“Mound ... said to be ... toward Grandmother Gap” (Caldwell county, North Carolina).[54]
“Mound ... one mile southwest of Paint Gap post-office.... Cairn at Indian Grave Gap, in Walnut Mountain ... on south side of road from Marshall to Burnsville” (Madison county, North Carolina).[55]
“Cairn at Boone’s Gap on Boone’s Fork of Warriors Creek” (Wilkes county, North Carolina).[56]
“Cairns at Indian Grave Gap” (Blount county, Tennessee).[57]
“Cairns in the gap on the state line at Slick Rock trail” (Monroe county, Tennessee).[58]
“Mound 500 feet long, 250 feet wide, and 40 feet high ... 2¼ miles west of Rockfish Gap Tunnel” (Augusta county, Virginia).[59]
Some of these cairns do not, in all probability, date back to the mound-building era, but the mounds and other archæological works probably do, giving the best reasons for believing that the earliest of Americans found the strategic paths of least resistance across our great divides.
But not only in the mountain passes have our tripods placed their stern stamp of approval upon the ingenuity of the earliest pathfinders of America. In a host of instances our highways and railroads follow for many miles the general line of the routes of the buffalo and Indian on the high ground. This is particularly true of our roads of secondary importance, county roads, which in hundreds of instances follow the alignment of a pioneer road which was laid out on an Indian trail.
No one can examine the maps and diagrams of the archæological works of central North America with this truth in mind without noticing how largely these works are found near to some present-day thoroughfare. This is of significance. While it is true that works near such highways are perhaps more quickly discovered and easily approached, it is at the same time doubtful if any of importance have been ignored because they are at a distance from highways of approach. The relation of these works to neighboring roads has also been accidentally emphasized by the necessity of describing their position, which is often most easily done by a reference to adjacent roads. For all this due allowance must be made. At the same time this does not explain the fact that a significant fraction of these works lie along the general alignment of our present routes of travel and are in numerous instances touched by them. It need hardly be added that these roads were laid out with as much reference to the stars above them as to the ancient works near which they accidentally pass.