Ohio History Journal

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ARE THE HOPEWELL COPPER OBJECTS PREHIS-

ARE THE HOPEWELL COPPER OBJECTS PREHIS-

TORIC?*

 

BY WARREN K. MOOREHEAD.

At the Washington meeting of the American Anthropologi-

cal Association, held conjointly with Section H of the American

Association for the Advancement of Science, I read a brief paper

on the Hopewell copper objects, and it is now my wish to present

a more extended communication on the subjest.

Mr. Clarence B. Moore, whose valuable work in southeastern

United States is so favorably known to all who are interested in

American archaeology, has recently called my attention to two

sentences in my review of Mr. Fowke's Archaeological History

of Ohio, published in the American Anthropologist (volume IV,

No. 3), which might be regarded by some as evidence that Euro-

pean objects were found in the Hopewell mounds of Ohio. If

any one so construes these sentences, he gives to them an interpre-

tation exactly the opposite of that which I wish to convey.

When the land on which the Hopewell group of mounds is

situated was cleared, about the year 1800, it was covered with a

heavy forest growth of oak, walnut, etc., but on the upper one of

the two terraces of the enclosure the growth was largely of oak.

Evidence based on the age of timber is very unsatisfactory, and

one cannot say with certainty whether the largest trees growing

from the mounds were two hundred or four hundred years of

age. The fields have been cultivated for many years, and the

height of each tumulus has been reduced and the diameter greatly

extended. Our best evidence as to the antiquity of the mounds,

therefore, is obtained from the excavations. These evidences

are:

First. Five or six of the mounds contain peculiarly shaped

altars of burnt clay. These are confined to Southern Ohio and

are not mentioned by the earliest travelers who witnessed the

* The above article appeared in American Anthropologist (n. s.), Vol.

5, January, March, 1903.- E. O. R.

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