Ohio Hopewell Ceremonial Bladelet Use at the Moorehead Circle,Fort Ancient

In the past twenty years, lithic use-wear studies have been used to determine the function of Hopewell bladelets. These studies have uniformly shown that the bladelets were multipurpose, utilitarian tools in domestic contexts. Debate arises as to their function in ritual or ceremonial contexts. The question of bladelet function in ceremonial contexts remains unanswered because use-wear studies of bladelets have not been extensively applied to well-provenienced ceremonial assemblages. Microwear analysis was conducted on a sample of bladelets recovered from the Moorehead Circle within the Fort Ancient Earthworks in order to comment on the above debate as well as to determine the activities that occurred there prehistorically. The Moorehead Circle was a center of intensive activity as evidenced by the high rate of utilization and numerous tasks performed with bladelets. Intersite comparison indicates that the Moorehead Circle bladelets were utilized for the same range of tasks as bladelets from other sites in Ohio.