Animal Carvings from Mounds of the Mississippi Valley / Second Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1880-81, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1883, pages 117-166

by Henry W. Henshaw

GENERAL CONCLUSIONS.

The more important conclusions reached in the foregoing paper may be briefly summed up as follows:

That of the carvings from the mounds which can be identified there are no representations of birds or animals not indigenous to the Mississippi Valley.

And consequently that the theories of origin for the Mound Builders suggested by the presence in the mounds of carvings of supposed foreign animals are without basis.

Second. That a large majority of the carvings, instead of being, as assumed, exact likenesses from nature, possess in reality only the most general resemblance to the birds and animals of the region which they were doubtless intended to represent.

Third. That there is no reason for believing that the masks and sculptures of human faces are more correct likenesses than are the animal carvings.

Fourth. That the state of art-culture reached by the Mound Builders, as illustrated by their carvings, has been greatly overestimated.

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