H. C. Shetrone

“ The settlers, however, who built and lived in the log cabins of pioneer days, realized the value of records, so that people who came after them might know who they were and what they did. And so they wrote history. But the Mound-builders had not yet progressed far enough on the road to civilization to do this; and so we must look elsewhere for the answers to those questions which naturally come into our minds. Who were the Mound-builders? ”

“ Our attention is suddenly called to the actual work at hand. A laborer has struck his mattock into a loose spot in the face of the Mound. We are informed that this will be a burial and, sure enough, within an hour a human skeleton has been unearthed and lies there on the floor all ready to have its picture taken. The Hopewell people, we learn, made platforms of earth a few inches above the floor and after placing their dead on these they built cabin-like structures of logs over them and covered these, in turn, by small mounds of earth. ”

“ Some of them merely placed their dead upon the surface and piled earth above the remains to form a Mound, while others prepared carefully made tombs of logs within the Mound for the dead. Some were skilled in the use of copper and silver, the weaving of cloth and the making of potteryware, while others contented themselves with only flint and stone and the simpler arts of living. ”

“ Since he has no intentional records to guide him, the archæologist depends mostly on exploration or digging into ancient ruins and remains for his information. Thus he finds the rude relics of by-gone ages, relics lost or thrown away by their one-time users, and from these he pieces together the story of a people.
Having met the archæologist, we may now get an insight into the interiors of the mounds, cemeteries and village-sites of the Mound-builders. ”

“ And now that we have had a look at the Mound-builders, it only remains to be said that still another people, closely related but somewhat different, lived in the Ohio country before the coming of white men. Archæologists, in exploring the ancient Mounds, have learned just what kinds of implements, ornaments and utensils the Mound-builders used. But this is not all. In plowing and cultivating the fields, and in shallow graves found here and there, great numbers of relics of kinds not used by the Mound-builders have been found. ”

“ Although the Mound-builders, like all primitive peoples, drew freely on nature’s bounty for food supplies, such as hunting, fishing and gathering wild nuts, fruits, and roots, they had developed agriculture to a considerable degree. ”

“ Archæologists are now pretty well agreed that the Mound-builders, the Indians and all other peoples who lived in the Americas before the coming of Christopher Columbus, belonged to a single great race, which we may call the American Indian race. ”

“ Just why some of them became so highly civilized while others, like some of our Indians, remained the lowly barbarians that they were, is explained partly by what the archæologists call environment; that is, by weather, rainfall, soil, natural food supplies as game, fish, wild fruits—in a word, environment means the things we find around and about us. ”

“ Scientists are able to determine almost exactly how persons looked, no matter to what race or age they belonged, 22 through a study of their skeletons, and by making use of these methods we now know that the Mound-builders were quite similar in appearance to the Indians. In the Ohio State Museum there are life-size statues of a Mound-builder man and woman, constructed after these methods and clothed with the garments, implements and ornaments which they actually used in life. ”

“ Supposing we select a Mound of the interesting Hopewell culture. The Hopewell peoples, as we have seen, were very highly advanced and this fact, therefore, might lead the reader to expect too much of the other cultures, yet if we keep this in mind we will be on the safe side.
Let us imagine that our Mound is located in Ross County, in the charming Paint Creek Valley, somewhere near old Chillicothe, first capital of Ohio and ancient capital of the Mound-builders. Before us stands a mound of earth, 125 feet in diameter at its base and 25 feet in height. ”

“ The present-day Axe or hatchet is comparatively light and thin and the handle is inserted through a hole or into a socket. Stone tools, no matter how the handle is attached, must be heavier and thicker, because stone will not stand the strain of hard use as will steel.
The Ohio Mound-building peoples simply lashed wooden handles to their ungrooved Axes or Celts, using rawhide thongs. These, when they dried, held very tightly and made a very useful tool. The ancient Indians also used this method, and in addition they pecked grooves around their Axes to supply a firmer fastening for the thong. ”

“ A bit of digging, here and there, soon showed that the mounds contained human burials and that with these were strange relics. Hence it was clear that they had been built by human beings. But by whom? The settlers reasoned, very naturally, that 6 if the tribesmen living in the region had not constructed them, then they must have been built by a people preceding the Indians. And so, lacking a better name, they called them “The Mound-builders,” just as we of today, viewing the few remaining log cabins scattered over the countryside, might call the pioneers “The Cabin-builders.” ”

“ Like the ancient Mexicans, the Hopewell peoples, and some others of the Mound-builders, gave most of their attention to the dead rather than the living. The Pueblos and Cliff-dwellers built for the living, burying their dead in the quickest and easiest manner. The Mound-builders built mainly for the dead. ”

“ The Mound-builders cultivated and smoked Tobacco long before civilized people knew of the plant. Above is a picture of one of their Tobacco Pipes, in which they have shown their artistic ability by carving it in the image of the Dog, their only domestic animal. ”

“ The Mound-builders and some of the Indians made their pots and pans out of clay, of which there is a great abundance in the river valleys of Ohio. They tempered or hardened the clay by mixing it with ground-up rock or shells, molded it into the desired shape, and baked the vessel in an open fire. ”

“ From what we have seen during the exploration of this Mound we try to form a picture of how the builders of it must have lived. In this the archæologist assists by telling us that many other things besides those which we have seen here are found with burials. The Mound-builders 20 made artistic pottery; from grasses, plants and trees they collected fibers which they wove into fabrics; from stone, flint, bone, shell, wood, copper and silver they made their implements, cooking utensils and ornaments. ”

“ It is interesting to compare the modern Steel Axe, Hatchet or other handled cutting tool, with the simple stone implements of prehistoric times and to note how, little by little, they have been improved and perfected. ”

“ They believe that the Western Hemisphere was first peopled directly from Asia, by way of Bering Straits, by bands of savages or barbarians belonging to the Mongolian or Yellow race. These simple folk appear to have migrated to America soon after the disappearance of the great ice glaciers which once covered all of our northern country, reaching as far south as central Ohio. ”

“ Several hundred pipes like this one have been found in mounds in Ohio, representing many different animals and birds, and the human form has also been found. The American Indian not only taught the white man the use of tobacco, but it was probably from pipes very much like those of the Mound-builders, with stem and bowl, from which our modern tobacco-pipes are copied. ”

“ And so, from the Arctic regions on the north, to the southern tip of South America, these yellow-skinned immigrants spread until they peopled both continents. In Mexico, Central America and Peru, they came to have great civilizations, and to be known as the Aztecs, Incas, and others. ”

“ A number of them have been explored by the Ohio State Museum where the relics are on display. They used no metals and had but little art, but they made many useful, practical things of flint, stone, bone, shell, clay and wood.
Adena peoples were more highly advanced than the Fort Ancient but were not nearly so numerous. They 14 worked copper into ornaments and were highly artistic in carving stone and bone. They are noted for their large shapely mounds, the great Miamisburg Mound being an example. ”

“ Some of them, the tourist will note, are merely heaps of earth, more or less pointed at the top and ranging from slight elevations, hardly noticeable above the surface of the fields, to others as much as twenty, thirty, or even forty feet in height. ”