The North Americans of Antiquity / Their origin, migrations, and type of civilization considered

by John T. Short

Indian and Mound-builder Spear-heads.

Dr. Abbott, of New Jersey, in an extended treatment of the Stone Age in his own State, has shown many evidences of the protracted occupancy of the Atlantic States by a people whose weapons resemble those of ancient man in Europe. Col. Charles Whittlesey has called attention to the discovery of Indian remains in the “Shelter Cave,” near Elyria, Ohio, and also in a cave near Louisville, Kentucky, where the conditions seemed to point to an interment as long ago as two thousand years, but the evidences both as to the remains having been those of the red man and the period of burial are too uncertain to be of any service in the construction of a theory.[6]

The eras or ages which have been observed to mark the different stages of the development of pre-historic man in Europe (in the manufacture of implements and the construction of places of abode), are apparently reversed in America.

The Neolithic and Bronze ages preceded the Palæolithic at least in the Mississippi Basin—not that the last inhabitants deteriorated and lost the higher arts which are well known to have been cultivated upon the same soil occupied by them, but that they were preceded by a race possessed of no inferior civilization, who were not their ancestors, but a distinct people with a capacity for progress, for the exercise of government, for the erection of magnificent architectural monuments, and possessed of a respectable knowledge of geometrical principles. The remains of this mysterious people known as the mound-builders are spread over thousands of square miles of the United States, and it is a question whether the antiquarian is more surprised at the greatness of their number than in many instances at the immensity of their proportions. The entire valley region of the Missouri, Mississippi and Ohio rivers with that of their affluents was occupied by this remarkable people—presenting us with a parallel to the ancient civilization which flourished in the earliest times on the watercourses of the old world. The geographical distribution of these mounds may be described in general terms with a view to the territory occupied by them in the United States, as central, western, and southern.

The publication of the valuable works of Squier and Davis, of Dr. Lapham and those of Mr. Squier alone, in which the remains of these regions are described, was like a revelation which brought to light the wonders of an entombed civilization.[7] In treating of the mounds geographically, we find no evidences of this people having reached the Atlantic seaboard, unless we except the great shell-heaps found in various localities on the coast, and of which we will speak further on. It is true that in South Carolina a few vestiges of their residence are found on the Wateree River near Camden, and in the mountainous regions of North Carolina,[8] where they wrought mica mines for the mineral which they prized as precious, and which so often accompanies the remains of their dead. No authentic remains of the Mound-Builders are found in the New England States, nor even in the State of New York. In the former, we have an isolated mound in the valley of the Kennebec in Maine, and dim outlines of enclosures near Sanborn and Concord in New Hampshire, but there is no certainty of their being the work of this people.[9] In the latter, it was at first supposed that the remains found in the western portion of the State were uniform in their plan of construction with the works of the Ohio valley; but Mr. Squier pronounces them to be purely the work of Red Indians. This conclusion should not be viewed as final, even though Cusick’s vague statement (in Schoolcraft, vol. v) that the Iroquois “were compelled to build fortifications in order to save themselves from the devouring monsters” lends it an air of plausibility. Either people may have been their builders. Col. Whittlesey would assign these fort-like structures, differing from the more southern enclosures in that they were surrounded by trenches on their outside, while the latter uniformly have the trench on the inside of the enclosure, to a people anterior to the Red Indian and perhaps contemporaneous with the Mound-builders, but distinct from either.[10] A quite reasonable view is that of Dr. Foster, that they are the frontier works of the Mound-builders, adapted to the purposes of defence against the sudden irruptions of hostile tribes. He remarks, “If our country were to become a desolation, the future antiquary would find the sea-coast studded with fortifications of a complex form, and as he penetrated to the interior they would disappear altogether.”[11] It is probable that these defences belong to the last period of the Mound-builders’ residence on the lakes, and were erected when the more warlike peoples of the North who drove them from their cities first made their appearance. Passing along the boundary of the Mound-builders’ territory towards the west, we find the great lakes in all cases to have served as its limit on the north. Mr. Henry Gillman has described in several publications[12] his exploration of mounds in Michigan and the lakes. One of the richest mounds in relics and human remains is known as “the Great Mound of the River Rouge,” situated on the stream from which it takes its name, near the Detroit River and about four and a half miles from the centre of the city of Detroit. The mound now measures twenty feet in height, and must originally have measured 300 feet in length by 200 in width, though the removal of large quantities of sand from it has greatly reduced its proportions and destroyed many valuable relics. Many other mounds surrounding it have also been removed. The most remarkable result of the exploration was the discovery of tibiæ flattened to an extreme degree, such as is peculiar to platycnemic man. A circular mound in the vicinity yielded even more remarkable specimens of this singular flattening or compression. Two specimens presented unprecedented proportions; the transverse diameter of one shaft being 0.42 and the other 0.40 of the antero-posterior diameter. The circular mound yielded eleven skeletons besides a large number of burial vases and stone implements of all descriptions peculiar to the mounds. Of the crania from this mound we shall speak in Chapter IV. In 1872, Mr. Gillman examined a remarkable group of tumuli situated at the head of St. Clair River. These mostly stand on the shores of Lake Huron. The relics, besides human remains, consisted of pieces of mica, and necklaces of beads of the teeth of the moose alternating with well-wrought beads of copper. The same peculiarity of flattened tibiæ was markedly prominent in the remains.[13] The same investigator has examined mounds at Ottawa Point, Michigan, near the mouth of the Oqueoc River, at Point La Barbe in the Straits of Mackinac, and at Beaver Harbor on Beaver Island in Lake Michigan. Excepting ancient copper mines, no known works extend as far north as Lake Superior anywhere in the central region. Farther to the North-west, however, the works of the same people are comparatively numerous. Dr. Foster quotes a British Columbia newspaper, without giving either name or date, as authority for the discovery of a large number of mounds, seemingly the works of the same people who built farther east and south.[14] On the Butte Prairies of Oregon Wilkes and his exploring expedition discovered thousands of similar mounds.[15]

Great Serpent, Adams Co., O.

Lewis and Clarke, in the Journal of their expedition up the Missouri River, describe the remains of fortifications on Bonhomme Islands at as early a date as 1804–5–6, but until recently their statements have been received with a degree of doubt.[16] This doubt has, however, been fully set at rest by the members of the United States Geological Surveying Expedition of 1872. Not only has it been shown that works exist at Bonhomme’s Island, but all the way up through the Yellowstone region and on the upper tributaries of the Missouri mounds are found in profusion.[17] Dr. C. Thomas, of the above-named expedition, made interesting discoveries in Dakota Territory, near the Northern Pacific Railroad crossing of the James River. Mounds were examined giving evidence of perhaps greater antiquity than those common in the interior of the country, if their contents be depended upon as furnishing a means of test.[18] The Missouri valley seems to have been one of the most populous branches of the wide-spread Mound-builder country. The valleys of its affluents, the Platte and Kansas rivers, also furnish evidence that these streams served as the channels into which flowed a part of the tide of population which either descended or ascended the Missouri. The Mississippi and Ohio river valleys, however, formed the great central arteries of the Mound-builder domain. In Wisconsin we find the northern central limit of their works; occasionally on the western shores of Lake Michigan, but in great numbers in the southern counties of the State, and especially on the lower Wisconsin River. The peculiar and fantastic forms of most of these mounds have led some writers to suppose that they belonged to a different race from that which occupied the valleys to the south. Instead of the usual type of the pyramid and circle, these remains mostly represent animals, or birds, or men. Still Dr. Lapham, who has described them fully in his admirable work[19] on the Antiquities of Wisconsin, concluded that sufficient resemblances between these remains and those of the south exist to ascribe to them a common origin. A few instances of the circle and square are found in association with the animal mounds, while in Ohio, on Brush Creek in Adams County, the “Great Serpent,” and the “Alligator” in Licking County furnish proof that either the same people built them or at least the same impulses, religious or otherwise, actuated the people of both districts. The former of the above figures is well described by its name, “with its head conforming to the crest of a hill, and its body winding back for 700 feet in graceful undulations, terminating in a triple coil at the tail.” The length of the latter “from the point of the nose following the curves of the tail to the tip, is about 250 feet, the breadth of the body forty feet and the length of the legs or paws each thirty-six feet.”[20] Until recently no effigy mounds were believed exist further south than Ohio; however, Mr. C. C. Jones, Jr., in the Smithsonian Report for 1877 has shown this to be a mistake. Mr. Jones describes an eagle-shaped stone mound north of Eatonton, in Putnam Co., Georgia, of the following dimensions: Height of tumulus at the breast of the bird, seven or eight feet; length from the top of the head to the extremity of the tail, 102 feet; distance from tip to tip of the wings, 120 feet; greatest expanse of tail, 38 feet. A careful regard to the proportions of the bird are shown. A similar stone mound, of nearly the same proportions, was found near Lawrence Ferry on the Oconee River in Putnam County. In this instance a circle of stones encloses the effigy. At Trenton, Wisconsin, and in many other places examined by Dr. Lapham, cruciform works were found, some of which were constructed with the arms extending toward the cardinal points.[21] Instances of extinct or unknown animal forms occur occasionally: one instance is that of an animal somewhat resembling a monkey, having a body of about 160 feet in length, while the tail describes a semicircle and measures alone 320 feet.[22] The most remarkable instance of the kind, however, is that of the big elephant mound found a few miles below the mouth of the Wisconsin River, so perfect in its proportions and complete in its representations of an elephant that its builders must have been well acquainted with all the physical characteristics of the animal which they delineated.[23] This fact suggests the inquiry whether these people were Asiatic in origin and penetrated to the interior of the country before their recollections of the elephant were forgotten, or whether they were contemporaneous with the mastodon of North America? In the remarkable works at Aztlan, Dr. Lapham finds not only resemblances to the Ohio antiquities, but striking analogies with those of Mexico.[24]

Elephant Mound, Wisconsin.