
building location. The labor involved in excavating
earth was estimated from experiments conducted by
Erasmus (1965), who observed that it took 1.9 person-
hours (PH) to excavate a cubic meter of earth with a dig-
ging stick. The labor involved in transporting earth was
estimated at .32PH/m3/10m of transport, based on
observations by Erasmus (1965) and the United Nations
(ECAFE, 1957, p. 22).4 Transport distances varied
depending on the raw material, as described below.
Although relatively few geometric earthwork embank-
ments have been tested, most appear to have been con-
structed of differently colored soils, some locally
available, some transported fromadistance.Colored soils
were deliberately selected and deposited to create distinct
patterns of color within the embankment. The three pri-
mary colors used in embankment construction were
brown, yellow, and red. The construction of the square
embankment at Hopeton provides a good example of
the use of these soils (Fig. 7). Trenches through the Hop-
eton square (Lynott, 2003; Lynott and Weymouth, 2002;
Ruby, 1997), reveal that the embankmentwas constructed
by first scraping the surrounding topsoil away to expose
the natural yellow, clay-loam subsoil beneath. In at least
4 Erasmus� experiment yielded an estimate of 1.6PH/m3 over
50m of transport; the transport formulae based on the UN
observations yields an estimate of 1.4PH/m3 over the same
distance. I averaged the two results to obtain 1.5PH/m3 for
50m of transport, then divided the result by five to obtain a
base estimate of .32PH/m3 for 10m of transport.
some places, a black, organic soil was deposited on top
of this surface. Then, additional yellow clay-loam, similar
to the subsoil base, was excavated from nearby borrow
pits and piled up to form the internal face of the embank-
ment. Next, a red, sandy clay was brought in (probably
from the banks of the Scioto river some 750m to the west)
andpiled on the top andoutside of the yellow clay-loam to
form the external face of the embankment wall. Finally,
the local brown topsoil was used to forma cap over the en-
tire embankment.
Testing revealed that the Fairground Circle at the
Newark earthworks was also built of differently colored
earth—a yellow soil on the internal face and dark brown
on the outside—though it apparently lacked the capping
mantle seen at Hopeton (Lepper, 1996). The High Bank
Works Great Circle wall was built of reddish soil on the
interior and yellow soil on the exterior face (Greber,
2003b, p. 8). Red soil was used to construct at least
the base of the Seip square, in contrast to the dark
brown soil used in the large circle (Greber, 2003b, p.
7). Red soil was also used to build the square embank-
ment of the Anderson earthworks, a smaller work lo-
cated several miles west of the Hopeton earthworks
(Pickard and Pahdopony, 1995). The excavators note
that the red soil does ‘‘not occur naturally on the terrace
and would have had to [have] been carried in from a re-
mote location’’ (Pickard and Pahdopony, 1995, p. 4),
likely from the other side of a nearby stream (N�omi
Greber, personal communication, 2004).
In the absence of more detailed information about
the composition of the five tripartite earthwork embank-
ments, it is assumed that they were constructed of the
three primary colors found in neighboring earthworks,
yellow, red, and brown. Following the pattern most
clearly visible in the Hopeton square, the basal embank-
ment soils are assumed to have been split roughly evenly
between yellow and red, with the remaining 50% de-
voted to a brown capping layer. Although this particular
recipe of soils may not characterize all embankments
Table 2
Values used in labor calculations
Site Geometric shape Lengtha Basal width Top width Height Volume (m3) Distance to soils PH
Red Yellow Brown
Baum Square 1305 15.2 2.4 3.0 34,450 55 230 65 279,000
Large circle 1640 11.0 1.8 2.3 24,150 75 285 35 129,000
Small circle 690 4.3 .7 .9 1,550 55 115 NA 7200
Site total: 415,200
Scip Square 1250 15.2 2.4 3.0 33,000 460 425 65 330,700
Large circle 1535 11.0 1.8 2.3 22,600 55 460 35 148,700
Small circle 945 4.3 .7 .9 2126 305 50 NA 15,300
Site total: 494,700
Liberty Square 1090 15.2 2.4 3.0 59,650 90 115 140 344,800
Large circle 1405 11.0 1.8 2.3 20,700 100 410 40 137,000
Small circle 719 4.3 .7 .9 1620 60 40 NA 5,700
Concentric circle 125 4.3 .7 .7 281 55 75 NA 1100
Site Total: 488,600
Works East Square 1155 15.2 2.4 3.0 30,500 305 100 65 188,500
Large circle 1805 11.0 1.8 2.3 26,500 305 55 35 141,500
Small circle 745 4.3 .7 .9 1,700 135 85 NA 14,600
Smallest circle 460 4.3 .7 .9 1,050 240 30 NA 6500
Site total: 351,100
Frankfort Square 1270 15.2 2.4 3.0 33,550 80 490 65 251,600
Large circle 1465 11.0 1.8 2.3 33,350 55 380 55 208,800
Small circle 635 4.3 .7 .9 1,450 40 305 NA 10,800
Site total: 471,200
a Total length of embankments comprising the geometric shape minus gateways; all measurements in meters unless noted.
W.Bern
ardini/JournalofAnthropologica
lArch
aeology23(2004)331–356
341
Fig. 7. Embankment profile of the Hopeton square (Trench 2, western embankment, north face).
342 W. Bernardini / Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 23 (2004) 331–356
equally well, the inclusion of all three soils in labor cal-
culations ensures a plausible �middle ground� estimate.
In the vicinity of the five tripartite earthworks, red-
dish soils can be found in the Eldean soil series; yellow-
ish soils in the Ockley, Celina, Miamian, Shelocta, and
Glenford soil series; and brown soils in the Rossburg,
Nineveh, Gessie, and Stonelick soil series. In Fig. 8 the
five tripartite earthworks (plotted from aerial photo-
graph-based drawings kindly provided by James Mar-
shall [personal communication, 2004]) have been
overlain onto simplified soil maps (soil data from the
2003 USDA-NRCS Soil Survey of Ross County, Ohio).
Distances to the various colored soils were estimated
from the Ross County soil survey maps and from the
locations of borrow pits mapped by Squier and Davis
(1848); when no borrow pits were mapped distances
were calculated to the edge of the nearest soil deposit
outside the boundaries of the earthwork.5 Since almost
all soils near the earthworks featured a ca. 10cm layer
of brown topsoil at the surface, the brown capping soil
was inferred to have been scraped from the surface out-
side each embankment. The distance that must be cov-
ered to transport this brown soil can be estimated by
dividing the volume of it included in the embankment
wall by the topsoil�s average natural depth 10cm, divid-
ing this value by the perimeter length of the embank-
ment in question, and dividing this value in half to
obtain the midpoint distance that must be walked away
from a point on the embankment perimeter. Because
smaller earthwork shapes were not built as high as the
460m diameter circles and the 305m squares, they are
calculated without a brown capping layer. Soil transport
5 Borrow pits immediately adjacent to mounds (rather than
embankments) were excluded when calculating transport
distances.
distances are listed in Table 2; distances are estimated
separately for each component geometric shape com-
prising a particular earthwork, and are averaged for at
least four points on each shape.
Construction episodes
I assume that each geometric shape was planned and
built in a continuous construction process. Two lines of
evidence support this assumption. First, unfinished
embankments provide evidence that individual shapes,
and perhaps entire earthworks, were completely laid
out before construction began, rather than being con-
structed section by section. Second, profiles of embank-
ment walls indicate no significant gaps in construction
activity once building had begun. These lines of evidence
are discussed in greater detail below.
Observations in the late 1800 s by MacLean at several
well-preserved but unfinished earthworks led him to
comment that ‘‘we have every reason for believing . . .that [the mound builders�] work was marked out before
commencing’’ (MacLean, 1879, p. 84). Of particular
importance is the existence of ‘‘marker mounds’’ outlin-
ing the form of several unfinished earthworks. For exam-
ple, MacLean (1879, pp. 219–220) documented a group
of 11 mounds comprising the Jacksonburg Works which
were arranged in a circle 70m (230ft) in diameter (Fig. 9),
the same diameter as a complete circular enclosure with
an interior ditch located only 44m (145ft) away. The soil
for the marker mounds was excavated from borrow pits
adjacent to each mound, located towards the center of
the circle; completion of the earthwork would only have
required excavating the remainder of the ditch between
the borrow pits and piling the earth up between the
mounds. A similar example of a smaller circular enclo-
sure in Union Township, in which four marker mounds
at the cardinal directions defined the outline of a circle,
illustrates the same point: ‘‘Between the mounds the
Fig. 8. Soils underlying the five tripartite Hopewell earthworks (soil data from the 2003 USDA-NRCS Soil Survey of Ross County,
Ohio).
W. Bernardini / Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 23 (2004) 331–356 343
walls gradually taper until they meet midway. The ditch
is on the inside. It is regular and of equal depth at all
points’’ (MacLean, 1879, p. 172). Likewise, at the Alex-
andersville earthworks, three mounds associated with
an unfinished circle were ‘‘found not be mounds at all,
but intended to form component parts of the intended
circle . . . located on the line of the curve. The fact here
brought to light is that the whole line was established be-
fore work was begun, and work was performed on differ-
ent parts of the line at the same time. This fact is also true
of the square a short distance removed from the circle’’
(MacLean, 1879, p. 85). Recently, Lepper (1996) docu-
mented the existence of marker mounds which outlined
the Fairground Circle at the Newark earthworks. The
Fig. 9. The Jacksonburg Works. Reproduced after MacLean
(1879, Figure 62).
344 W. Bernardini / Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 23 (2004) 331–356
black soil identified at the base of Trench 2 through the
Hopeton square embankment may also be the remains
of a marker mound.
MacLean�s observations at the Alexandersville earth-
works further suggest that in at least some cases, the
plan of the entire earthwork was laid out simulta-
neously, with concurrent construction occurring on mul-
tiple shapes. MacLean (1879, p. 84) notes that ‘‘Of the
three, or rather four, sacred enclosures at Alexanders-
ville, not one is complete. These incomplete remains
prove that all of these works were commenced at the
same time, all abandoned before being finished.’’ The
uniformity of the layouts of Baum, Seip, Liberty, Frank-
fort, and Works East suggest that they too were likely
planned from the outset, rather than resulting from the
accretion of individual shapes together over time. For
example, the small circle at these earthworks is always
attached to the large circle, never to the square, which
always adjoins the large circle.
A second line of evidence supporting continuous
earthwork construction is the absence of accumulated
soil or evidence of erosion between layers of embank-
ment soil. Multiple trenches cut through the square
embankment at the Hopeton earthworks provide a
well-documented source of information about earth-
work construction at this site (Lynott, 2003; Lynott
and Weymouth, 2002). Here, the different layers of col-
ored soils rest directly on top of each other, with no
intervening deposits of windblown sediment or evidence
of erosion suggesting that time had elapsed between
them (Fig. 7). Evidence from burned features in the
trenches indicates, in fact, that some layers were depos-
ited within minutes or hours of the preceding one. In
both Trench 2 and Trench 3 at Hopeton, organic mate-
rial was burned on top of the yellow layer of the
embankment, then covered with red soil quickly enough
for ashes to be scattered through the red earth, and for
the red earth to be discolored by the heat (Lynott, 2003).
Greber (2003b) noted a similar lack of weathering in
strata comprising the High Bank Works Great Circle.
Duration of labor
An important variable in calculating labor estimates
is the number of days per year devoted to communal
projects like earthwork construction. This variable dif-
fers depending on the political organization of the soci-
ety in question, especially whether coercive force is
involved in the process. Ethnographic observations of
communal labor projects organized without coercive
force provide potential analogs for Hopewell earthwork
construction. For instance, construction of a Tambaran
spirit house, which measured 22 · 13 · 9m, by the Ilah-
ita Arapesh, a horticultural group in New Guinea, was
completed in 2 months, though only about half of those
days were actually devoted to construction (Tuzin, 1980,
p. 121). Construction of a spirit house in the nearby Ma-
prik region of New Guinea (Hauser-Schaublin, 1989, p.
608) took place over approximately 3 months. The
building of a 12.2 · 4.3m Ilahita Arapesh house in the
took place over seven weeks, but again only about half
(23) of those days were spent working on the project
(Hogbin, 1951, p. 317). In the Maya village of Chan
Kom (Redfield and Rojas, 1962), adult males typically
contributed 50 days of labor toward communal village
projects. Among the residents of Wogeo Island in New
Guinea, the followers of a clan�s hereditary headman
spend an average of one day in eight carrying out pro-
jects of his design, or about 40–45 days per year (Hog-
bin, 1939, p. 148). The youths and men who built a
club-house at the village of Kapana on Solomon Island
‘‘worked at the job somewhat desultorily over a period
of 20 days’’ (Oliver, 1955, p. 378).
Though no one of these preceding examples features
a society that is a close analog for Hopewell popula-
tions, and none of the projects undertaken approached
the scale of a geometric earthwork, together they pro-
vide a rough picture of the amount of time per year de-
voted to communal labor projects in ‘‘middle-range’’
societies (i.e., those with forms of social organization
less complex than the classic chiefdom). Collectively,
these examples suggest that about 45 days may be de-
voted to communal labor projects in a single year (cf.
Erasmus, 1956, p. 280), though only about half of them
may be productive work days. Thus, a range of 25–50
W. Bernardini / Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 23 (2004) 331–356 345
days of labor per person per year would be an appropri-
ate range. The work day is assumed to have been five
hours long, a figure based on digging experiments by
Erasmus (1965) in which he observed that worker pro-
ductivity dropped markedly after the fifth hour of labor.
Earthwork energetics
Table 2 presents the total embankment volume for
each component geometric shape within the five earth-
work complexes, as well as the total person-hours of
construction required to build each one. These estimates
are conservative in that they cover only embankment
construction, not potentially simultaneous (and often
substantial) mound construction, and include only
the labor involved in digging and transport, not the
dumping and packing of earth. The volumes of the
square embankments average about 38,200m3 of earth,
large circles about 25,500m3, and small circles about
1300m3. Converted to person-hours, each of these con-
struction projects required an average of approximately
280,000, 150,000, and 11,000PH of labor, respectively.
In Table 3, PH values are converted into labor crew
sizes for each construction event, figured over different
lengths of time. Construction scenario one, the most la-
bor-intensive projection, assumes that each geometric
shape was built in a single year. Scenario two assumes
that each geometric shape was built over the course of
5 years. Scenarios three and four assume that an entire
Table 3
Labor crew sizes for each tripartite earthwork, calculated under four d
a single year; (2) each geometric shape built over 5 years; (3) each tripar
earthwork complex built over 10 years
Site Geometric shape 1 Shape, 1 year 1 Sha
Baum Square 1120–2230 220–4
Large circle 520–1030 100–2
Small circle 50–60 6–10
Seip Square 1320–2650 270–5
Large circle 600–1190 120–2
Small circle 60–120 12–24
Liberty Square 1380 – 2760 280 –
Large circle 550–1110 110–2
Small circle 20–50 5–10
Smaller circle 5–10 1–2
Works East Square 750–1510 150–3
Large circle 570–1130 110–2
Small circle 60–120 10–20
Smaller circle 30–50 5–10
Frankfort Square 1010–2010 200–4
Large circle 840–1670 170–3
Small circle 40–90 10–20
The range reflects calculations using 50 and 25 days of work per yea
earthwork complex was built over the course of 5 and
10 years, respectively. Ten years would seem to be close
to an upper limit for sustained mobilization of labor
within the life spans of a small group of contemporane-
ous architects/organizers. These 10 years of construction
need not have occurred in strict succession; breaks of up
to several years are conceivable, and some years of con-
struction may have been more intense than others. For
each scenario, a range of values is presented reflecting
25 or 50 days of labor per year.
The largest possible construction events, in which a
single geometric shape was erected in a single year,
would have required at least 1000 laborers, and as many
as 2700 laborers. The organization of such large num-
bers of people in the absence of coercion seems unlikely,
though ethnographic examples [e.g., the Maupuche
nguillatun ceremony, which draws up to 8000 attendants
(Dillehay, 1990)] and the evidence discussed above
regarding the continuous nature of embankment con-
struction means this scenario cannot be ruled out. More
conservative construction scenarios stretching over 5
years would still have involved at least 300–600 people
at a time. The most conservative scenario modeled here,
in which each earthwork complex was built in ten (not
necessarily consecutive) years, would have required
approximately 150–400 laborers at each earthwork in a
given year. Thus, it is likely that size of labor crews that
constructed Hopewell earthworks numbered at least in
the low hundreds of people.
ifferent construction scenarios: (1) each geometric shape built in
tite earthwork complex built over 5 years; and (4) each tripartite
pe, 5 years Earthwork, 5 years Earthwork, 10 years
50 330–660 170–330
05
30 400–790 200–400
40
550 390 – 780 200 –390
20
00 280–560 140–280
30
00 380–750 190–380
30
r.
6 Both children and the elderly are also likely to have
participated in construction events, for example compacting soil
or feeding laborers. As these contributions are more difficult to
quantify they are omitted here, but it is important to keep in
mind that large-scale labor projects must have been important
social and even festive occasions.
346 W. Bernardini / Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 23 (2004) 331–356
Labor catchment areas
Having identified some probable labor crew sizes for
the construction of Hopewell earthworks, we may now
consider the size of the ‘‘labor catchment area’’ needed
to supply different numbers of laborers. A labor catch-
ment area is the territory from which people must be
drawn, under a given population density, to provide a
requisite number of laborers. This exercise requires an
estimate of Ohio Hopewell population density. As noted
above, extant Ohio Middle Woodland settlement data
are less than ideal. However, a combination of the avail-
able demographic data and cross-cultural comparisons
are sufficient to establish a range of likely population
densities.
The most empirically well-supported estimate of
Hopewell population density is Asch�s (1976) study of
population in the lower Illinois Valley drainage. Asch�sestimate, based on an appraisal of the number of burial
mounds and the number of burials per mound, yields a
population density of about 40 people/100km2 (Asch et
al., 1979). The paleoethnobotanical record for mid-Ohio
Valley Middle Woodland sites is similar, though not
identical, to that of the lower Illinois Valley (Wymer,
1992; Wymer and Johannessen, 2002), justifying the
assumption of roughly comparable population densities
between the areas (the richer environment of the Illinois
Valley probably supported higher densities of people
than the Ohio Valley). Estimates of the society sizes nec-
essary to produce the burial population under the larger
Seip mound, assuming a yearly death rate of .02 and a
35 year span of building use, yield a figure of about
200 people (Buikstra, 1979); this figure equates to a pop-
ulation density for southern Ohio similar to the Illinois
estimates of about .4 people/km2 (Greber, 1979, p. 37).
Population densities of less than one person/km2 are
consistent with historic tribal densities in eastern North
America calculated by James Mooney (published in
Kroeber, 1939, pp. 138-141). According to Mooney�sestimates, not a single interior group had a density great-
er than .4 people/km2.
Although in agricultural societies population density
is generally not correlated with agricultural potential
(Netting, 1990), the relationship is more direct among
hunter gatherer populations (e.g., Baumhoff, 1958;
Thompson, 1966). Hopewell people farmed eastern agri-
cultural complex crops in small garden plots, but they
relied on gathered nuts, fruits, and tubers for an impor-
tant component of their diet (Wymer, 1997); they were
most likely only part-time farmers. Thus, it may be use-
ful to consider cross-cultural hunter gatherer population
density as another source of comparative information
about Hopewell density. In a cross-cultural sample of
14 hunter-gatherer groups from temperate forests, the
closest approximation of the Ohio Middle Woodland
environment, Kelly (1995, pp. 224–225, Table 6-4) re-
corded an average population density of .13 people/
km2 (.06 people/miles2). The maximum temperate forest
hunter-gatherer density in Kelly�s sample was .42 people/
km2.
Together, archaeological estimates and cross-cultural
figures suggest that Ohio Hopewell population density
was probably not greater than about .5 people/km2, with
a maximum of no more than 1 person/km2. In calculat-
ing labor catchment areas, it is assumed that roughly
half of the population of any given area was of adequate
age and health to participate in the ‘‘heavy lifting’’ that
comprised the bulk of earthwork construction (probably
a liberal assumption).6 Thus, to determine labor catch-
ment areas, the labor crew figures listed in Table 3 must
first be doubled to reflect the total population from
which the laborers would have been drawn.
Several scenarios were evaluated in modeling labor
catchment areas. What is considered to be the most rea-
sonable scenario involves laborers working for 25 days a
year for 10 years to complete each earthwork complex,
and assumes a population density of .5 people/km2. This
scenario would have involved about 350 people/year at
each tripartite earthwork. Keeping in mind that a total
population of 700 people would have been necessary
to field 350 workers, a crew of this size would have been
drawn from a catchment area with a diameter of about
42km. Increasing the number of work days per year to
50 decreases the average diameter to 30km.
Distances separating earthworks from their nearest
neighbors range from 6km for Seip and Baum to
10km for Works East and Liberty, to 22km for Frank-
fort and Works East. Fig. 10A plots labor catchment cir-
cles around each earthwork complex calculated at 25
days/year for 10 years of construction at .5 people/
km2. Portions of catchment circles are shaded when they
overlap with a neighboring earthwork�s labor catchment
area. Under this labor scenario, Works East, Liberty,
and Frankfort overlap more than 50% of each other�scatchments, while Seip overlaps 100% of Baum�s catch-ment. Fig. 10B shows overlapping catchments for the
50 work-days/year scenario, which decreases the average
overlap only slightly to about 45% (not including the
complete overlap of Baum by Seip).
Less conservative labor scenarios produce larger la-
bor crews, larger labor catchment areas, and greater
overlap. If each earthwork complex was built over 5
years, labor catchments range in size from 44 to 60km
in diameter, depending on the number of days worked
(50 or 25). If each geometric shape was built over the
W. Bernardini / Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 23 (2004) 331–356 347
course of 5 years, construction of some of the larger
embankments, such as the square at the Liberty earth-
works, would have required 280–550 laborers; at a den-
sity of .5 people/km2, such a crew would have been
drawn from a catchment 36–53km in diameter. The
Fig. 10. Labor catchment areas for the five tripartite earthworks calcu
days per year; (B) 50 work-days per year.
870–1730 people required to build the average individual
geometric shapes (squares and large circles) in a single
year at 50/25 days/year and .5 people/km2 would have
been drawn from an area 66–94km across. Small
embankment circles, in contrast, required much smaller
lated for 350 laborers at a density of .5 people/km2: (A) 25 work-
348 W. Bernardini / Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 23 (2004) 331–356
labor crews, and could have been built in a single year
under the same parameters by 50–90 laborers drawn
from a 16 to 22km diameter catchment.
Significantly, even the most conservative labor sce-
nario modeled here would have required overlapping
labor pools or laborers from outside the local area sur-
rounding each earthwork. Thus, construction for two
and a half months (50 days) a year for 10 years to com-
plete each earthwork complex, with a high population
density estimate of 1 person/km2, would still have re-
quired that laborers be drawn from a large average
catchment area of 22km in diameter. Even for this con-
servative scenario there is considerable overlap in the
labor catchments of the tripartite earthworks (45%
overlap for Liberty, Frankfort, and Works East; 80%
overlap for Seip and Baum). That is, it would be diffi-
cult for construction to occur on neighboring earth-
works in the same generation without drawing on the
same pool of laborers, or drawing on very distant
populations.
Fig. 11 illustrates labor catchments designed to avoid
overlapping neighboring earthworks� catchments, lim-
ited to land on one side of a river. Inspection of Fig.
11A reveals that, with 50-day work years and .5 peo-
ple/km2, some earthworks� labor catchments, for exam-
ple Frankfort and Works East, must be stretched over
a distance of 80km (50miles) to encompass the neces-
sary workers, reaching as far north as the modern city
of Columbus, Ohio. Reducing the number of work-days
per year to 25 increases the area covered by the labor
catchments to almost 13,000km2, from north of Colum-
bus, Ohio south to the city of Portsmouth on the Ohio
River (Fig. 11B).
It is instructive to consider how high Hopewell pop-
ulation density would have to have been in order for
each earthwork to draw laborers exclusively from a local
catchment area that would not overlap its neighbors
(approximating the assumptions about community
structure employed the �vacant center� model). To pro-
vide enough laborers to build each earthwork complex
in 10 years at 25 days of labor per year (the most likely
scenario outlined above), with all laborers drawn exclu-
sively from a 10km diameter area surrounding each
earthwork, population density in the Scioto and Paint
Creek valleys would have had to have been 8.9 people/
km2 (3.4 people/mile2). Most researchers would agree
that the population density of the Hopewell landscape
was not nearly so high.
Thus, even the most conservative scenarios of earth-
work construction imply considerable overlap in the lo-
cal labor catchment areas from which work crews for
different earthworks would have been drawn. Conse-
quently, workers must either have been drawn in from
a substantial distance to participate in earthwork con-
struction, or workers in the Scioto and Paint Creek val-
leys participated in the construction of parts of several
earthworks during their lifetimes. Earthworks could
not have been built exclusively by the people living in
close proximity to them, a conclusion that has pro-
found implications for the use of these facilities. Most
importantly, this conclusion implies that earthworks
were not centers for autonomous, local populations.
The proposed use of paired tripartite earthworks (such
as Seip and Baum) by a single ‘‘community’’ (Greber,
1997a) would only amplify this conclusion, as the labor
catchment covering the builders of this paired complex
would extend over a very broad area. These conclu-
sions are bolstered by a consideration of mating
networks.
Mating networks
To emphasize the point that earthworks were not
built and used by autonomous local populations, but
rather drew on a much broader population, Fig. 12 plots
circles around earthworks that encompass areas large
enough to support the minimum 475 people necessary
to maintain a viable mating network (Wobst, 1974).
At a population density of .5 people/km2, these circles
have diameters of 35km. As Fig. 12 illustrates, the
amount of overlap in mating networks is considerable,
and supports the labor data in arguing against discrete,
autonomous populations associated with each earth-
work center.
Riverine transport
Given the terrain of southern Ohio and the location
of most Hopewell earthworks adjacent to waterways, it
is likely that riverine transport was common (Brose,
1990). Based on surveys of the Licking Valley, Paul
Pacheco (personal communication, 2001) suggests that
population may have been concentrated along river
banks. Waterborne travel is considerably more efficient
than overland travel, with most researchers accepting a
5:1 ratio of overland: waterborne ‘‘fuel costs’’ for travel-
ers (Brose, 1990; Drennan, 1984). The implication is that
people could theoretically travel greater distances to an
earthwork complex via water than they could over land
in the same amount of time, increasing the radius of
manageable round-trips and the distance people might
plausibly cover to attend an event. If 18km is the max-
imum round trip manageable by foot (Drennan, 1984),
the maximum riverine distance would be approximately
90km—sufficient to bring in participants from the edges
of even the largest labor catchments identified in this
study. Although efficient riverine transport might at first
glance appear to diminish the significance of the large la-
bor catchments identified above, in fact it helps to ex-
plain how seemingly distant populations could be
regular participants in events at ‘‘non-local’’ ceremonial
complexes.
Fig. 11. Non-overlapping labor catchments calculated for 350 laborers at a density of .5 people/km2: (A) 50 work-days per year; (B) 25
work-days per year.
W. Bernardini / Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 23 (2004) 331–356 349
The Hopewell ceremonial landscape
The preceding analyses indicate that the five tripartite
Hopewell geometric earthworks in the core Scioto and
Paint Creek valleys of Ohio did not function as village
surrogates for autonomous, isomorphic communities.
Thus, the gathering of people to construct an earthwork
was not experienced by participants as the aggregation
of a dispersed community, but instead as the assembly
of a much wider social network. Most participating indi-
viduals were probably not affiliated exclusively with any
one earthwork, and may have even participated in con-
struction events at multiple earthworks within their
lifetimes.
Evidence from other contexts suggests that pan-local
gatherings of Hopewell populations may have been a
Fig. 12. Catchment areas encompassing the 475 people neces-
sary to maintain a viable mating network for each earthwork.
350 W. Bernardini / Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 23 (2004) 331–356
regular component of Hopewell ceremonialism. Patterns
of artifact deposition for some elaborate Hopewell buri-
als and artifact caches indicate that associated ceremo-
nies often attracted attendants from great distances,
far greater than the surrounding few kilometers sur-
rounding an earthwork. For example, the number of
artifacts which were probably personal possessions (such
as copper celts) deposited in a single offering often far
exceeds the number of people in the local area who likely
possessed them. As many as 60 celt-owners contributed
to one cache at the Hopewell Site, more than two-thirds
of whom likely traveled from outside the Scioto region
to attend the event (Bernardini and Carr, 2004). Unusu-
ally large deposits of copper breastplates, earspools,
platform pipes, bear canines, and other objects that were
also likely individual possessions reinforce the interpre-
tation that large-scale social gatherings periodically
drew attendants from great distances to the core Hope-
well area (Carr et al., 2004).
The construction and use of geometric earthworks
If monuments can be thought of as having life-histo-
ries (Holtorf, 1998), this study has concentrated on the
‘‘birth,’’ of monuments in Hopewell society, seemingly
at the expense of later events. Aspects of the Hopewell
archaeological record suggest, however, that the con-
struction of a geometric earthwork may have been the
defining event of its life-history, with little large-scale
use thereafter. For example, while some Hopewell earth-
works enclose mounds covering mortuary and other
deposits, or in a few cases are built of earth containing
old midden deposits, most contain very little evidence
of activity contemporary with the embankments. A sys-
tematic surface survey of the Hopeton earthworks
(Burks and Walter, 2003; Burks et al., 2003), covering
an area of more than 1.2km2, identified fewer than
300 diagnostic Middle Woodland artifacts—only one
artifact for every 4000m2. Other nearby earthworks,
including the tripartite works at Seip and Liberty, con-
tain higher densities of utilitarian debris, but this mate-
rial is generally found within mounds and embankments
as construction fill (Griffin, 1996; Shetrone and Green-
man, 1931, pp. 430–431), indicating that earthwork con-
struction occurred after intensive use of the area. It
appears that the majority of activity involving material
culture at earthwork sites was focused on mortuary
and mound contexts, with the geometric enclosures
likely representing a separate and subsequent stage of
construction (Greber, 1997a).
Paradoxically, the immense horizontal scale of the
earthworks also argues against geometric earthworks
serving as the locus of large gatherings after their con-
struction. Here, an emphasis on the referential meaning
of circles and squares as meeting places has distracted
from the experiential observation that they enclose
spaces so large as to be socially unusable. Cross-cultural
data suggest that ‘‘high-level’’ integrative facilities,
which serve entire communities, average about 1m2 of
floor space per participant (Adler, 1990). To put the
scale of the enclosed space at Hopewell earthworks into
perspective, at 1m2 of floor area per participant, each
300m (1000ft) diameter large circle at the tripartite
earthworks alone could have held more than 280,000
people! The vastness of the enclosed area would also
seem to preclude the embankment walls from serving
as observational platforms for smaller ceremonies occur-
ring in the enclosed area, since the distance to a per-
former at the center of a large circle would exceed
150m—more than twice the distance from the farthest
row of seats to midfield in the largest football stadium
in the United States (Michigan Stadium, capacity
107,500).
In light of the scarce evidence for use of many Hope-
well earthworks after their construction, perhaps the
search for the ‘‘function’’ of earthworks has been mis-
guided. If earthworks were built by laborers drawn from
a broad area, rather than a regularly interacting local
population, then these monuments may not have actu-
ally been used (experienced) on a regular basis. Instead,
perhaps the most important even in the life history of an
earthwork, and the most important experience of a par-
ticipant, was the act of construction. After this remark-
able event, an undertaking involving hundreds of people
and stretching over a number of months or years, the
raison d�etre for an assembly on this scale may have
passed for that monument. The planning of a new mon-
ument may have been required to mobilize sufficient la-
bor to recreate the assembly. Such one-off events in
which the act of creating something was the critical
W. Bernardini / Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 23 (2004) 331–356 351
event, with little use of the feature thereafter, are known
in the ethnographic literature (Kuchler, 1987), albeit not
on this scale.
If the five tripartite earthworks were planned as, or
developed into, a series of events in which the construc-
tion activity was paramount, it could help to explain the
difference between earthworks that enclose burial
mounds (Liberty, Frankfort, and Seip), and those that
enclose empty space (Baum, Works East). Tripartite
earthwork construction may have been initiated in
‘‘ancestral’’ locations to enclose existing mortuary mon-
uments. To perpetuate the cycle of large-scale aggrega-
tions, construction was subsequently expanded into
‘‘scion’’ locations lacking the historical context of their
predecessors. Chronological data may be able to verify
or discredit this hypothesis.
Even if the tripartite earthworks were not built for
‘‘planned obsolescence,’’ they nevertheless may have
failed to be used in the manner for which they were de-
signed despite the best efforts of their architects. The ac-
tual use of a monument after its construction can be
expected to deviate from its intended use for a number
of reasons, with increasing distortion and manipulation
as monuments are encountered by populations increas-
ingly distant from its construction (Hingley, 1996; Hol-
torf, 1998). The unity of purpose at the time of
construction of some monuments may not have been
matched afterwards. As Bradley (1993, p. 2) reminds
us, ‘‘Monuments are made to last, but their meanings
are often elusive, and not just for archaeologists. The
process of interpretation started as soon as they were
built.’’
Ceremonial centers with multiple monuments
The notion that a widely dispersed population could
be organized to construct not one but a suite of inter-re-
lated, contemporaneous, and morphologically similar
monuments is not a common one. In other examples
of monuments in dispersed settlement systems, such as
conical burial mounds, effigy mounds, henges, causew-
ayed enclosures, great kivas, or outlier Chacoan great
houses, morphologically similar constructions are usu-
ally widely spaced on the landscape. The similarities
among monuments in theses cases appear to stem from
a broadly shared cosmology which persisted over a wide
territory for several hundred years. This is true of the
broader class of Hopewell geometric earthworks in
southern Ohio, whose resemblances to each other most
likely ‘‘reflect only ideological similarities’’ (Greber,
1997b, p. 246).
In contrast, the morphological similarities among the
five closely spaced tripartite earthworks of Baum, Seip,
Frankfort, Works East, and Liberty go far beyond what
could be expected from a region-wide system of shared
ceremonial architecture grammar. Similarities in the
dimensions and layout of the component shapes of the
five tripartite Hopewell earthworks strongly suggest that
they were planned and built by contemporaneous, inter-
acting architects, probably within a single human gener-
ation. These five earthworks did not arrive at a common
endpoint through independent interpretation of com-
mon cosmological principles; instead they were built to
similar plans by design, reflecting the particular close-
ness of the populations in and around the Scioto and
Paint Creek valleys during a few decades of the Middle
Woodland period.
Ethnographic or historic analogs to a dispersed set-
tlement system organized around morphologically
redundant monuments are difficult to identify. Examples
of ceremonial precincts composed of multiple monu-
ments are typically associated with more socially com-
plex societies, such as the religious centers of ancient
Greece, Delphi and Olympia. However, at least one
additional archaeological relative of the Scioto Valley
Hopewell core is known from North America: Chaco
Canyon. Comparison to the Chacoan case is instructive,
as it suggests the degree to which a relatively non-hierar-
chical regional ceremonial system can be organized
around a central ritual precinct.
Like the core Hopewell area, Chaco Canyon, located
in northwestern New Mexico, contains an unusual con-
centration of monumental architecture surrounded by
relatively small, undifferentiated settlements. Nine great
houses—multi-story, masonry buildings—were built
along a 10-mile stretch of canyon, with the bulk of con-
struction occurring from A.D. 1050 to 1100 (Lekson,
1986). The core group of great houses in Chaco Canyon
display the same kind of close morphological similarity
evidenced by the five tripartite Hopewell earthworks,
raising the possibility that the great houses were inte-
grated into a common ceremonial system rather than
serving as centers for local polities within the canyon
(cf. Fritz, 1978). The two largest great houses, Pueblo
Bonito and Chetro Ketl, each contained more than
500 rooms each and yet are located less than 500m
apart. Like Hopewell earthworks, Chaco great houses
show little sign of residential use and appear to be lar-
gely ceremonial constructions (Bernardini, 1999; Win-
des, 1984). The largest Chacoan construction episodes
approached the scale of individual Hopewell earthwork
shapes, for example, the more than 282,000PH invested
in Pueblo Bonito between about A.D. 1075 and 1085
(Lekson, 1986).
The density of great house architecture in Chaco
Canyon appears to far outstrip the needs of the compar-
atively modest surrounding local residential population
(Fig. 13), leading some scholars to suggest that the can-
yon was the site of long-distance pilgrimages (Judge,
1989; Malville and Malville, 2001). Well documented
and frequent trips from the Chuska Mountains, 60km
distant, to Chaco Canyon, by travelers often bearing
Fig. 13. Settlement pattern of central Chaco Canyon. Each
circle represents a ‘‘unit house’’ comprising 7–10 rooms,
interpreted as the residence of one, or a few, families. Redrawn
after Lekson (1991, Figure 3.9).
352 W. Bernardini / Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 23 (2004) 331–356
substantial loads of wood and pottery (Toll, 2001; Win-
des and McKenna, 2001), attest to the area over which
regional ceremonial centers can attract attendants in
middle-range societies—even in the absence of riverine
transport.
The developments in Chaco Canyon were the center
of a very widespread phenomenon of great house con-
struction. The extent of the Chacoan great house distri-
bution has been variously defined, but ranges from
about 60,000 to 110,000km2 (Doyel and Lekson,
1992). In comparison, Hopewell geometric earthworks
(Fig. 3) cover an area of about 30,000km2. Thus, a mid-
dle-range society precedent certainly exists for a regional
ceremonial system organized around a central ceremo-
nial precinct on the scale encompassed by Hopewell geo-
metric earthworks. It may therefore be productive for
Hopewell researchers to consider more seriously scenar-
ios of alliance, integration, colonization, pilgrimage, and
other pan-local socio-political relationships among the
broader distribution of earthworks surrounding the Sci-
oto Valley earthwork core.
In fact, several lines of evidence support the idea that
the core Scioto Valley earthworks anchored a much
broader ceremonial system. Lepper (1996) has docu-
mented the possible existence of a 90km long ‘‘road’’
consisting of parallel embankments 60m apart connect-
ing the Newark earthworks to the central Scioto Valley.
This road is visible in aerial photographs at several inter-
vals but has not yet been confirmed through testing.
Interestingly, the road would mirror connections be-
tween centers in the Chaco system not just in scale but
possibly in (symbolic) function as well (cf. Sofaer et
al., 1989). The 50km long, 9m wide Chaco North Road
connects two sequential centers of the Chaco phenome-
non, linking the original cluster of great houses in Chaco
Canyon proper to a later cluster of great houses centered
on Aztec Ruin. The road is thus a bridge in both time
and space (Fowler and Stein, 1992). The ‘‘great Hope-
well road’’ would have terminated near the High Banks
earthworks, which shares an almost identical layout
with part of the Newark complex—both contain circles
with a diameter of 320m (1050ft), attached to octagons
(see Squier and Davis, 1848, p. XVI, XXV). Newark was
the single largest Hopewell earthwork complex ever
built, but its chronological relationship to the earthwork
cluster around Chillicothe is still unresolved (Greber,
2003a); thus we do not know whether the potential
Hopewell road might have also been a bridge in time
as well as space. Shorter ‘‘sacred way’’ segments extend-
ing toward the Scioto Valley from the Portsmouth and
Marietta earthworks (at the eastern and southern edges
of the primary geometric earthwork distribution, respec-
tively) may also have symbolically linked these distant
monuments to the core (see Squier and Davis, 1848, p.
XXVI, XXVII), though these segments do not appear
to continue beyond the river banks adjacent to each
complex.
Conclusions
This study demonstrates the importance of establish-
ing parameters for the scale of social groups and social
interaction as a foundation upon which higher level the-
oretical interpretations can be based. This lesson can be
applied to the study of monuments cross-culturally. Pre-
vious research on monuments in dispersed landscapes,
including Hopewell, often attributed to them a referen-
tial meaning as ‘‘village surrogates’’ without adequately
exploring the implications of this interpretation. Insuffi-
cient attention to the experiential aspects of monument
construction and use has permitted debate to rage over
aspects of a model which is unsupported by the data
at a fairly basic level (e.g., Baby and Langlois, 1979;
Converse, 1993, 1994; Griffin, 1996; Pacheco, 1996; Pru-
fer, 1996).
This study represents only a first step in redefining
the interpretation of Hopewell geometric construction
and use. The task of detailing the precise nature of
the alliances or cooperative ventures that produced
the five tripartite earthworks must await future study.
Nevertheless, an empirical foundation has been
W. Bernardini / Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 23 (2004) 331–356 353
established to direct further exploration toward partic-
ular lines of inquiry, especially concerning motives and
mechanisms for channeling the energies of a wide-
spread dispersed population into the construction of
morphologically redundant, closely spaced ceremonial
centers.
The conclusions reached in this study are not in-
tended to challenge the ‘‘village surrogate’’ interpreta-
tion for all monuments constructed by dispersed
populations. The demographic lessons of mating simula-
tions (Wobst, 1974) illustrate the necessity for regular
interaction among dispersed communities, which would
have been facilitated by the use of centrally located mon-
uments. Ceremonial landscapes like that of the core
Hopewell area were probably relatively rare, and the five
tripartite earthworks are almost certainly atypical of the
broader class of Hopewell monuments. Hundreds of
geometric earthworks were built in southern Ohio and
portions of West Virginia, Kentucky, Indiana, and Illi-
nois in the Early and Middle Woodland periods, span-
ning a period of at least 500 years and exhibiting
considerable variety in their morphology, size, and spa-
tial relationships to each other. At least some of these
earthworks likely organized local communities, rather
than regional populations.
Nevertheless, as the Chaco Canyon example illus-
trates, the presence of a ceremonial core necessitates
consideration of its impact in the periphery. The fact
that an integrated ceremonial core could lie hidden in
plain view in the Hopewell landscape should stimulate
the search in other areas of the world for alternative
relationships between dispersed populations and the
monuments they built. A careful distinction between ref-
erential and experiential meaning should greatly im-
prove the success of these investigations.
Acknowledgments
This paper benefited from careful readings and com-
ments by Christopher Carr, Warren DeBoer, N�omi
Greber, Mark Lynott, and Katherine Spielmann,
though their help does not imply agreement with all
points in the final product. Mark Lynott�s invitation to
participate in field research at the Hopeton earthworks
sparked my interest in this topic. I also thank Jarrod
Burks and Jennifer Pederson of the National Park Ser-
vice for their help and input at many stages of this re-
search, and James Marshall for generously providing
access to his earthwork maps.
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