"The archaeology of the ancient American Indian Hopewell earthwork-builders of the Ohio Valley has intrigued scientists and the public alike for more than 200 years. Since the dawn of the twenty-first century, professional inquiry into the Hopewell phenomenon has accelerated. Contemporary researchers are approaching old questions with new methods and interpretive perspectives, state-of-the-art survey technologies, and novel analytical techniques. As a result, our understanding of the Hopewell world has significantly deepened. This two-volume set presents some of the most current research on Hopewell archaeology within the Ohio Valley and beyond. Volume One explores the monuments and ceremonies that stood at the heart of American Indian life during the Hopewell episode. Cutting-edge remote sensing studies and modern excavations add new dimensions to our understanding of the richness and complexity of Hopewell ceremonial landscapes. Novel investigations of earthwork form, design, and orientation attest to the remarkable sophistication of Hopewell geometry and astronomy. Cross-cultural comparisons and contextual analyses help us understand how Hopewell peoples' concepts of the soul may have motivated their ceremonial practices and structured their social relations. Studies of form, materials, and iconography shed light on the meanings and histories expressed in Hopewell art and craft. Volume Two turns to the world of everyday settlements and domestic life at the Brown's Bottom locality in the Ohio Hopewell core area, as well as farther afield in northern Ohio and southern Michigan. New evidence is presented for long-distance linkages between Hopewell centers in Ohio, Indiana, and Georgia. The relative importance of native cultigens in the economies of Ohio Hopewell communities is explored with new botanical and contextual data from recent research. The concluding chapter by Dr. Mark Seeman comments on the more seminal developments in Ohio Hopewell research since 2000 then turns an eye to the future"--

Explores the monuments and ceremonies that stood at the heart of American Indian life during the Hopewell episode. Cutting-edge remote sensing studies and modern excavations add new dimensions to our understanding of the richness and complexity of Hopewell ceremonial landscapes. Novel investigations of earthwork form, design, and orientation attest to the remarkable sophistication of Hopewell geometry and astronomy. Cross-cultural comparisons and contextual analyses help us understand how Hopewell peoples' concepts of the soul may have motivated their ceremonial practices and structured their social relations. Studies of form, materials, and iconography shed light on the meanings and histories expressed in Hopewell art and craft.

Provides case studies of social dynamics and evolution of ring-shaped communities of the Eastern Woodlands

Nearly 2000 years ago, people living in the river valleys of southern Ohio built earthen monuments on a scale that is unmatched in the archaeological record for small-scale societies. The period from c. 200 BC to c. AD 500 (Early to Middle Woodland) witnessed the construction of mounds, earthen walls, ditches, borrow pits and other earthen and stone features covering dozen of hectares at many sites and hundreds of hectares at some. The development of the vast Hopewell Culture geometric earthwork complexes such as those at Mound City, Chilicothe; Hopewell; and the Newark earthworks was accompanied by the establishment of wide-ranging cultural contacts reflected in the movement of exotic and strikingly beautiful artefacts such as elaborate tobacco pipes, obsidian and chert arrowheads, copper axes and regalia, animal figurines and delicately carved sheets of mica. These phenomena, coupled with complex burial rituals, indicate the emergence of a political economy based on a powerful ideology of individual power and prestige, and the creation of a vast cultural landscape within which the monument complexes were central to a ritual cycle encompassing a substantial geographical area. The labour needed to build these vast cultural landscapes exceeds population estimates for the region, and suggests that people from near (and possibly far) travelled to the Scioto and other river valleys to help with construction of these monumental earthen complexes. Here, Mark Lynott draws on more than a decade of research and extensive new datasets to re-examine the spectacular and massive scale Ohio Hopewell landscapes and to explore the society that created them.

The Special Issue is focused on recent and upcoming advances in the combined application of remote sensing and applied geophysics. Applied geophysics analyzes the distribution of physical properties in the subsurface for a wide range of geological, engineering, and environmental applications at different scales. Seismic, electrical, magnetic, and electromagnetic methods are among the most applied and well-established geophysical techniques. These methods share the advantages of being non-invasive and exploring wide areas of investigation with respect to conventional methods (e.g., drilling). Geophysical surveys are usually carried out deploying or moving the appropriate instrumentation directly on the ground surface. However, recent technological advances have resulting in the development of innovative acquisition systems becoming more typical of the remote sensing community (e.g., airborne surveys). While applied geophysics mainly focuses on the subsurface, typical remote sensing techniques have the ability to accurately image the Earth’s surface with high-resolution investigations carried out by means of terrestrial, airborne, or satellite-based platforms. The integration of surface and subsurface information is often crucial for several purposes, including the processing of geophysical data, the characterization and time-lapse monitoring of surface and near-surface targets, and the reconstruction of highly detailed and comprehensive 3D models of the investigated areas. Recent contributions showing the added value of surface reconstruction and/or monitoring in the processing, interpretation, and cross-comparison of geophysical techniques for archaeological, environmental, and engineering studies are collected in this book. Pioneering geophysical acquisitions by means of innovative remote systems are also presented.

This volume expands perspectives on infrastructure that are rooted in archaeological discourse and material evidence. The compiled chapters represent new and emerging ideas within archaeology about what infrastructure is, how it can materialize, and how it impacts and reflects human behavior, social organization, and identity in the past as well as the present. Three goals central to the work include: (1) expand the definition of infrastructure using archaeological frameworks and evidence from a wide range of social, historical, and geographic contexts; (2) explore how new archaeological perspectives on infrastructure can help answer anthropological questions pertaining to social organization, group collaboration, and community consensus and negotiation; and (3) examine the broader implications of an archaeological engagement with infrastructure and contributions to contemporary infrastructural studies. Chapters explore important aspects of infrastructure, including its relationality, scale, history, and relevance, and provide archaeological case studies that examine the social repercussions of infrastructure and the various ways it has materialized in the past. This compilation ultimately expands the discourse of infrastructure in archaeology and social sciences more broadly. Social scientists can turn to this volume for insights into an archaeologically informed perspective on infrastructure relevant to the study of past and current human behavior.

Originally published in 1848 as the first major work in the nascent discipline as well as the first publication of the newly established Smithsonian Institution, Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley remains today not only a key document in the history of American archaeology but also the primary source of information on hundreds of mounds and earthworks in the eastern United States, most of which have now vanished. Despite adhering to the popular assumption that the moundbuilders could not have been the ancestors of the supposedly savage Native American groups still living in the region, the authors set high standards for their time. Their work provides insight into some of the conceptual, methodological, and substantive issues that archaeologists still confront. Long out of print, this 150th anniversary edition includes David J. Meltzer's lively introduction, which describes the controversies surrounding the book’s original publication, from a bitter, decades-long feud between Squier and Davis to widespread debates about the links between race, religion, and human origins. Complete with a new index and bibliography, and illustrated with the original maps, plates, and engravings, Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley provides a new generation with a first-hand view of this pioneer era in American archaeology.