 The Hopewell culture was a Native American celebration of the economic surplus, in food and other goods, created by harvesting the natural wealth of the American Midwest.Native Americans, in the Hopewell period, buried their dead in earthen mounds, accompanied by grave goods that displayed their status and possibly their religious and social leadership.Grave goods discovered in Hopewell mounds include copper from Lake Superior, sea shells from the Gulf of Mexico, mica from the Appalachian Mountains, and obsidian from the region of what is now Yellowstone National Park.