II. STUDIES OF THE OBJECTS FOUND IN THE 

 HOPEWELL MOUNDS 



A study of the various objects found in the mounds of the Hopewell 

 group will be presented under fourteen subdivisions. It has not been 

 possible to always adhere strictly to the material under discussion in a 

 given section, as, for example, when speaking of copper, it is some- 

 times necessary to refer to bone and shell also. 



Metal: Copper Objects. — In the course of a general review of the 

 bulk of the material found during these explorations, the observer is at 

 once struck by the profusion of copper objects. While no one has as 

 yet counted the multitudinous objects in the Field Museum collection, 

 it is estimated that there are about two thousand one hundred copper 

 ear-ornaments or busks in storage. Taking into consideration the many 

 perfect objects on exhibition, the masses of copper fused together, and 

 the fragments, it seems probable that there were in the neighborhood 

 of five thousand copper objects in the twenty-eight mounds of the 

 Hopewell group. This, further, does not take into account the copper 

 removed by Squier and Davis. The objects include not only those 

 common in Ohio Valley mounds, such as celts, small plates, and ear- 

 ornaments, but there are also copper plates, axes of unusual size, and 

 many designs cleverly wrought from sheet copper. Nothing like these 

 geometric figures of thin copper had been previously found in Ohio, 

 except a few specimens from the Turner group, near Cincinnati. The 

 whole series included such abnormal forms, so different from those 

 found in other mound explorations, that some of our most eminent 

 archaeologists stated that it was impossible for Indians working with 

 stone tools to have produced such delicate and finished work. It was 

 not until the publication of a detailed report upon analysis of mound 

 copper by Clarence B. Moore, 1 that it was established beyond doubt 

 that the Hopewell copper was prehistoric. Moore has set forth the 

 fact that Europeans traded copper ornaments to the Indians, but that 

 these were usually made of an alloy, and that the metal was not nearly 

 as pure as that obtained by the Indians from the drift or mines in 

 Wisconsin and Michigan. Additional evidence of the aboriginal origin 

 of these objects is furnished by the presence of many fragments and 



1 American Anthropologist, Vol. V, 1903, p. 27. 

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