Aboriginal Chisels, Gouges and Adzes. (Nat. Mus.) Surface Finds.
The military works of the Mound-builders, other than those previously mentioned as existing on the Lakes and in Western New York State, are of a twofold character, consisting first of fortified eminences, of which an instance is found in Butler County, Ohio, where 16³⁄₁₀ acres are walled in on the summit of a hill, and the entrance to the enclosure guarded by a complicated system of covered ways. On Paint Creek, Ross County, a remarkable stone work encloses 140 acres, in the centre of which was an artificial lake, probably to supply water in case of a siege. Perhaps the most remarkable fortification left by the Mound-builders is that known as Fort Ancient, Ohio, on the Little Miami River, forty-two miles north-east of Cincinnati. The specialist is already familiar with the oft-quoted description of the Survey by Prof. Locke, made in 1843. We will therefore only refer to a few of the measurements contained in that description. “The work occupies a terrace on the left bank of the river, two hundred and thirty feet above its waters. The place is naturally a strong one, being a peninsula defended by two ravines, which, originating on the east side, near to each other, diverging and sweeping around, enter the Miami, the one above, the other below the work. The Miami itself, with its precipitous bank of two hundred feet, defends the western side.” * * * “The whole circuit of this work is between four and five miles. The number of cubic yards of excavation may be approximately estimated at 628,800”. The embankment stands in many places twenty feet in perpendicular height. The most interesting and valuable paper on this work is that by Mr. L. M. Hosea, of Cincinnati, in the Quarterly Journal of Science (Cincinnati), October, 1874, p. 289 et seq. This writer observes that it has often been remarked that the form of Fort Ancient resembles a rude outline of the continent of North and South America. None of the mounds contained in the enclosure have yielded any relics of special interest. The greatest possible diversity of opinion exists concerning the antiquity of the abandonment of the works. Judges Dunlevy and Force, the latter in his memoir on the Mound-builders,[33] estimate the period as a thousand years, while Mr. Hosea thinks several thousand years would be required to produce the numerous little hillocks and depressions which mark the spot where trees have grown, fallen and decayed. Reasoning from other data, we are inclined to the more conservative opinion of Judge Force as altogether the safer. Fort Ancient, which could have held a garrison of 60,000 men with their families and provisions, was one of a line of fortifications which extend across the State and served to check the incursion of the savages of the North in their descent upon the Mound-builder country.
The second class of military works, which are exceedingly numerous on all the watercourses—existing not only on the Ohio and Mississippi, but on all their tributaries, especially on the Muskingum, Scioto, Miami, Wabash, Illinois, Kentucky, and minor streams—are mounds which served as outlooks. These were always placed in positions to command extended views, and from which signals could be given to still others of the same character, or probably to settlements remote from the watercourses.
Square Mound, Marietta.
A system of these works no doubt formerly existed on the Great Miami River extending north of Dayton, Ohio, southward to the Ohio River, and connected with the great settlement on the site of Cincinnati and with the high bluffs on the Kentucky shore. The great Mound at Miamisburgh, ten miles south of Dayton, formed a part of this chain. This monster mound is sixty-eight feet high and 852 feet in circumference, and may have served the double purpose of a signal station and the base of a small edifice devoted to astronomical or religious purposes. There is little doubt that the Mound-builders in the latter period of their occupancy of this region, when apprehensive of danger from their enemies, employed a system of signal telegraph by which communication was had, through means of the watch-fire or the torch, between localities as distant as those now occupied by Cincinnati and Dayton. Only a few minutes were necessary by means of such a perfected system in which to transmit a signal fifty or one hundred miles. Squier and Davis remark on this subject: “There seems to have existed a system of defences extending from the sources of the Alleghany and Susquehanna in New York, diagonally across the country, through Central and Northern Ohio to the Wabash. Within this range the works which are regarded as defensive are largest and most numerous.” The signal system we have reason to believe was employed throughout the entire extent of this range of works. The majority of the enclosures found in the Ohio and Mississippi valleys are presumed not to have been designed for military purposes, since the trench is usually inside of the embankment. However, instances of the trench being outside of the parapet occur in Southern Ohio.[34] The most magnificent Mound-builder remains in Ohio are the extensive and intricate works near Newark in Licking County. The survey made by Col. Whittlesey and published in the Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley, is the most reliable as well as the fullest source of our information concerning their magnitude, though the plan has been corrected considerably by more recent surveys. These works occupy an area of two miles square, and formerly consisted of twelve miles of embankment. The spacious gateways—one of which has embankments on both sides measuring thirty-five feet in height from the bottom of the interior trench—the labyrinthine system of avenues, the strangely-shaped mounds, one of which resembles a huge bird-track with a middle toe 155 feet in length and the remaining two each 110 feet in length—together with the solitude of the ancient forest which entombed this buried city, we confess impressed us with a sense of wonderment and that strange perplexity which an insoluble mystery exercises over the mind. We can appreciate the remark of Mr. Squier in his description: “Here covered with the gigantic trees of a primitive forest, the work truly presents a grand and impressive appearance; and in entering the ancient avenue for the first time, the visitor does not fail to experience a sensation of awe, such as he might feel in passing the portals of an Egyptian temple, or in gazing upon the ruins of Petra of the Desert.” It is estimated that a force of thousands of men assisted by modern appliances and implements as well as horse-power, which the Mound-builder did not possess, would require several months in which to construct these works.[35] At Marietta a most interesting system of works exist, covering an area three-fourths of a mile long and half a mile broad. These occupy the river terrace or second bottom at the confluence of the Muskingum River with the Ohio, and present analogies with the works further south and with those of Mexico.[36] Two irregular squares inclose fifty and twenty-seven acres respectively. The walls of the larger are between five and six feet high and from twenty to thirty feet wide at the base. Within an enclosure are four truncated pyramids or platforms, one of which, the largest, is 188 feet long, 132 feet wide, and only 10 feet high, with a graded way reaching to its summit, as have also two of the other pyramids. No one can look at these structures without seeing the force of Lewis H. Morgan’s Pueblo theory,[37] which makes these mounds or flattened pyramidal elevations the foundation for edifices of a perishable nature; constructed perhaps of hewn wood, but not of a combination of the adobe and wood as he supposes, since no material for such a combination is found in the Ohio valley.[38] The most elevated of the Marietta works is an elliptical mound thirty feet high, enclosed by an embankment.
Graded Way near Piketon, Ohio.
The most recent and satisfactory exploration of mounds in Ohio, was that conducted by Prof. E. B. Andrews for the Peabody Museum of American Archæology and Ethnology, and published in the Tenth Annual Report of the Trustees (Cambridge, 1877). The mounds examined are in Fairfield, Perry, Athens, and Hocking Counties. In Fairfield County they were all located upon hills and commanded extensive views. Their contents indicated great age, being much decayed. At New Lexington in Perry County, ancient flint diggings, unquestionably worked by the Mound-builders, were examined, many of the pits being six to eight feet deep. In Athens County, on Wolf Plain, situated in Athens and Dover Townships, several circles and nineteen conical mounds are found. One of the latter measures forty feet high, with a diameter of 170 feet, and contains 437.742 cubic feet. Another, known as the Beard Mound, was excavated, and the interesting fact discovered that in its construction the dirt had been “thrown down in small quantities—averaging about a peck—as if from a basket.” Prof. Andrews is of the opinion that the mound was a long time in building, “for we find,” he remarks, “at many different levels, the proof that grasses and other vegetation grew rankly upon the earth heap and were buried by the dirt.” In a neighboring mound known as the George Connett Mound, under a bed of charcoal five feet below the summit, a skeleton was found in a box or coffin, enclosed by timbers. The upper part of the coffin and middle of the body had been destroyed by fire. A circle of five hundred copper beads was found around the body. A copper instrument resembling a calker’s chisel, measuring 141 mm. in length, width at flattened end, 52 mm., diameter of cylindrical part, 20 mm. The instrument was formed from sheet copper, beaten with such care that no traces of the hammer are visible. “The edges are brought together and united very closely by a slight overlap.” Professor Andrews describes and figures a piece of leather ornamented with oval copper beads taken from a point eight feet below the surface of a mound designated as the “school-house mound.” The original piece measured eight or ten inches square, but unfortunately fell into the hands of bystanders, who tore it in pieces for relics. The Professor regards the curiosity as of Mound-builder origin, and thinks it belonged to an ornamented dress. We cannot detail these interesting explorations here, and must dismiss them with the deduction that in certain cases the cremation of the bodies found in mounds was accidental, caused by the heat penetrating through a layer of earth on which a fire had been kindled. In other instances, the body seems to have been burned intentionally, and the ashes and charred bones heaped together in the centre of the mound. Some clay and stone tubes of fine workmanship were obtained. The same document above cited contains a valuable paper by Mr. Lucian Carr on his interesting exploration of a mound in Lee County, Virginia.