The Hopewell tradition was not a single culture or society but a widely dispersed set of populations connected by a common network of trade routes.

[1] At its greatest extent, the Hopewell exchange system ran from the northern shores of Lake Ontario south to the Crystal River Indian Mounds in modern-day Florida.

Within this area, societies exchanged goods and ideas, with the highest amount of activity along waterways, which were the main transportation routes.

Peoples within the Hopewell exchange system received materials from all over the territory of what now comprises the mainland United States.

Hopewell populations originated in western New York and moved south into Ohio, where they built upon the local Adena mortuary tradition.

[7] The Hopewellian peoples had leaders, but they did not command the kind of centralized power to order armies of slaves or soldiers.

Some scholars suggest that these societies were marked by the emergence of "big-men",[8] leaders whose influence depended on their skill at persuasion in important matters such as trade and religion.

[7] The Hopewell settlements were linked by extensive and complex trading routes; these operated also as communication networks, and were a means to bring people together for important ceremonies.

Some of the gigantic sculpted earthworks, described as effigy mounds, were constructed in the shape of animals, birds, or writhing serpents.

Ray Hively and Robert Horn of Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana, were the first researchers to analyze numerous lunar sightlines at the Newark Earthworks (1982) and the High Banks Works (1984) in Chillicothe, Ohio.

Most of their works had some religious significance, and their graves were filled with necklaces, ornate carvings made from bone or wood, decorated ceremonial pottery, ear plugs, and pendants.

The Hopewell artisans were expert carvers of pipestone, and many of the mortuary mounds are full of exquisitely carved statues and pipes.

[15] An example of the abstract human forms is the "Mica Hand" from the Hopewell Site in Ross County, Ohio.

The Armstrong culture was a Hopewell group in the Big Sandy River Valley of northeastern Kentucky and western West Virginia from 1 to 500 CE.

They are thought to have been a regional variant of the Hopewell tradition or a Hopewell-influenced Middle Woodland group who had peacefully mingled with the local Adena peoples.

[19] Archaeologist Edward McMichael characterized them as an intrusive Hopewell-like trade culture or a vanguard of Hopewellian tradition that had probably peacefully absorbed the local Adena in the Kanawha River Valley.

[26] They are considered ancestral to the groups who eventually formed the Mississippian culture that built Cahokia (in present-day southwestern Illinois) and influenced the hinterlands of the Mississippi and Ohio rivers, including into the Appalachian Mountains.

"Hopewell-style" pottery and stone tools, typical of the Illinois and Ohio River valleys, are abundant at the Trowbridge site.

[33] The Montane Hopewell on the Tygart Valley area, an upper branch of the Monongahela River of northern West Virginia, is similar to Armstrong.

According to McMichael, the culture built small, conical mounds in the late Hopewell period; this religion appeared to be waning in terms of being expressed in the daily living activities at these sites.

These cultural centers typically contained a burial mound and a geometric earthwork complex that covers ten to hundreds of acres, with sparse residential settlements.

[36] When colonial settlers first crossed the Appalachians, after almost a century and a half in North America, they were astounded at these monumental constructions, some of which were as high as 70 feet and covering acres.

One set of walls went to the southwest and may have linked to a large square enclosure located on the Kentucky side of the Ohio River.

Another set of walls led to the southeast, where it crossed the Ohio River and continued to the Biggs site, a complicated circular enclosure surrounding a conical mound.

[23][37] The Point Peninsula complex was a Native American culture located in present-day Ontario, Canada and New York, United States, during the Middle Woodland period.

[38] The Saugeen complex was a Native American culture located around the southeast shores of Lake Huron and the Bruce Peninsula, around the London, Ontario area, and possibly as far east as the Grand River in Canada.

[41] Around 500 CE, the Hopewell exchange ceased, mound building stopped, and characteristic art forms were no longer produced.

War is a possible cause, as villages dating to the Late Woodland period shifted to larger communities protected by palisade walls and ditches.