The fact that the rivers, in shifting their channels, have in some instances encroached upon the superior terraces, so as in part to destroy works situated upon them, and afterwards receded to long distances of a fourth or half a mile or upwards, is one which should not be overlooked in this connection. (See pages 50, 60, and 89.) In the case of the “High Bank Works,” Plate [XVI], the recession has been nearly three fourths of a mile, and the intervening terrace or “bottom” was, at the period of the early settlement, covered with a dense forest. This recession, and subsequent forest growth, must of necessity have taken place since the river encroached upon the ancient works here alluded to.
Without doing more than to allude to the circumstance of the exceedingly decayed state of the skeletons found in the mounds, (see page [168],) and to the amount of vegetable accumulations in the ancient excavations, and around the ancient works, (see pages 55 and 90,) we pass to another fact, perhaps more important in its bearing upon the question of the antiquity of these works than any of those presented above. It is that they are covered with primitive forests, in no way distinguishable from those which surround them, in places where it is probable no clearings were ever made. Some of the trees of these forests have a positive antiquity of from six to eight hundred years (see pages 14 and 16). They are found surrounded with the mouldering remains of others, undoubtedly of equal original dimensions, but now fallen and almost incorporated with the soil. Allow a reasonable time for the encroachment of the forest, after the works were abandoned by their builders, and for the period intervening between that event and the date of their construction, and we are compelled to assign them no inconsiderable antiquity. But, as already observed, the forests covering these works correspond in all respects with the surrounding forests; the same varieties of trees are found, in the same proportions, and they have a like primitive aspect. This fact was remarked by the late President HARRISON, and was put forward by him as one of p306 the strongest evidences of the high antiquity of these works. In an address before the Historical Society of Ohio, he said:
“The process by which nature restores the forest to its original state, after being once cleared, is extremely slow. The rich lands of the West are, indeed, soon covered again, but the character of the growth is entirely different, and continues so for a long period. In several places upon the Ohio, and upon the farm which I occupy, clearings were made in the first settlement of the country and subsequently abandoned and suffered to grow up. Some of these new forests are now sure of fifty years’ growth, but they have made so little progress towards attaining the appearance of the immediately contiguous forest, as to induce any man of reflection to determine that at least ten times fifty years must elapse before their complete assimilation can be effected. We find in the ancient works all that variety of trees which give such unrivalled beauty to our forests, in natural proportions. The first growth on the same kind of land, once cleared and then abandoned to nature, on the contrary, is nearly homogeneous, often stinted to one or two, at most three kinds of timber. If the ground has been cultivated, the yellow locust will thickly spring up; if not cultivated, the black and white walnut will be the prevailing growth. * * * Of what immense age then must be the works so often referred to, covered as they are by at least the second growth, after the primitive forest state was regained?”
It is not undertaken to assign a period for the assimilation here indicated to take place. It must unquestionably, however, be measured by centuries.
In respect to the extent of territory occupied at one time, or at successive periods, by the race of the mounds, so far as indicated by the occurrence of their monuments, little need be said in addition to the observations presented in the first chapter. It cannot, however, have escaped notice, that the relics found in the mounds,—composed of materials peculiar to places separated as widely as the ranges of the Alleghanies on the east, and the Sierras of Mexico on the west, the waters of the great lakes on the north, and those of the Gulf of Mexico on the south,—denote the contemporaneous existence of communication between these extremes. For we find, side by side in the same mounds, native copper from Lake Superior, mica from the Alleghanies, shells from the Gulf, and obsidian (perhaps porphyry) from Mexico. This fact seems seriously to conflict with the hypothesis of a migration, either northward or southward. Further and more extended investigations and observations may, nevertheless, serve satisfactorily to settle not only this, but other equally interesting questions connected with the extinct race, whose name is lost to tradition itself, and whose very existence is left to the sole and silent attestation of the rude but often imposing monuments which throng the valleys of the West.
- FOOTNOTES TO CHAPTER XIX.
- [189] GALLATIN’S “Notes on the semi-civilized nations of Mexico,” Transactions of American Ethnological Society, vol. i. p. 207.
- Mr. Gallatin, in the memoir here quoted, has discussed at considerable length the question of the origin of agriculture among the American nations. His views, altogether the most philosophical of any hitherto presented on the subject, may not be without their interest in this connection. It should be observed, at the outset, that Mr. Gallatin is of the opinion, not only that agriculture on this continent was of domestic origin, but also that it originated between the tropics,—spreading thence in different directions to the north and south. The evidence in support of the latter conclusion is not presented in sufficient detail to enable us to judge how well sustained it may be. If we admit its correctness, we must derive the agriculture of the mound-builders from the south, and assign that race chronologically a comparatively low date. This we are not yet prepared to do; on the contrary, there are many facts going to establish for the mound-builders very high antiquity, and tending to the conclusion that the degree of civilization which they possessed was attained by a course of development in the Mississippi valley. It is not impossible that future investigations may show that the agriculture and civilization of the Mexicans, Central Americans, and Peruvians, had its origin among the builders of the ancient monuments on the banks of the great Mississippi river,—the Nile and the Ganges of North America.
- “What was the first indispensable transition which withdrew a certain portion of the aborigines of America from the barbarism and ignorance in which all the other tribes are still found? That it was the transition from the hunter to the agricultural state, no one can doubt. It is true some of the tribes among whom agriculture was introduced, are still savages; but not an instance exists in America of a nation, either populous or to a certain extent civilized, which is not agricultural. * * * * We are then led to inquire how agriculture was introduced into America, and whether it was imported or of domestic origin.
- “We have here two leading facts, one positively ascertained, and the other generally admitted by those who have inquired into the subject, the importance of which has not, it seems to me, been adverted to.
- “The first is that all those nutritious plants cultivated in the other hemisphere, and which are usually distinguished by the name of cereals (millet, rice, wheat, rye, barley, oats), were entirely unknown to the Americans.
- “The second is that maize, which was the great and almost sole foundation of American agriculture, is exclusively of American origin, and was not known in the other hemisphere till after the discovery of America, in the fifteenth century.
- “If these two facts be admitted, it necessarily follows that the introduction of agriculture,—that first, difficult, and indispensable preliminary step before any advance whatever can be made towards civilization,—originated in America itself; that it was not imported from abroad; and that it was the result of the natural progress from barbarism to a more refined social state by the race of red men, insulated, left to themselves, and without any aid or communication from any foreign country. It is therefore highly important for a correct view of the history of man, that the presumed fact of maize being exclusively an American plant, should be thoroughly investigated. * * * If a domestic origin is admitted, it is quite natural that agriculture should have had its birth in the most genial climate, and in the native country of the maize.”—Transactions of American Ethnological Society, vol. i. p. 192.
- What climate more genial, and what soil better adapted to the cultivation of maize, in its perfection, than those portions of the Mississippi valley where the evidences of ancient civilization are most abundant and imposing?
- [190] MCCULLOH, Philosophical and Antiquarian Researches, p. 225.
TRANSCRIBER’S ENDNOTES
Original printed spelling and grammar are retained, with most exceptions noted below. The transcriber created the cover image, and hereby assigns it to the public domain. ¶ Many illustrations have been moved from their original locations to nearby places between paragraphs. Therefore, the page number information has been removed from both the List of Plates, and the List of Wood Engravings. The original Table of Contents did not mention the Preface, so that link is provided here.
Ditto marks (including text equivalents “Do.”, “Do”, or “do”) do not work well in electronic books, except in special circumstances. Therefore original ditto marks have generally been replaced with the appropriate repeated text. Sometimes in tables, such as those on page [113], new column headings were inserted to replace ditto marks.