Mound Builders

“ A mound of the kind found in our region is a very much flattened cone, or round-topped hillock of earth. It is built usually, if not invariably where the soil is soft and easily dug, and it is generally possible to trace in its neighborhood the depression whence the mound material has been taken. The mounds are as a rule found in the midst of a fertile section of country, and it is pretty certain from this that the mound builders were agriculturists, and chose their dwelling places with their occupation in view, where the mounds are found. ”

“ The term mound-builders is distinctively applied to the race that constructed the remarkable earthworks of the valley of the Ohio, and of the interior of the United States in general, but it is true that in nearly all parts of the world the practice of mound-building has prevailed, sometimes among nations that come within historical epochs. ”

“ The people of the United States, though much to be commended because of their prudence and forethought in laying out their modern towns and cities along the various water courses, which serve as the different highways of commerce, have by no means shown a superior sagacity in that respect to the Mound-builders, whose great centres of population are now mostly occupied, or are encroached upon by the modern cities. ”

“ The lower mounds, or most of them, must have been constructed as foundations of the more important edifices of the mound-building people. Many of the great buildings erected on such pyramidal foundations, at Palenque, Uxmal, and elsewhere in that region, have not disappeared, because they were built of hewn stone laid in mortar. For reasons not difficult to understand, the Mound-Builders, beginning their works on the lower Mississippi, constructed such edifices of wood or some other perishable material; therefore not a trace of them remains. ”

“ They very seldom built them on undulating or broken ground. Often have the very places where civilized man has laid the foundation of his towns proved to be the sites of these ancient works of the Mound Builders, and thus it has happened that many of the most interesting works of antiquity have been ruthlessly removed to make way for the crowded streets and busy marts of our own times.
The larger number of inclosures are circular, often of a small size. Where they occur separately they either have no gateway, or but one. Sometimes the circles are of very large size, surrounding many acres. ”

“ Though hundreds of groups of mounds marking the sites of ancient villages are to be seen scattered over the Mississippi Valley and Gulf States yet nowhere can there be found an ancient house. The inference is therefore irresistible that the houses of the mound- builders were constructed of perishable materials; consequently that the builders were not sufficiently advanced in art to use stone or brick in building, or else that they lived a roving, restless life that would not justify the time and trouble necessary to erect such permanent structures. ”

“ The works they built have lived after them, and from these silent memorials the people have been called Mound Builders. Beyond the bounds of memory, into the land of mystery we go when we strive to learn of them. They have left their imprint in the valleys of the Licking, the Kentucky, the Ohio, and the Cumberland. Their many mounds vary in size, shape, structure, location, contents, and use. Some cover only a small area, while others have a diameter of over [14] one hundred feet and one covers fifteen acres. They display a considerable knowledge of geometry, engineering, and military skill. ”

“ Dense populations, an expression sometimes applied to the Mound-Builders, have never existed without either flocks and herds, or field agriculture with the use of the plow. In some favored areas, where the facilities for irrigation were unusual, a considerable population has been developed upon horticulture; but no traces of irrigating canals have been found in connection with the works of the Mound-Builders. Furthermore, it was unnecessary in their areas. Transplanted from a comparatively mild to a cold climate, they must have found the struggle for existence intensified. ”

“ The necessity of a careful discrimination between the various remains found in the mounds, resulting from the fact that the races succeeding the builders in the occupation of the country often buried their dead in them, has probably been dwelt upon with sufficient force, in another connection. Attention to the conditions under which they are discovered, and to the simple rules which seem to have governed the mound-builders in making their deposits, can hardly fail to fix with great certainty their date and origin. ”

“ There is a place three miles north of Chillicothe, where an extensive enclosure—now called "Mound City"—contains 26 well formed and regularly disposed mounds, covering an area of 13 acres. Many of those mounds contained altars at their base, but have been subsequently converted into ordinary mounds. One mound, which is 90 feet in diameter at the base and 7-1/2 feet in height, contained an altar, within the basin of which was found a layer of solid ashes three inches thick, in which were numerous pieces of pottery and shell-beads. ”

“ The ancient Indian confederacies which tilled the soil of this continent and built great mounds for defense and worship—so great, indeed, that the people have even been known as "mound-builders"—undoubtedly first traveled the highest highways of America. ”

“ For centuries we know that the Lake Superior mine in which are found tools and timber constructions, have been buried, filled in for ten feet with debris, and have rank vegetation and trees growing upon them. It is certain that the Indian races, even when shown the example, cannot when left alone follow the mining pursuit. Not only then by the ethnological, and other data cited do we conclude that the mound builders belong to a different race from the present Indians, but the tradition of the Indians is to the same effect. ”

“ The importance and bearing of this evidence does not stop with what has been stated, for it is so interlocked with other facts relating to the works of the "veritable mound-builders" as to leave no hiatus into which the theory of a lost race or a "Toltec occupation" can possibly be thrust. It forms an unbroken chain connecting the mound-builders and historical Indians which no sophistry or reasoning can break. ”

“ As this mound is so odd, it has been inclosed in a park, where it is to be kept just as it is, to remind people of the mound builders who lived here so long ago.
No one now knows exactly why these queer mounds were made, but learned men have dug into about two thousand of them, and as they have generally found bones, stone arrowheads and axes, beads, mortars, hammers, tools for spinning and weaving, pottery, baskets, and coarse cloth, they think the mounds must have been intended principally as burying places. ”

“ Although several centuries earlier in time, the Mound-Builders, with habits of life similar to those of the Cibolans, in 1540, would understand, besides horticulture, the use of adobe bricks, and the art of constructing long joint-tenement houses, closed up in the first story for defensive reasons, and built in the terraced form two, three, and four stories high, the ascent to the roof of the first story being made by ladders. ”

“ What probabilities there are suggestive of a connection between the Mound-Builders and the ancient Miners will be discussed in a later chapter, along with other and allied questions; but to just such a race, with their imperfect mechanical skill, their partially developed arts, and their aptitude for continuous combined operations, may be ascribed, à priori, such mining works as are still traceable on the shores of Lake Superior, overshadowed with the forest growth of centuries. The mounds constructed by the ancient race are in like manner overgrown with the evidences of their long desertion ”

“ Mound and Indian Pottery.—The pottery of the mound-builders has often been referred to as proof of a higher culture status, and of an advance in art beyond that reached by the Indians. The vase with a bird figure found by Squier and Davis in an Ohio mound is presented in most works on American archaeology as an evidence of the advanced stage of the ceramic art among the mound-builders ”

“ Is it any wonder that we hover about the dark mystery, and find in our researches room for absorbing study, even though we cannot reach absolute certainty? Could you have seen the excitement which prevailed among the half-dozen settlers, I had employed in digging the mound on Rainy River, in August last, when the perfect pottery cup figured below was found, and the wild enthusiasm with which they prosecuted their further work, you would have said it requires no previous training, but simply a successful discovery or two to make any one a zealous mound explorer. ”

“ Accepting this statement as proof that the "Monitor" pipe is generally understood to be the oldest type of the mound-builders' pipe, it is easy to trace the modifications which brought into use the simple form of the modern Indian pipe. For example, there is one of the form shown in Fig. 5, from Hamilton County, Ohio; another from a large mound in Kanawha Valley, West Virginia; [Footnote: Science. 1884, vol. 3, p. 619.] ”

“ Both Red and Rainy River easily connect with the head waters of the Mississippi. Our region then may be regarded as a self-contained district including the most northerly settlements of the strange race who built the mounds. I shall try to connect them with other branches of the same stock, lying further to the east and south. For convenience I shall speak of the extinct people who inhabited our special region as the Takawgamis, or farthest north mound builders. ”

“ The men in two parties went industriously to work on the opposite sides, working toward each other, making a tunnel about eight feet in diameter. The earth though originally soft soil had become so hard that it was necessary to use a pick axe to loosen it for the spade. A number of skeletons were found on the south side, but all I should say within ten feet from the original surface of the mound. As we penetrated the interior fewer remains were continually found. The earth gave many indications of having been burnt. At one point the pick-axe sank ten inches into the hard wall. ”

“ On the rich bottom lands of the Illinois River, within 50 miles of its mouth, I have seen great numbers of them and examined several. The people who built them are probably connected with the Ohio mound-builders, although in this vicinity they seem not to have made many earthen embankments, or walls inclosing areas of land, as is common in Ohio. Their manner of burial was similar to the Ohio mound- builders, however, and in this particular they had customs similar to the mound-builders of Europe. ”

“ Similarity of their stone implements and ornaments.—In addition to the special points of resemblance between the works of the two peoples, of which a few only have been mentioned, we are warranted in asserting that in all respects, so far as we can trace them correctly, there are to be found strong resemblances between the habits, customs, and arts of the mound-builders and those of the Indians previous to their change by contact with Europeans. ”

“ We are especially fortunate in being the possessors also of a field for archaeological study in the portion of the area occupied by the mound builders—the lost race, whose fate has a strange fascination for all who enquire into the condition of Ancient America. ”

“ That the Mound-Builders were a far more civilized race than the Indians is clearly revealed by the relics found in and about the mounds. They have left behind them thousands of flint arrow-heads, many of beautiful workmanship. They used spades, rimmers, borers, celts, axes, fleshers, scrapers, pestles, and other implements whose use cannot now be determined, made of various stones, such as porphyry, greenstone, and feldspar. ”

“ I have examined a small quantity of the dust taken from one of the shells found in the grand mound, with the microscope, and though I am not perfectly certain, yet I believe there are traces of some farinaceous substance to be seen. On skirting the shores of the Lake of the Woods into which Rainy River runs, at the present time, you are struck by the fact that there are no Canadian farmers there, and likewise that there are no mounds to be seen, while along the banks of Rainy River both the agriculturist is found cultivating the soil and the mounds abound. ”

“ The predominant impression suggested by the great military earthworks of the Mound-Builders is that of a people co-operating under the guidance of approved leaders, with a view to the defence of large communities. Elaborate fortifications are erected on well-chosen hills or bluffs, and strengthened by ditches, mounds, and complicated approaches; but the lines of earthwork are everywhere adapted to the natural features of the site. ”

“ The different periods to which the various mounds and burial places belong can only be made out by such a series of explorations as the museum is now conducting in the Little Miami Valley, and when they are completed we shall be better able to answer the question, "Who were the mound-builders?" than we are now. That more than one of the several American stocks or nations or groups of tribes built mounds seems to me to be established. ”