Gathering Hopewell: Society, Ritual and Ritual Interaction

by Christopher Carr (Editor), D. Troy Case (Editor)

Among the most socially and personally vocal archaeological remains on the North American continent are the massive and often complexly designed earthen architecture of Hopewellian peoples of two thousand years ago, their elaborately embellished works of art made of glistening metals and stones from faraway places, and their highly formalized mortuaries. In this book, twenty-one researchers in interwoven efforts immerse themselves and the reader in this vibrant archaeological record in order to richly reconstruct the societies, rituals, and ritual interactions of Hopewellian peoples. By finding the faces, actions, and motivations of Hopewellian peoples as individuals who constructed knowable social roles, the authors explore, in a personalized and locally contextualized manner, the details of Hopewellian leadership, its sacred and secular power bases, recruitment, and formalization over time; systems of social ranking and prestige; animal-totemic clan organization, kinship structures, and sodalities; gender roles, prestige, work load, and health; community organization in its tri-scalar residential, symbolic, and demographic forms; intercommunity alliances and changes in their strategies and expanses over time; and interregional travels for power questing, pilgrimage, healing, tutelage, and acquiring ritual knowledge. This book is useful to scholars, graduate students, and advanced undergraduates interested in the workings and development of social complexity at local and interregional scales, recent theoretical developments in the anthropology of the topics listed above, the prehistory of eastern North America, its history of intellectual development, and Native American ritual, symbolism, and belief.

828 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

Reviews

[E.A. West · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is full of information, but it could have flowed more smoothly. Some sections were cleanly written, others could have used another look by the editor. Also, the first few chapters summarized the later chapters to the extent that the information began to feel repetitive. Then there were the sections where the authors were obviously guessing about the society based on artifacts, their placement in burials, etc. While the authors' conclusions were well thought out, some of them struck me as being a stretch considering the evidence available.

Overall, it's an academic tome and useful if you're looking for in-depth information on the Hopewell, which I was. If you're looking for a book that's easy to read, however, you may want to think twice about this one.