Kindling "New Fires" in Ohio Hopewell Ceremonial Regimes

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Our paper investigates the relationship between Ohio Hopewell ceremonial hearths and the caches interred within/adjacent to them in submound buildings at Hopewell and Mound City. While large Ohio Hopewell mega-caches have captured the attention of archaeologists, discussions of the ceremonial hearths associated with them have typically focused on their use. Yet these interpretations have often missed how the use of Ohio Hopewell fired clay basins and charnel houses was intertwined, since new hearths and buildings were sometimes constructed over older dismantled/razed structures. We argue that the razing and renewal of these spaces could be akin to ethnohistorically documented "new fire" ceremonies in which ceramic vessels, buildings, effigies and other objects were often destroyed in a ritual that served to purify the community. This raises the possibility that long–term continuities exist in the ceremonial linkage of fire in the Eastern Woodlands to 1) the sun, 2) communal health and purification, 3) the treatment of the dead, 4) world renewal and 5) rites of riddance. We conclude by considering how these associations might alter interpretations of Middle Woodland ceremonial regimes, especially the significance/importance of Ohio Hopewell caches.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

Keywords

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 24921