Havana Tradition Platform Pipe Production and Disposition: Implications for Interpreting Regional Variation in Midwestern Hopewell Ceremonialism

Abstract

This study documents the contexts of platform pipe creation, distribution, and disposition at Illinois Havana Hopewell Tradition (50 BC to AD 200–250) sites to identify regional variation in Hopewell ceremonialism and exchange. We observe that the large deposits of stone pipes buried during communal rituals in the Scioto Valley and the continued influence of the Hopewell Sphere of Interaction have skewed archaeological interpretation. Aside from the several large deposits, pipes are limited in the Scioto Tradition and seldom found in habitation areas. In Illinois, pipe fabrication debris commonly occurs in habitation areas along with numerous examples of pipe repair and maintenance. Local pipestones—often from northern Illinois Sterling deposits—predominate, and exotic imported pipestones are unusual. Pipes are rare inclusions with individual burials as indicators of status, spiritual prowess, achievement, or group membership. The high value placed on pipes as communal sacra in Ohio and their value in Illinois as items of personal influence parallels their common occurrence in Illinois and their unique context in Ohio Hopewell. This study of the contexts of pipe manufacture and deposition reinforces current discussions of such artifact assemblages as important in documenting local variations in political, social, and religious mortuary ceremonialism across the “Hopewellian sphere.”

Building the Ohio Hopewell Chronology: An Incremental Approach to Historical Reckoning

“…This early position of Tremper fits with most previous analyses based on stylistic and trait list similarities (e.g., Prufer 1968:148–149; Ruhl 1996; Seeman 1977; Shetrone and Greenman 1931:493; Webb and Snow 1945:204–217; see also Gehlback 1988), and also, with gorget and pipe styles from Tremper that occur in early Havana Hopewellian contexts to the west (Farnsworth 2004:414; Farnsworth et al 2016; Meinkoth 1995:55; Tankersley et al 1990:223–224). At Tremper, in contrast to Mound City, most of the platform pipes were made of exotic western Illinois Sterling pipestone and Minnesota catlinite, and they equally mark the introduction of new platform pipe styles with deeper temporal roots in the Illinois Valley (Emerson et al 2013; Farnsworth et al 2021). The large physical size of crematory basins at both Tremper and Mound City (when compared with earlier individual inhumations and, later, smaller Hopewell basins) and their associated secondary cremains and offerings indicate that rituals and their presumed tie to community identities were probably broadening at this early time, as does the increased value placed on extraregional preciosities worked into objects of consistent style.…”

Archaeology in 2021: Repatriation, reclamation, and reckoning with historical trauma

“…Even as conversations about collaboration, decolonization, and antiracism are deepening and the hiring landscape around diversity and representation are shifting, an overview of the publications on archaeology in North America in 2021 reveals that more‐traditional archaeological scholarship continues apace. Many of the articles published about the archaeological histories of Indigenous places have no mention of collaboration or involvement of Indigenous peoples in the work itself (e.g., Arkush and Arkush 2021; Barkwill Love 2021; Capps and Jones 2021; Dolan and Shackley 2021; Farnsworth, Emerson, and Hughes 2021). What remains unclear in these publications is whether collaboration existed and is not mentioned or no collaboration was present, suggesting that journal editors need to explore how to ensure that collaborative methods and relationships are integrated into publications.…”