Hopewell Farming

Farming had to be invented and developed, just like all other technologies.  2,000 years ago Native Americans in Ohio were among the first to farm crops.

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People of the Hopewell era were among Ohio’s first farmers. Archeological evidence demonstrates that they domesticated and cultivated a variety of hardy annual plants long before people brought corn and beans into the area several centuries later. These cultivated plants are collectively called the Eastern Agricultural Complex (EAC). Many of the domesticated versions of these plants have since gone extinct, which is why some archeologists have nicknamed them “America’s lost crops.”

 

The interpretive garden at the Mound City Group Visitor Center is tended to each summer season by dedicated park ranger staff and volunteers.

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During the Hopewell era, people provided the nutrients they needed to thrive by hunting, gathering, fishing and farming. Hunting and gathering provided the majority of the Hopewell diet. However, farming practices intensified significantly while the Hopewell movement flourished. People of the Hopewell era cleared fields near their family homes for food production, likely rotating through different cleared areas when the soil became exhausted. This type of farming system is often called swidden farming or shifting cultivation. These fields were planted with crops of the Eastern Agricultural Complex including sunflower, squash, goosefoot, marshelder, maygrass, and little barley – each discussed in more detail below. Farming, while likely never comprising the bulk of dietary intake, nonetheless would have been a central part of daily life and supplemented other less reliable food sources. The interpretive garden outside of the park’s Visitor Center showcases the plants that helped sustain people of the Hopewell culture and provided them with enough energy to create the earthworks they are famous for today.