Ceramic technology, replication, and interaction spheres during the Woodland period in the eastern Central Plains

About 2,000 years ago, people living in the Eastern Woodlands of North America began engaging in new ceremonial activities associated with constructing earthworks and large earthen mounds. They also developed networks of exchange across a vast majority of what is the continental United States today. They exchanged exotic materials with one another, including copper, obsidian, shark, bear, and wolf teeth. They also shared artistic expressions through decorated artifacts, including ceramics. Two of the most westerly located manifestations are known as the Kansas City Hopewell and the Cuesta – Cooper Hopewell in the eastern Central Plains of modern-day Kansas and Missouri. Both groups have received considerably less research attention than the groups in the Eastern Woodland have. In fact, they have even been described as having originated from the eastern groups as either migrants into the region, or recipients of the eastern Hopewellian groups’ cultural sensibilities. In this study, I present details about the type of ceramic vessels these two groups produced and the Hopewellian identities they shared through their engagement in a broader regional interaction sphere. An interaction sphere that involved practices of exchange and replication of their ceramic vessels. Furthermore, I also present new radiocarbon dates from ceramic charred-food residues and that demonstrate both of these groups were developing at the same time the more well-known groups to the east were.