The Hopewell People, by Dr. Andrew Martin

hopewell_exchange_network_hroe_2010The Hopewell culture was the first pan-american culture that stretched from Kansas to New York, Canada to Florida from 200BC to 500AD.  It was an enormous culture with many local expressions that traded ideas and artifacts with each other over vast distances. The people who lived in Elsah were at the very southern edge of the Havana Hopewell – one of these local expressions, but also one of the main cultural centers, together with the Ohio Hopewell – in North America. Artifacts from as far as Yellowstone, the Great Lakes, the Gulf of Mexico and Florida were found in elaborate burial mounds that lined the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers along the bluffs. The talk will explain a bit about the development and history of the Havana Hopewell and touch on few of the possible reasons why it was so prominent in North America. [Map source]

martin-aDr. Andrew Martin is an associate professor at Principia College, teaching archaeology, anthropology and art history.  He received his PhD from Cambridge University in England, having done his research on the Hopewell mounds along the Lower Illinois Valley near Kampsville.

This talk takes place Thursday, November 17, at 7:30 p.m. in Farley Music Hall, and is part of the Hosmer-Williams Lecture Series, sponsored by Liberty Bank.