Hopewell pottery is the ceramic tradition of the various local cultures involved in the

Hopewell tradition The Hopewell tradition, also called the Hopewell culture and Hopewellian exchange, describes a network of precontact Native American cultures that flourished in settlements along rivers in the northeastern and midwestern Eastern Woodlands from ...

(ca. 200 BCE to 400 CE) and are found as artifacts in

archeological site An archaeological site is a place (or group of physical sites) in which evidence of past activity is preserved (either prehistoric or historic or contemporary), and which has been, or may be, investigated using the discipline of archaeology an ...

s in the American Midwest and Southeast. The Hopewell were located around the

Mississippi Mississippi () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States, bordered to the north by Tennessee; to the east by Alabama; to the south by the Gulf of Mexico; to the southwest by Louisiana; and to the northwest by Arkansas. Miss ...

and Illinois Rivers during the

Middle Woodland Period In the classification of archaeological cultures of North America, the Woodland period of North American pre-Columbian cultures spanned a period from roughly 1000 BCE to European contact in the eastern part of North America, with some archaeolog ...

, and the Hopewell Interaction Sphere spanned from the

Gulf of Mexico The Gulf of Mexico ( es, Golfo de México) is an ocean basin and a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean, largely surrounded by the North American continent. It is bounded on the northeast, north and northwest by the Gulf Coast of the United ...

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central C ...

, Canada.

Uses

This pottery was used in a variety of ways: from storage and cooking to holding offerings during burial ceremonies. Ceremonial pottery was noticeably more delicate and elaborate than pottery for domestic use.Seeman, 65

Techniques

Although there are many techniques and methods of pottery production, the method most likely used in the Hopewell culture was the coiled method. After making the initial form of the vessel a paddle and anvil would then be used to further shape and smooth the pot. The final two steps are decoration and firing. Before firing, Hopewell pottery was often incised, stamped, or zone-stamped, in which different "zones" of the pot were delineating by incised, then stamped, leaving the surrounding areas smooth for contrast.Seeman, 64 "Hopewell ware" is characterized by

crosshatching Hatching (french: hachure) is an artistic technique used to create tonal or shading effects by drawing (or painting or scribing) closely spaced parallel lines. (It is also used in monochromatic representations of heraldry to indicate what t ...

, bands with cambered rims, and highly stylized bird motifs.

Notes

References

*Berlo, Janet C. and Ruth B. Phillips. ''Native North American Art''. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998. . *Seeman, Mark F. "Hopewell Art in Hopewell Places." Richard F. Townsend and Robert V. Sharp, eds. ''Hero, Hawk, and Open Hand.'' New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004. . {{Pre-Columbian North America Hopewellian peoples Native American pottery

Uses

Techniques

See also

Notes

References