More Notes on "Hopewell Culture"

The use of the term "Hopewell Culture" is a way to keep from telling you that we talking about a kind of confederation of the ancestors of the owners of your local casino."Hopewell Culture" might be thought of as a set of snap-shots of the doings of those ancestors from about 400 BC to 400 AD.

Hopewell people have been refereed to as 'mound builders.' Exotic grave goods such as sheet mica art, fresh water pearls, and copper craft added a mystique of their earthworks. We are finding that their influence spread from Nova Scotia to Cuba, from the Rockies to the Atlantic.

Their heartland at the time of the photo tended to be the Ohio River Valley in what is now the state of Ohio.

We are gaining some idea of how climate changes effected them.

We are better understanding that dress and grooming were important to them. They wanted to look good and did.

We may find that the history of the Iroquois and other tribes may inform of us of the people we have called Hopewell.

What can you tell us about the unusual bony ear growth genetically transmitted among Hopewell nobility.

We may be helped in adopting to our own climate change by looking at the medicinal and nutritional qualities cultivated and harvested by Hopewell peoples. We might start by looking more closely at plants such as: sump-weed, goose-foot, sunflower, knot-weed, little barley, may-grass, and their brand of tobacco.Hopewell people and those related to them have lived long and strong by harvesting wild deer and hickory nuts. Maybe we can live longer and stronger by learning to do similar ha vesting of our own.

The ancestors of the Adena and Hopewell peoples lived in a cooler climate and used their atlatals to cast spear/darts at the giant armadillo, camel, horse, dire-wolf,  ground-sloth, long-horned bison, saber-toothed tiger,  and short faced bear around what is now Cincinnati, Ohio, Jackson, Mississippi, and Jefferson City, Missouri.

From well before 4000 BC to about 400 BC, Hopewell people may have been the least war-like people on earth. It seems that they put their energies into spiritual activities, long distance trade, looking good, art, and developing ways of getting along.

There is a very great deal of practical knowledge yet to be learned from thees people. For example, why did they build a straight 'road' in what is now Ohio, fom Newwork to Chillicothe. How did they benefit from it?

Southern Ceremonial Complex

The SCC began about 500 AD at the end of the relatively peaceful millenia of the Early, Middle, and Late Woodland cultures centered on the Mississippi River. The SCC has also been called the southern Death Cult and Chiefly Warfare Cult. The early SCC included a wide ranging exchange network as did the Woodland cultural periods.

The SCC, or SECC as Waring and Holder called it was identified by them with a cultural rise beginning about 900 AD, a flourishing from about 1250 to 1350 AD with a decline into about 1550 AD. Trade networks about 1350 AD. Waring and Holder identified the SCC period with markers such as: long-nosed god, shell and copper masks, bi-lobed arrow heads, and chunkey players.

An earlier example of cultural change may be seen in the disruption of the Mississippian Woodland Culture evidenced by the marked increased reliance on corn agriculture and increased use of a bow and arrow in hunting and less on the atlatl and dart. This earlier change may have begun as early as 500 BC with more evidence available for a change after 400 BC. The evidence for change is clear to most in the field  for a time after 400 AD.

The change from Woodland cultures such as the Hopewell culture to the Southern Ceremonial Complex culture was a ver great change in the peoples of the area. The Woodland cultures had their ups and downs from before 400 BC, but the change to SCC culture was a very great change indeed.

The adoption of the SCC culture was largely by the "Civilized Tribes" of the southeast of the US rather than by the Algonquian speaking peoples farther north.

One of the big changes before the SCC cultural adoption occurred about 3200 BC with the appearance of pottery and the cultivation of squash.

Please help us fill in some details of the narration above.

Tuatha De Danann in Time

My best guesses of the moment:
7500 BC: Island well populated
6000 BC: High Mesolithic culture in Ireland
4000 BC: Neolithic in Ireland
2500 BC: Bronze Age in Ireland
2000 BC: Fir Bolg
1900 BC: Tuatha De Danann
Order of reigns with guesses of approximate dates.
1. Nuada  1897 or 1477
2. Bres 1897 or 1470
3. Lugh 1870 or 1407
4. Eoch Ollathair 1830 or 1337
5. Delbaeth 1750 or 1327                         
6. Fiacha 1740 or 1317
7. Mac Cuill, Mac Cecht, Mac Greine 1730 or 1287
1700 BC Milesians 
600  BC Celts in Ireland
100  BC Gauls in Ireland