QUESTIONS CONCERNING THE MOUND-BUILDERS
Time and space will not permit us to discuss these queries very fully, but perhaps we can tell enough about them in a few lines for the present purpose. 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. 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. Geologists tell us that this happened some 12,000 to 15,000 years ago.
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. 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. In the end we find that while all these peoples belonged to the same race they had formed different habits and customs and were really very different from one another in what is termed culture.
As to what became of the Mound-builders, we cannot give very satisfactory answers. Some of them must have been destroyed by famine, disease, and warfare with enemies, just as were many of the nations of early history, in the Old World. Others probably gave up the habit of building Mounds, for some reason or other, and contented themselves with living just like other Indians. In this case, they were of course, the ancestors of the Indian tribes which we have known in historic times.
In the following pages there are shown pictures and descriptions of the commoner relics found in the fields and taken from the Mounds. Most of these objects were used both by the Mound-builders and the Indians who did not build Mounds. Where this is not true, it is made plain in the descriptions. It is hoped that these pictures and descriptions will help the reader to understand the relics so freely found in Ohio, and that they will encourage those who may be interested further to visit the Ohio State Museum, in Columbus. Here the finest collections of Indian and Mound-builder relics to be found anywhere are displayed for the study and enjoyment of the public.