Tremper mound stuff

[lostlake88]

I just ran across this photo last night. My wife is a Tremper and her great grandfather was the owner of Tremper Mound. He dug it in 1909 with his brother before the Ohio Historical Society was allowed to have it's way with it. The only remaining private collection of Tremper artifacts are in my mother in law's possesion so I have fortunately been able to handle pieces from time to time. She has one of the nicest Flint Ridge Hopewell points I have seen. These terra cotta effigies reportedly were recovered from the mound encased in a stone box, and the copper axes were nearby. They look allot like southern cult figurines that could have been traded. Remarkably they still show paint. This is a picture of a picture so the image quality has suffered.

 

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[pickaway]

Wow great artifacts & history.Just saw some of the pipes at OHS last weekend its my understnading alot of the artifacts were sold to museums in Europe.Thanks for the look...

 

[paleojoe]

Great artifacts. Glad to hear that some of them are still in private collections. I live about 4 miles from the mound,& look at whats left of it every time that I go by. thanks for sharing the wonderful pictures.

 

[seger98]

ok this is very interesting, you are in Ohio right? And those are copper axes? Isn't this site about 2100 years BP? That would, could mean a possible trade With the peoples of the Old Copper Culture right? And that is 1700 to 10,000 years BP.

I find alot of Old Copper artifacts in Northern Wi & the U.P., this is the first I've seen of copper artifacts in Ohio.

This to me is a very important post. I'm glad to see copper in I guess what some people would call another culture right?

I've often wondered how far copper was traded in the upper midwest.

Please, I would invite others to post their ideas here on the two cultures coming together & trading items!

 

[The Grim Reaper]

seger98, I too am from southern Ohio and in the same county as Tremper Mound. We find quite a few Copper Beads and other items on our Ft Ancient sites which date fro 950 to 1650 AD. I have only found 1 complete Copper Bead myself, but I have a buddy who has quite a few of and he also has a Copper Snake Effigy that is really cool. This same buddy used to have permission to hunt a small field that was located on the same ridge as Tremper Mound just to the south if it. He found quite a few really nice Hopewell pieces over the years until they quit plowing it. I have also talked to guys who say they have found things in the creek that runs behind the mound in the valley below.

For those that don't know, Tremper Mound produced one of the the largest, if not the largest caches of Hopewell Effigy PlatformPipes to ever be found along with a large amount of plain Platform Pipes as well.

Below are a few links to see some of the Pipes and other artifacts recovered at Tremper along with some history of the mound and a floor plan of the mound. If you want to see even more all you have to do is Google Tremper Mound and all kinds of sites come up.

http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/entry.php?rec=2750

http://omp.ohiolink.edu/OMP/NewDetails?oid=1160755

http://ohsweb.ohiohistory.org/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=622

 

[seger98]

Dorkfish, thanks for the links, they were very interesting. The picture of the people digging there look like they were going about it haphazardly, Do you think there is a direct link between the Old Copper Culture and the Hopewell as far as trade goes?

I often thought about how all these copper pieces got from here to where ever. If there is a direct link, it had to have been towards the end of the copper culture age.

Also, did anyone ever do a test on the copper to see if it had indeed come from the U.P.? They should be able to tell from the purity.

Seems to me it could be a whole new can of worms!

I have read a book about the copper culture & it did mention the copper snake effigy, I will look it up & see what they were talking about there!

 

[jeff a]

ohio hopewell traded all over the states,copper from the up,shells from the gulf coast ,knife river flint from the dakotas and obsidian from yellowstone,there was a mound in cuyahoga county that had points made out of noviculite from down south,the late archaic glacial kame culture traded for copper and shell also

 

[seger98]

Jeff, are there any links or names of books you can provide to back this up? I am not doubting what you are saying, it's just I think this is BY FAR the most intersting post I have seen on here, and the more that "I" can learn about both cultures the better!

I am really excited about these finds at the Tremper Mounds & how they might relate to the finds of my own!

Chris

 

[jeff a]

chris,if you can find archeaology of ohio by converse,its all in there they are for sale on aso website,

 

[jeff a]

heres a good link

http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/entry.php?rec=1283

 

[seger98]

Thanks Jeff, that is a very good link, so it was a ceremonial site! So the items in the picture above must have belonged to a very important person. Cuz I wouldn't think a axe made of copper would have been given up so easily! This just keeps getting better! I'd like to hear what the others that post here alot think about it!

 

[The Grim Reaper]

seger98, if you look at one of the links on the right hand side of the link that Jeff provided you will see one titled Portsmouth Earthworks. Portsmouth is the largest city in our county and about maybe 5 or 6 miles as the crow flies from Tremper Mound. There were extensive mound and Earthworks in and around the Portsmouth area at one time including two Horseshoe Mounds(one still exists in Mound Park, though it's not the original and was rebuilt some years ago), a Medicine wheel which is located across the Ohio River near the town of South Shore Ky, and a twin wall that extended from the Horseshoe Mounds to the Medicine Wheel. There is still a small portion of the Medicine Wheel left in a field behind the MarkWest Chemical Plant and I have actually stood inside of it which was pretty cool. Portsmouth was a huge Hopewell society at one time and we find quite a few Hopewell pieces in the surrounding fields.

There is a large collection in our local museum that was donated a few years back that has a lot of Hopewell artifacts in it. The story is that the man who donated the collection got a lot of it from his father who was one of the original builders in the town of Portsmouth and his crews would take down the mounds in the city as they were building and remove all the artifacts as they went and then build over what was left of the mound. I believe the mans name was Bill Wertz.

I have some maps that show all of the Portsmouth Earthwoks and Indian related sites on it and if you'd like one PM your mailing address and I'll send you one.

 

[SoIll]

There's been copper found all the way up to historic. I don't know about the copper culture, but our local mound groups (mississippian) have lots of it.

 

[pickaway]

Here's some pics of tremper pipes i took last weekend at OHS.Also they have a nice museum down in Chillicothe off Rt. 104 Mound city make a good trip.

 

[seger98]

Those are really neat pickaway, I also looked at that other site that was mentioned above in Jeff's link, that was a pretty big structure, it's really to bad so much of it has been ruined by modern man!

Thanks everyone for the links & added text!


Chris

 

[jeff a]

here is a link to some copper beads from a late archaic burial from ohio
http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/entry.php?rec=1272&nm=Copper-Beads

 

[seger98]

here is a link to some copper beads from a late archaic burial from ohio
http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/entry.php?rec=1272&nm=Copper-Beads

Nice link again Jeff, I've only been lucky enough to find 1 copper bead in all my years of detecting!

Thanks for posting the link!

 

[SouthernGirl]

very interesting links I enjoy this post

 

[jeff a]

here is a link to some videos made by the ohio historical society,some good ones on ohio hopewell
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=OHCEditor&view=videos

 

[seger98]

Jeff, once again you've provided a really good link, I watched all the videos atleast once, some twice & then found a bunch more on my own.

Surprises me how often I heard the words "We think" "It's suggested" "Maybe" I thought they had it down more then that!


Chris