Description
Book SynopsisA. Martin Byers challenges the traditional views of the Ohio Hopewell embankment earthworks, providing an interpretation of them as sites of sacred games and world renewal rituals built and used by complex alliances of cult sodalities.
Trade ReviewThis is an enormously rich and provocative book that I cannot hope to summarize in the brief space allotted for this review. I heartily recommend it to the attention of anyone interested in the Hopewell episode, of course, but also anyone grappling with the challenge of how we give social meaning to achaeological phenomena. * Cambridge Archaeological Journal *
Table of ContentsPart I. The Ohio Hopewell as a System of Cult Sodality Heterarchies Chapter 1. Introduction Chapter 2. The Domestic/Ceremonial Dichotomy Chapter 3. The Tripartite Alliance Model: A Critique Chapter 4. The Nature of Ohio Hopewell Mortuary Ceremonialism Chapter 5. The Symbolic Meaning of Material Culture Chapter 6. The Ecclesiastic-Communal Cult Sodality Model Chapter 7. The Hidatsa Age-Set System and the Ritual Usufruct Conveyancing and Franchising Model Chapter 8. The Ohio Hopewell Cult Sodality Heterarchy System: From the Bottom-Up Chapter 9. The Murphy Tract: The Empirical Grounding of the Cult Sodality Cluster Model Part II. Sacred Games, Death, and Renewal in Ohio Hopewell Chapter 10. The Sacred Games Tournée of the Ohio Hopewell System of Cult Sodality Heterarchies Chapter 11. The North Fork-Paint Creek Interface Zone and the Terminal Conveyancing of Custodial Regalia Chapter 12. The Ohio Hopewell as Dispersed Third-Order Cult Sodality Heterarchies Chapter 13. The Development of the Ohio Hopewell Cult Sodality Heterarchy System Chapter 14. Embankment Earthwork and Way Station Facilities Chapter 15. The Structuring of Ohio Hopewell Sites and Pathways Chapter 16. Embankment Earthwork Site Alignments and Relations Chapter 17. The Ohio Hopewell and Adena as Neighbors and Strangers
