goods reserved for a few individuals refl ect the development
of social ranking in ancient American societies.
In what is now the eastern United States, groups prac-
ticing a mix of hunting-collecting and limited agriculture
participated in the Adena and Hopewell burial and ritual
complexes (ca. 1000 b.c.e.–400 c.e.). Th ese widespread tradi-
tions focused on the practice of burying selected members of
the community in artifi cial mounds accompanied by elabo-
rate gift s, many obtained via long-distance trade. At Adena
sites in the Ohio Valley small communities built conical
mounds, some as high as 70 feet, over circular or rectangu-
lar wooden structures that covered graves lined with clay or
logs. Th e dead were buried in the fl esh, as secondary buri-
als (meaning that the bodies had been allowed to decay to
bones elsewhere before burial here), or as cremations. Th e
mounds grew in layers as burials were added over time. Th e
honored dead, who may have achieved their status by their
abilities as traders or shamans, were accompanied by slate
pendants, stone smoking pipes, and copper beads, bracelets,
and breastplates.
Hopewell peoples (ca. 200 b.c.e.–400 c.e.) in Ohio and
Illinois erected mounds over log crypts or charnel houses that
might contain a hundred or more cremations or burials. Th e
honored dead took with them thousands of objects, including
stone pipes, copper axes and ornaments, freshwater pearls,
shells traded from the Gulf of Mexico, and obsidian from the
distant Rocky Mountains. At one Ohio site, the many dead
interred in the mounds took with them a total of 500 copper
ear ornaments for luxury adornment in the aft erlife, while
one individual was accompanied by 300 pounds of obsidian
imported from the distant Rocky Mountains. At some Illi-
nois sites crypts were reopened periodically for new arrivals
and older remains shift ed to other sections of the mound to
make space.
In early agricultural villages in central Mexico of the
Early Formative Period (ca. 1800–1200 b.c.e.) the dead were
frequently buried under the fl oors of their houses, presumably
to keep ancestors in contact with the living. At the same time
the rise of centralized chiefdoms and states in Mesoamerica
led to the creation of monumental tombs for elite fi gures. At
the Olmec site of La Venta (1200–400 b.c.e.) on the Gulf coast
of Mexico, a stone tomb covered by a clay platform contained
the remains of two children, who might have been royalty or
sacrifi cial victims—with jade jewelry and fi gurines, mirrors
of polished iron ore, ritual bloodletting implements, and red
cinnabar pigment. A crocodile-shaped stone sarcophagus at
La Venta probably held an Olmec ruler, though the bones
had disintegrated, leaving only the jade jewelry behind. At
the Chalcatzingo site in Mexico local rulers allied to those of
La Venta were laid to rest in stone crypts under their palacesHopewell burial mounds often contain numerous burials, thousands of artifacts made from such exotic materials as
Gulf coast shells, Lake Superior copper, silver, meteoric iron, freshwater pearls, and coal, along with evidence of sev-
eral ceremonial constructions. For example, Mound 13 at the appropriately named site of Mound City, Ohio, a low,
round pile of earth some 3 feet high and 70 feet across, was built over the remains of two successive ritual buildings.
These buildings consisted of wooden poles driven into the ground and probably woven together to create an arched
frame, which was then covered with sheets of bark, much like later Native American wigwams. Only the depressions
left by the rotted poles survive to tell us of the buildings’ shapes. The second building seems to have been a funerary
shrine where the bodies of the honored dead were cremated and rituals performed. It was roughly square, measuring
40 by 42.5 feet. It contained a 4-by-6-foot crematory, identifi ed by a depression or pit where the soil was baked by
repeated fi res. Four “altars”—small platforms of earth—supported groups of cremated human bones and deliberately
broken objects, presumably meant to accompany the ancestors’ spirits into the hereafter.
Treatment of the dead may not always have been orderly by modern Western notions. The structure also con-
tained 13 piles of cremated remains and their associated ornaments of copper, mica, slate, and other materials, and
in one central area of the fl oor fragmentary artifacts and cremated bones had been trampled into the earth by the
feet of participants in the ceremonies. At some point before the wooden building was buried under the mound, this
central space ceased to be used for rituals and its stomped-upon relics were covered with sand.
Two shallow graves had been dug into the fl oor, but one clearly overshadowed the other in splendor and im-
portance. The excavators of the mound in 1920–1921, William Mills and Henry Shetrone, called the more elaborate
burial the Great Mica Grave because it was completely lined with sheets of this silvery material, probably imported
from the Carolinas. The 6.5-by-7-foot grave was surrounded by a raised circle of mica pieces and soil containing bro-
ken stone smoking pipes—perhaps the possessions of a Hopewell shaman—as well as ornaments of animal teeth and
chunks of another silvery mineral, the lead ore galena. Within the shallow excavation the cremated remains of four
people accompanied a copper ceremonial headdress. Before the whole building was entombed beneath the earth
mound, a small mound was erected over the Great Mica Grave, and it, too, received a shiny covering of mica sheets.INSIDE A HOPEWELL BURIAL MOUND
322 death and burial practices: The Americas