Teaming up on the mystery of Hopewell pebbles
Bradley Lepper These stone pebbles are used by the Shawnee tribe to attach a leather drumhead to its shell. Similar pebbles were excavated from Seip Mound near Chillicothe in the 1920s, suggesting that the Hopewell culture used the same technique. leather around a series of round, black pebbles, which they then tie off with cordage. Then they tie a cord around one of the leatherwrapped pebbles, pass the cord under the bottom of the shell, and attach it to another leather-wrapped pebble on the opposite side of the drumhead, repeating the process until each pebble is attached to another and the drumhead is firmly fastened to the shell.
When Ben mentioned the pebbles, I was reminded of similar round, black soapstone pebbles that Henry Shetrone, an early archaeologist at the Ohio History Connection, excavated from Seip Mound near Chillicothe
in the 1920s. Seip Mound, built by the Hopewell culture around 2,000 years ago, is now part of Hopewell Culture National Historical Park.
Shetrone supposed that the spherical pebbles were marbles — even though there was no evidence that precontact American Indians ever played that game. After months of research, Ben and I agree that they were actually part of a Hopewell drum that was constructed in much the same way modern Shawnee people still make their ceremonial drums. The paper presenting our idea was published online last month in the journal of the World Archaeological
Congress, Archaeologies. If we’re right, it’s the oldest evidence of a drum in eastern North America.
It should come as no surprise that the Hopewell culture used drums in their ceremonies, but because drums usually are made from mostly perishable materials, such as wood and leather, there is little left for archaeologists to find after centuries of burial in the soil. The five stone spheres from Seip Mound, nearly identical in size and color to Shawnee drum-stones, might be all that remains of a Hopewell drum.
For Ben, our research has a deeply personal significance. If we’re right, a
central feature of his personal religious identity is reflected in these 2,000-year-old artifacts recovered from a mound in a valley that was home to his people before their forced removal in the 19th century.
Our paper presents one example of the kind of insight that can come from archaeologists and American Indians trusting each other and working together to try to interpret the objects found in ancient American sites. Ben and I both hope to see more of these collaborations in the future.