Riker-Todd: A Salvaged Ohio Hopewell Mound

Abstract

Riker-Todd was a Middle Woodland Hopewell Mound located on a glaciated upland in Union Township, Butler County, Ohio. Radiocarbon dating and anthropogenic stratigraphy indicate that there were at least three different mound building episodes between ca. 5 B.C. to A.D. 631. Stylistically distinctive artifacts and mtDNA from Riker-Todd Mound fall within the range of other Middle Woodland Hopewell sites in North America and most closely resemble those from Mound 25 of the Hopewell Mound Group, including a large corner-notched, flaked-stone biface manufactured from Knife River flint. Although maize was part of the Hopewell diet, stable carbon obtained from human bone collagen failed to find an isotopic signature.

Sources of Stable Isotope Variation in Archaeological Dog Remains

“…Although carbonized maize was abundant in the same pit feature, which contained dog and human skeletons, none of the bone collagen samples produced d 13 C isotope values that were greater than -19‰. Rather, the d 13 C isotope values are comparable to those found in human bone collagen from other Woodland-age sites (Tankersley and Tench, 2009).…”

The Eads earthwork: Implications for Hopewell ceremonialism

“…The mound is 1.61 m high with a north-south diameter of 25.42 m, an east-west diameter of 24.15 m, and a volume of ∼290 m 3 . The dimensions of the mound are comparable to the Riker-Todd mound (Tankersley and Tench, 2009) and those within the enclosure of Fort Ancient (Romain, 2000;Romain, 2004). Aside from slumping and bioturbation, the mound remains intact.…”

“…Griffin (1967) noted that Algonquian Native American tribes are the direct descendants of the Hopewell. Like contemporary Algonquian tribes, all mtDNA haplogroups (i.e., A, B, C, D, X) can be found among the Hopewell (Mills, 2003; Pritchett, 2013; Tankersley and Tench, 2009). The Hopewell archaeological record, which dates between ca.…”

X-ray powder diffraction analysis of Late Holocene reservoir sediments

“…The limestone slabs were covered with Illinoisan clay and silt removed from ditch construction to a height upwards of five meters. Dams were built across natural ravines and constructed using the same log and clay construction techniques found in nearby sub-mound burial tombs (Tankersley and Tench, 2009). Logs were stacked horizontally on top of a limestone slab foundation to the height of the adjacent berms, chinked with clay, and hardened by fire.…”