79 Chapter 4 Revealing Ritual Landscapes at the Hopewell Mound Group Bret J. Ruby H opewell archaeology in the early twenty-frst century is radically trans- forming our vision of the monumental mounds and earthwork enclo- sures of the Ohio Valley. It is increasingly apparent that the mounds and earthworks—the above-ground architectural features—are only one aspect of the ritual landscapes at these great centers. Te recent availability of hardware and sofware capable of conducting landscape-scale geophysical survey is demonstrat- ing that the vast spaces between the monuments were flled with wooden architec- ture: wooden post circles and roofed buildings devoted to a range of public ritual and ceremony. Te monumental mounds and earthworks at the Hopewell Mound Group (33RO27) have atracted atention since the dawn of American archaeology in the early nineteenth century. By the early twentieth century, mound excavations there revealed a dazzling array of exquisitely cra fed and symbolically charged objects fashioned from exotic raw materials drawn from distant locations scatered over half the continent. Archaeologists soon recognized this site as the most famboy- ant expression of a newly defned “Hopewell culture.” Yet atention remained nar- rowly focused on mounds and mortuary contexts, ignoring the vast spaces in- between. Agricultural plowing steadily eroded the above-grade features. Today, most visitors experience the site as a featureless plain.