White people had not been on Ohio soil very long before they began to notice peculiar mounds and fortifications built of earth and stone. Evidently these were very ancient, as they were overgrown by the forest. The Indian inhabitants were neither building nor using such structures, nor could they tell the white settlers anything about them. A bit of digging, here and there, soon showed that the mounds contained human burials and that with these were strange relics. Hence it was clear that they had been built by human beings. But by whom? The settlers reasoned, very naturally, that if the tribesmen living in the region had not constructed them, then they must have been built by a people preceding the Indians. And so, lacking a better name, they called them “The Mound-builders,” just as we of today, viewing the few remaining log cabins scattered over the countryside, might call the pioneers “The Cabin-builders.” The settlers, however, who built and lived in the log cabins of pioneer days, realized the value of records, so that people who came after them might know who they were and what they did. And so they wrote history. But the Mound-builders had not yet progressed far enough on the road to civilization to do this; and so we must look elsewhere for the answers to those questions which naturally come into our minds. Who were the Mound-builders? Where did they come from, and when; why did they build Mounds; and what became of them? The pioneer settlers who first noticed the Mounds could not open a book and read the answers to these queries. But as the years have passed, the puzzles have been solved in a most interesting manner, as we shall see presently.
To begin with the Mounds and Earthworks themselves, it may be said that there are many thousands of them. They are scattered over 20 or more states, from the Mississippi River eastward to the Atlantic and extending southward to the Gulf and into Florida. Ohio, it may be truly said, was the center of Mound-builder life, as a result of which it has come to be known as the Mound-builder state. More than 5,000 Mounds, fortifications and other remains of these interesting people have been located within its bounds.
ANCIENT MOUNDS AND EARTHWORKS
Fig. 2—The Miamisburg Mound.
A glance at the outline map on [page 4] shows the location of these ancient works. It will be noted that the southern one-half of the state was the favored region, especially along the courses of the streams and rivers flowing southward to the Ohio. An automobile trip through southern Ohio affords an excellent outing or vacation, and makes it possible to see the actual Mounds and other structures of the long ago. Some of them, the tourist will note, are merely heaps of earth, more or less pointed at the top and ranging from slight elevations, hardly noticeable above the surface of the fields, to others as much as twenty, thirty, or even forty feet in height. The tallest Mound of this kind in Ohio is the great Miamisburg Mound, near the town of that name, in Montgomery County, which is 70 feet high and covers nearly three acres of ground. These conical Mounds, as they are called, are shaped like a chocolate drop. They are far more numerous than any other kind of earthen structures and, as we shall see presently, they served as monuments to the dead; that is, they were burial mounds—tombstones.
Next in point of numbers are the ancient fortifications, built as means of protection from enemies. Usually they are the more or less level tops of hills or plateaus, with steep slopes and ravines offering ready-made obstructions to the approach of enemies. Around the edges of the area set aside for the “fort” earthen and stone walls were thrown up, and probably wooden pickets or stakes were set into these as further protection from without. Among the largest and finest of these old fortifications in Ohio are the noted Fort Ancient, in Warren County, and Fort Hill, in Highland County.
Fig. 3—The Walls of Fort Ancient.
