Hopewell Community Dynamics: Evidence from the Fort Ancient Site

The major topic of this dissertation is the political organization of so-
called "Hopewell” peoples associated with some of the largest and most elaborate burial mounds and earthworks in eastern North America. Archaeologists have long argued about the political organization of moundbuilders in the Midwest. Evidence for large scale and cooperative moundbuilding and long distance exchange has led some to consider them to have been an "advanced” society with political hierarchy and control over sites shows little cooperation or integration above the individual household level. The ambiguous evidence for inequality has led to conflicting interpretations of the social organization of some of the earliest mound builders and of the function of the mound sites themselves.