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Did A Comet / Meteor Airburst Cause Or Drive Hopewell Culture Decline?

EnolaGaia

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Newly published research results suggest some sort of major airburst occurred in the right time and place(s) to have initiated or aggravated the decline of the Hopewell mound builder culture.
A Cosmic Airburst May Have Devastated a Vast Native American Culture 1,500 Years Ago

More than 1500 years ago, a vast culture known as the Hopewell tradition (or Hopewell culture) stretched across what is today the eastern United States.

The cause of the culture's decline has long been debated, with war and climate change two of the possibilities, but now a new avenue of inquiry has opened up: debris from a near-Earth comet.

Researchers working across 11 different Hopewell archaeological sites covering three states have found unusual concentrations of iridium and platinum in their digging – telltale signs of meteorite fragments. Meanwhile, a charcoal layer in the sediment suggests an intense period of high heat.

The hypothesis is that debris from a passing comet may have struck close to the Ohio Hopewell communities, causing an airburst that would have profound and potentially devastating effects on the local environment.

Signs that the people collected meteorite fragments and incorporated them into their jewelry and instruments, along with hints of a calamity in local folklore, suggest there was certainly some significant event – one that the researchers suggest may have contributed to a significant upheaval in the social sphere. ...

There are other clues too: the Hopewell built a comet-shaped mound near the epicenter of the meteorite rain region, which is today called the Milford Earthworks. What's more, a calamitous event way back in history is still spoken about today amongst descendant tribes. ...
FULL STORY: https://www.sciencealert.com/a-near...oyed-a-north-american-culture-1-500-years-ago
 
Here are the bibliographic details and abstract from the published research report. The full report (which is profusely illustrated) can be accessed at the link below.


Tankersley, K.B., Meyers, S.D., Meyers, S.A. et al.
The Hopewell airburst event, 1699–1567 years ago (252–383 CE).
Sci Rep 12, 1706 (2022).
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-05758-y

Abstract
Meteorites, Fe and Si-rich microspherules, positive Ir and Pt anomalies, and burned charcoal-rich Hopewell habitation surfaces demonstrate that a cosmic airburst event occurred over the Ohio River valley during the late Holocene. A comet-shaped earthwork was constructed near the airburst epicenter. Twenty-nine radiocarbon ages establish that the event occurred between 252 and 383 CE, a time when 69 near-Earth comets were documented. While Hopewell people survived the catastrophic event, it likely contributed to their cultural decline. The Hopewell airburst event expands our understanding of the frequency and impact of cataclysmic cosmic events on complex human societies.

SOURCE & FULL REPORT: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-05758-y
 
Article up at BBC:
https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20221204-the-us-2000-year-old-mystery-mounds
The US' 2,000-year-old mystery mounds
Constructed by a mysterious civilisation that left no written records, the Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks are a testament to indigenous sophistication.

Autumn leaves crackled under our shoes as dozens of eager tourists and I followed a guide along a grassy mound. We stopped when we reached the opening of a turf-topped circle, which was formed by another wall of mounded earth. We were at The Octagon, part of the Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks, a large network of hand-constructed hills spread throughout central and southern Ohio that were built as many as 2,000 years ago. Indigenous people would come to The Octagon from hundreds of miles away, gathering regularly for shared rituals and worship.
"There was a sweat lodge or some kind of purification place there," said our guide Brad Lepper, the senior archaeologist for the Ohio History Connection's World Heritage Program (OHC), as he pointed to the circle. I looked inside to see a perfectly manicured lawn – a putting green. A tall flag marked a hole at its centre.
The Octagon is currently being used as a golf course.
All of these all these prehistoric ceremonial earthworks in Ohio were created by what is now called the Hopewell Culture, a network of Native American societies that gathered from as far away as Montana and the Gulf of Mexico between roughly 100 BCE and 500 CE and were connected by a series of trade routes. Their earthworks in Ohio consist of shapes – like circles, squares and octagons – that were often connected to each other. Archaeologists are only now beginning to understand the sophistication of these engineering marvels.
Built with astonishing mathematical precision, as well as a complex astronomical alignment, these are the largest geometrical earthworks in the world that were not built as fortifications or defensive structures. And while most people have never heard about the sites or its builders, that may be about to change.
The US Department of the Interior has nominated eight of Hopewell's earthworks for consideration in 2023 as a Unesco World Heritage site. These include The Great Circle and The Octagon in Newark, Ohio, as well Ohio's first state park, Fort Ancient (not an actual fort). The other five are part of the Hopewell Culture National Historical Park: Mound City, Hopeton Earthworks, High Bank Works, Hopewell Mound Group and Seip Earthworks.

Lepper told me The Octagon and The Great Circle were once a larger, single Hopewell complex spanning 4.5 sq miles and connected by a series of roads lined by earthwork walls. Walking through both sites today, there is an immediate shock of scale. The Great Circle, where the museum for Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks is found, is 1,200ft in diameter. Its walls rise up to 14ft high and are outlined on the inside by a deep ditch. The Great Circle was once connected to a square and a burial ellipse, with only part of the square still visible today. The Octagon sprawls a massive 50 acres and is attached to the 20-acre Observatory Circle, a large earthwork circle for gathering and rituals connected to the observation of the night sky.
 
Archaeologists refute claims that a comet destroyed Hopewell culture

Research led by University of Cincinnati archaeologist Dr. Kenneth Tankersley claimed "evidence of a cosmic airburst at 11 Hopewell archaeological sites in three states stretching across the Ohio River Valley." His evidence included the presence of meteorites, iron and silica-rich microspherules claimed to be from meteorites, and spikes in iridium and platinum—all supposedly associated with burned charcoal-rich Hopewell habitations.

Dr. Kevin C. Nolan, director and senior archaeologist of the Applied Anthropology Laboratories at Ball State University, along with eleven other scholars with varied expertise—including several specialists in the Hopewell culture and the Smithsonian Institution's Curator of Meteorites—have reviewed that evidence and found it to be wholly inadequate to support such an extraordinary claim.

The results of their review are published as a response in issue 13 of Scientific Reports, published August 9.

https://phys.org/news/2023-08-archaeologists-refute-comet-destroyed-hopewell.html

maximus otter
 
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