Chapter VI (4)

The outer outline is that of the skull found in the cave of Cro-magnon, in France, belonging, as Dawson says, p. 189, to one of the oldest human inhabitants of western Europe, as shown in Lartet and Christy’s _Reliquiae Aquitanicae_. The second outline is that of the Enghis skull; the dotted outline that of the Neanderthal skull. The shaded skull is on a smaller scale, but preserving the true outline, and is one of the Hochelaga Indians (site of Montreal). Cuts of the Enghis and Neanderthal skulls are given in Lubbock’s _Prehistoric Times_, pp. 328, 329. Dawkins (_Cave Hunters_, 235) thinks the Enghis skull of doubtful age. On the Neanderthal skull see Quatrefages and Hamy, _Crania Ethnica_ (Paris, 1873-75), and Dawkins (p. 240). Huxley gives it a great antiquity, and says it is the most ape-like one he ever saw. Quatrefages, _Hommes fossiles_, etc. (1884), says it is not below some later men. Southall (_Epoch of the Mammoth_, 80) says it has the average capacity of the negro, and double that of the gorilla, and doubts its antiquity.]

It was in the _American Naturalist_ (Mar. and Ap., 1872) that Dr. C. C. Abbott made an early communication respecting the discovery of rude human implements in the glacial gravels[1663] of the Delaware valley, and since then the Trenton gravels have been the subject of much interest. The rudeness of the flints has repeatedly raised doubts as to their artificial character; but Wilson (_Prehistoric Man_, i. 29) says that it is impossible to find in flints broken for the road, or in any other accumulation of rocky débris, a single specimen that looks like the rudest implement of the drift. Experts attest the exact correspondence of these Trenton tools with those of the European river drift. Abbott has explained the artificial cleavages of stone in the _American Antiquarian_ (viii. 43). There are geologists like Shaler who question the artificial character of the Trenton implements. From time to time since this early announcement, Dr. Abbott has made public additional evidence as he has accumulated it, going to show, as he thinks, that we have in these deposits of the glacial action the signs of men contemporary with the glacial flow, and earlier than the red Indian stock of historic times.[1664] He summarizes the matter in his “Palæolithic implements of a people on the Atlantic coast anterior to the Indians,” in his _Primitive Industry_ (1882).[1665]

* * * * *

Some discoveries of human bones in the loess or loam of the Mississippi Valley have not been generally accepted. Lyell (_Second Visit_, ii. 197; _Antiq. of Man_, 203) suspends judgment, as does Joseph Leidy in his _Extinct Mammalia of North America_ (p. 365).

* * * * *

The existence of man in western Europe with extinct animals is a belief that, from the incredulity which accompanied the discovery by Kemp in London, in 1714, of a stone hatchet lying in contiguity to some elephant’s teeth,[1666] has long passed into indisputable fact, settled by the exploration of cave and shell heaps.[1667] In North America, this conjunction of man’s remains with those of the mastodon is very widely spread.[1668] The geological evidence is quite sufficient without resorting to what has been called an Elephant’s head in the architecture of Palenqué, the so-called Elephant Mound in Wisconsin, and the dubious if not fraudulent Elephant Pipe of Iowa.[1669] The positions of the skeletons have led many to believe that the interval since the mastodon ceased to roam in the Mississippi Valley is not geologically great. Shaler (_Amer. Naturalist_, iv. 162) places it at a few thousand years, and there is enough ground for it perhaps to justify Southall (_Recent Origin, etc._, 551; _Ep. of the Mammoth_, ch. 8) in claiming that these animals have lived into historic times.

* * * * *

A human skeleton was found sixteen feet below the surface, near New Orleans—(which is only nine feet above the Gulf of Mexico), and under four successive growths of cypress forests. Its antiquity, however, is questioned.[1670] The belief in human traces in the calcareous conglomerate of Florida seems to have been based (Haven, p. 87) on a misconception of Count Pourtalès’ statement (_Amer. Naturalist_, ii. 434), though it has got credence in many of the leading books on this subject. Col. Whittlesey has reported some not very ancient hearths in the Ohio Valley (_Am. Ass. Arts and Sciences, Proc., Chicago, 1868, Meeting_, vol. xvii. 268).

* * * * *

The testimony of the caves to the early existence of man has never had the importance in America that it has had in Europe.

It was in 1822 that Dr. Buckland, in his _Reliquiae diluvianae_ (2d ed., 1824), first made something like a systematic gathering of the evidence of animal remains, as shown by cave explorations; but he was not prepared to believe that man’s remains were as old as the beasts. He later came to believe in the prehistoric man. In 1833-34, Dr. Schmerling found in the cave of Enghis, near Liége, a highly developed skull, and published his _Recherches sur les ossemens fossiles découverts dans les cavernes de la province de Liége_.[1671]

In 1841, Boucher de Perthes began his discoveries in the valley of the Somme,[1672] and finally discovered among the animal remains some flint implements, and formulated his views of the great antiquity of man in his _Antiquités Celtiques_ (1847), rather for the derision than for the delectation of his brother geologists. In 1848, the Société Ethnographique de Paris ceased its sessions; but Boucher de Perthes had aroused a new feeling, and while his efforts were still in doubt his disciples[1673] gathered, and amid much ridicule founded the Société d’Anthropologie de Paris, which has had so numerous a following in allied associations in Europe and America.

He tells us of the struggles he endured to secure the recognition of his views in his _De l’homme antédiluvien et de ses œuvres_ (Paris, 1860), and his trials were not over when, in 1863, he found at Moulin Quignon a human jaw-bone,[1674] which, as he felt, added much strength to the belief in the man of the glacial gravels.[1675]

* * * * *

The existence of man in the somewhat later period of the caves[1676] was also claiming constant recognition, and the new society was broad enough to cover all. In 1857, Dr. Fuhlrott had discovered the Neanderthal skull in a cave near Düsseldorf.

In 1858, the discovery of flint tools in the Brixham cave, in Devonshire, was more effective in turning the scientific mind to the proofs than earlier discoveries of much the same character by McEnery had been. In March, 1872, Emile Rivière investigated the Mentone caves, and found a large skeleton, unmistakably human, and the oldest yet found, supposed to be of the palæolithic period. (Cf. _Découverte d’un Squelette humain de l’Epoque paléolithique_, Paris, 1873.) All this evidence is best set forth in the collection of his periodical studies on the mammals of the Pleistocene, which were collected by William Boyd Dawkins in his _Cave Hunting: researches on the evidence of caves, respecting the early inhabitants of Europe_ (London, 1874),[1677] a book which may be considered a sort of complement to Lyell’s _Antiquity of Man_ and Lubbock’s _Prehistoric Man_; Dawkins (ch. 9, and _Address_, Salford, 1877, p. 3) and Lubbock (_Scientific Lectures_, 150) unite in holding the modern Eskimos to be the representative of this cave folk. No argument is quite sufficient to convince Southall that the archæologists do not place the denizens of the caves too far back (_Recent Origin of Man_, ch. 13), and he rejects a belief in the steady slowness of the formation of stalagmites (_Epoch of the Mammoth_, 90), upon which Evans, Geikie, Wallace, Lyell, and others rest much of their belief in the great antiquity of the remains found beneath the cave deposits.[1678]

The largest development of cave testimony in America has been made by Dr. Lund,[1679] a Danish naturalist, who examined several hundred Brazilian caves, finding in them the bones of man in connection with those of extinct animals.[1680] The remains of a race, held to be Indians, found in the caves of Coahuila (Mexico) are described by Cordelia A. Studley in the _Peabody Mus. Reports_, xv. 233. Edward D. Cope has studied the contents of a bone cave in the island of Anguilla (West Indies), in the _Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge_, no. 489 (1883). J. D. Whitney describes a cave in Calaveras County, in the _Smithsonian Rept._ (1887), and Edward Palmer one in Utah (_Peab. Mus. Rept._, xi. 269). Putnam explored some in Kentucky (_Ibid._ viii.). Putnam’s first account of his cave work in Kentucky, showing the use of them as habitations and as receptacles for mummies, is in the _Proc. Boston Soc. Nat. Hist._, xvii. 319. J. P. Goodnow made similar explorations in Arizona (_Kansas City Rev_., viii. 647); E. T. Elliott in Colorado (_Pop. Sci. Mo._, Oct., 1879), and Leidy in the Hartman cave, in Pennsylvania (_Philad. Acad. Nat. Sci. Proc._, 1880, p. 348). Cf. also Haldeman in the _Am. Philos. Soc. Trans._ (1880) xv. 351. Col. Charles Whittlesey has discussed the “Evidences of the antiquity of man in the United States,” in describing some cave remains of doubtful age.[1681] W. H. Dall’s _On the remains of later prehistoric man obtained from caves in the Catherine archipelago, Alaska territory, and especially from the caves of the Aleutian islands_ (Washington, 1878) is included in the _Smithsonian contributions to knowledge_, xxii.

* * * * *

Throughout the world, naturalists have found on streams and on the seacoast, heaps of the refuse of the daily life of primitive peoples. Beneath the loam which has covered them there are found the shells of edible mollusks and other relics of food, implements, ornaments and vessels, of stone, clay, and bone. Sometimes it happens that natural superposed accumulations will mark them off in layers, and distinguish the usages of successive periods.[1682]

From the engraving in the 1877 ed. of his _Gesch. des Zeitalters der Entdeckungen_. His _Abhandlungen zur Erd-und Völker-Kunde_, continuing his contributions to _Das Ausland_ and other periodicals, and edited by J. Löwenberg, was published at Leipzig, in 3 vols. in 1877-79, the preface containing an account of Peschel’s services in this field.]

In the Old World such heaps upon the Danish coast have attracted the most attention under the name of Kjœkkenmœddinger, or Kitchen-middens, and their teachings have enlivened the recitals of nearly all the European archæologists who have sought to picture the condition of these early races.

It seems to be the general opinion that in the Old World this shell-heap folk succeeded, if they do not in part constitute the contemporaries of, the men of the caves.[1683]

From a photograph taken in 1868, furnished by his family. The portrait in the _Peabody Museum Report_, no. viii., represents him somewhat later in life, with a beard. He died Sept. 4, 1874. There are accounts of Wyman in the same _Report_, by Asa Gray, who also made an address on Wyman before the Boston Society of Nat. Hist. (cf. _Pop. Science Monthly_, Jan., 1875), with commemorations by O. W. Holmes (_Atlantic Monthly_, Nov., 1874, and _Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc._, xiv. 4), by F. W. Putnam in the _Proc. Amer. Acad._ with a list of his publications; by Packard in the _Mem. Nat. Acad._, and B. G. Wilder (_Old and New_, Nov., 1874).]

These accumulations are known usually in America as shell heaps, and it is generally characteristic of them that, while they contain pottery and bone implements, the stone instruments are far less numerous, and generally occur in the upper layers in those of Florida, but they are scattered through all the layers in those of New England. Professor Jeffries Wyman, whose name is in this country particularly associated with shell-heap investigations, could not find[1684] that any one had in the scientific spirit called attention to the subject in America earlier than Caleb Atwater in the _Archæologia Americana_ (vol. i., 1820), who had observed such deposits on the Muskingum River in Ohio. They had not passed unnoticed, however, by some of the early explorers. Putnam (_Essex Inst. Bulletin_, xv. 86) notes that J. T. Ducatel observed those on the Chesapeake in 1834. The earliest more particular mention of the inland mounds seem to have been made in Prinz Maximilian’s _Travels in the United States_.[1685] Foster, in his _Prehistoric Races of the U. S._ (ch. 4,—a special survey of the American heaps), says that Professor Vanuxem was the first to describe the sea-side mounds in 1841, in the _Proc. Amer. Asso. Geologists_ (i. 22).[1686]

There has been as yet little found in America from which to develop the evidence of early man from any lake or river dwellings, while so much has been done in Europe.[1687] In some parts of Florida the Indians are reported to have built houses on piles; and in South America tree-houses and those on platforms are well known. Mr. Hilborne T. Cresson has reported (_Peabody Mus. Rept_., xxii. for 1888) the discovery of pile ends in the Delaware River, and has shown that two of these river stations are earlier than the third, as is evident from the rude implements of argillite found in the two when compared with those discovered in the third, where implements of jasper and quartz and fragments of pottery were associated with those of argillite.

From a map, “Originalkarte der Urwohnsitze der Azteken und Verwandten Pueblos in New Mexico, zusammengestellt von O. Loew,” in Petermann’s _Mittheilungen über wichtige neue Erforschungen auf dem Gesammtgebiete der Geographie_, xxii. (1876), table xii. The small dotted circles stand for inhabited pueblos; those with a perpendicular line attached are ruins; and when this perpendicular line is crossed it is a Mexicanized pueblo. See the map in Powell’s _Second Rept. Bur. Ethnol._ (1880-81) p. 318, which marks the several classes: inhabited, abandoned, ruined pueblos, cavate houses, cliff houses, and tower houses.]

The earliest discoveries of the cliff houses of the Colorado region were made by Lieut. J. H. Simpson, and his descriptions appeared in his _Journal of a Military Reconnoissance_, in 1849.[1688] No considerable addition was made to our knowledge of the cliff dwellers till in 1874-75, when special parties of the Hayden Geological Survey were sent to explore them (_Hayden’s Report_, 1876), whence we got accounts of those of southwestern Colorado by W. H. Holmes, including the cavate-houses and cliff-dwellers of the San Juan, the Mancos, and the ruins in the McElmo cañon.[1689] W. H. Jackson gives a revised account of his 1874 expedition in the _Bulletin_ of the Survey (vol. ii. no. 1), adding thereto an account of his explorations of 1875. Jackson also gives a chapter on the ruins of the Chaco cañon.[1690]

* * * * *

In coming to the class of ruins lying in a few instances just within, but mostly to the north of, the Mexican line, we encounter the Pueblo race, whose position in the ethnological chart is not quite certain, be their connection with the Nahuas and Aztecs,[1691] or with the moundbuilders,—red Indian if they be,—or with the cliff-dwellers, as perhaps is the better opinion. Their connection with savage nations farther north is not wholly determinable, as Morgan allows, on physical and social grounds, and perhaps not as definitely settled by their architecture as Cushing seems to think.[1692]

The Spaniard early encountered these ruins,[1693] and perhaps the best summary of the growth of our knowledge of them by successive explorations is in Bancroft’s _Nat. Races_, iv. ch. 11.[1694] In the century after the Spanish conquest, we have one of the best accounts in the _Memorial_ of Fray Alonso Benavides, published at Madrid in 1630.[1695] The most famous of the ruins of this region, the Casa Grande of the Gila Valley in Arizona,[1696] is supposed to have been seen (1540) by Coronado, then in a state of ruin; but we get no clear description till that given by Padre Mange, who accompanied Padre Kino to see the ruins in 1697.[1697]

There are few descriptions[1698] of the antiquities of this country previous to the military examination of it which was made during the Mexican War. Such is recorded in W. H. Emory’s _Notes of a Military Reconnoissance from Fort Leavenworth in Missouri to San Diego in California_,[1699] which gives us some of the earliest representations of these antiquities, including the ruins of Pecos.[1700] In 1849, Col. Washington, the governor of New Mexico, organized an expedition against the Navajos, and Lieut. James H. Simpson gives us the first detailed account of the Chaco cañon in his _Journal of a Military Reconnoissance_ (Philad., 1852).[1701] He also covered (p. 90), among the other ruins of this region, the old and present habitations of the Zuñi, but these received in some respects more detailed examination in Capt. L. Sitgreave’s _Report of an Expedition down the Zuñi and Colorado rivers_ (Washington, 1853),[1702] accompanied by a map and other illustrations.[1703] New channels of information were opened when the United States government undertook to make surveys (1853) for a trans-continental line of railways; and a great deal of material is embodied in Whipple’s report on the Indian tribes in the _Pacific R. R. Reports_, vol. iii. The running of the boundary line between the United States and Mexico also contributed to our knowledge. The commissioner during 1850-53 was John Russell Bartlett, who, on the failure of the government promptly to publish his report, printed his _Personal narrative of explorations and incidents_ (N. Y., 1854), and made in some parts of it an important contribution to our knowledge of the antiquities of this region.[1704]

No considerable advance was now made in this study for about a score of years. Major Powell first published his account of his adventurous exploration (1869) of the Colorado cañon in _Scribner’s Monthly_ (Jan., Feb., Mar.) in 1875, and it was followed by his official _Exploration of the Colorado River_ (Washington, 1875), making known the existence of ruins in the cañon’s gloomy depths. The _Reports_ of the U. S. Geological Survey, including the accounts by W. H. Jackson and W. H. Holmes, give much valuable and original information; and a good deal of what has been included in the _Reports of the Chief of Engineers_ (U. S. Army) for 1875 and 1876 will also be found in the seventh volume, edited by F. W. Putnam, of _Wheeler’s Survey_,[1705] including the pueblos of Acoma, Taos, San Juan, and the ruin[1706] on the Animas River.

The latest examinations of these Pueblo remains, of which we have published accounts, are those made by A. F. Bandelier for the Archæological Institute of America. He has given his results in his “Historical introduction to studies among the sedentary Indians of New Mexico,” and in his “Report on the ruins of Pecos,” which constitutes the initial volume of _Papers, American series_, of the Institute (Boston, 1881).[1707] He believes Pecos to be Cicuye, visited by Alvarado in 1541,—a huge pile with 585 compartments, finally abandoned in 1840. In October, 1880, he examined the region west of Santa Fé (_Second Rept. Archæol. Inst._). His explorations also determined the eastern limits of the sedentary occupation of New Mexico (_Fifth Report_). He renewed his studies in 1882 (_First Bull. Archæol. Inst._, Jan., 1883), and thought the ruins showed successive occupiers, and divides them into cave dwellings, cliff houses, one-story buildings, and those of more than one, with each higher one retreating from the front of the next lower.

A reduction of the map accompanying Bandelier’s report on his investigations in New Mexico, in the _Fifth Rept. of the Archæological Institute of America_ (Cambridge, 1884).]

The most essential sources of information have thus been enumerated, but there is not a little fugitive and comprehensive treatment of the subject worth the student’s attention who follows a course of investigation.[1708]

* * * * *

The literature of the moundbuilders, and of the controversies arising out of the mysterious relics of their life, is commensurate with the very wide extent of territory covered by their traces.[1709] It was long before any intelligent notice was taken of the mounds by those who traversed the wilderness. De Soto, in 1540, could get no traditions concerning them beyond the assurances that the peoples he encountered had built them, or some of them. We read of them also in Garcilasso de la Vega, Biedma and the Knight of Elvas, on the Spanish side; but on the French at a later day we learn little or nothing from Joutel, Tonti, and Hennepin, though something from Du Pratz, La Harpe and some of the missionaries. Kalm,[1710] the Swede, in 1749, was about the first to make any note of them. Carver found them near Lake Pepin in 1768. In 1772 the missionary David Jones[1711] made observations upon those in Ohio. Adair did not wholly overlook them in his _American Indians_ in 1775. Prof. James Dunbar, of Aberdeen, in his _Essays on the history of mankind in rude and uncultivated ages_ (Lond., 1780), uses what little Kalm and Carver afforded. Jefferson in his _Notes on Virginia_ (1782) speaks of them as barrows “all over the country,” and “obvious repositories of the dead.”[1712] Arthur Lee makes reference to them in 1784. A map of the Northwest Territory, published by John Fitch about 1785, places in the territory which is now Wisconsin the following legend: “This country has once been settled by a people more expert in the art of war than the present inhabitants. Regular fortifications, and some of these incredibly large, are frequently to be found. Also many graves and towers like pyramids of earth.” In 1786 Franklin thought the works at Marietta might have been built by De Soto; and Noah Webster, in a paper in Roberts’ _Florida_, assented.[1713] B. S. Barton, in his _Observations in some parts of Natural History_ (London, 1787), credited the Toltecs with building them, whom he considered the descendants of the Danes.

As the century draws to a close, we find occasional and rather bewildered expression of interest in the _Observations on the Ancient Mounds_ by Major Jonathan Heart;[1714] in the _Missions_ of Loskiel; in the _New Views_ of Dr. Smith Barton; in the _Carolina_ of William Bartram; and in the travels of Volney. In 1794 Winthrop Sargent reported in the _Amer. Philos. Soc. Trans._, iv., on the exploration of the mounds at Cincinnati. The present century soon elicited a variety of observations, but there was little of practical exploration. A New England minister, Thaddeus Mason Harris, passed judgment upon those in Ohio, when he journeyed thither in 1803.[1715] The commissioner of the United States to run the Florida boundary, Andrew Ellicott, describes some near Natchez in his _Journal_ (1803). Bishop Madison communicated through Professor Barton some opinions about those in Western Virginia, which appear in the _Transaction_ of the American Philosophical Society, taking different grounds from Dr. Harris, who had thought them works of defence. The explorations of Lewis and Clark (1804-6) up the Missouri, and of Pike (1805-7) up the Mississippi, produced little. Robin, the French naturalist, in 1805,[1716] Major Stoddard[1717] and Breckenridge[1718] later, saw some in Louisiana, Missouri, and Illinois. A leading periodical, _The Portfolio_, contributed something to the common stock in 1810 and 1814, giving plans of some of the mounds. Those in Ohio were again the subject of inquiry by F. Cuming in his _Sketches of a Tour to the Western Country_ (Pittsburg, 1810), and by Dr. Daniel Drake in his _Picture of Cincinnati and the Miami Valley_ (Cinn., 1815). John Heckewelder, the Moravian missionary, accounted for the ancient fortifications through the traditions of the Delawares, who professed once to have inhabited this country, but it has been suspected that the worthy missionary was imposed upon.[1719] DeWitt Clinton, in 1811, before the New York Historical Society, and again in 1817, before the Literary and Philosophical Society of New York, had given some theories in which the Scandinavians figured as builders of the mounds in that State.

It was thus at a time when there was much speculation and not much real experimental knowledge respecting these remains that, under the auspices of the then newly founded American Antiquarian Society, Mr. Caleb Atwater, of Ohio, was employed to explore and survey a considerable number of these works. He embodied his results in the initial volume of the publication of that society, the _Archæologia Americana_.[1720] After pointing out scattered evidences of the traces of European peoples, found in coins and other relics throughout the country, Atwater proceeds to his description of the earthworks, mainly of Ohio; and beside giving many plans,[1721] he enters into the question of their origin, and expresses a belief in the Asiatic origin of their builders, and in their subsequent migration south to lay, as he thinks, the foundations of the Mexican and Peruvian civilizations.

After a photograph kindly furnished by the Hon. C. C. Baldwin, of Cleveland, Ohio, who has printed a memorial of his friend with a list of his writings in _Tract 68 of the Western Reserve Hist. Soc._]

During the next twenty-five years there cannot be said to have been much added to a real knowledge of the subject. Yates and Moulton in their _Hist. New York_ (1824) borrowed mainly from Kirkland (1788) the missionary. Humboldt had no personal contact with the remains to give his views any value (1825). Warden in his _Recherches_ (1827) gave some new plans and rearranged the old descriptions. There was some sober observation in M’Culloh’s _Researches_ (3d ed., 1829); some far from sober in Rafinesque (1838); some compiled descriptions with worthless comment in Josiah Priest’s _American Antiquities_ (Albany, 1838); something like scientific deductions in S. G. Morton’s study of the few moundbuilders’ skulls then known, in his _Cranea Americana_ (1839); with an attempt at summing up in Delafield (1839) and Bradford (1841). This is about all that had been added to what Atwater did, when E. G. Squier and E. H. Davis eclipsed all labors preceding theirs, and began the series of the _Smithsonian Contributions_ with their _Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley_ (Washington, 1847 and 1848).[1722] During the preceding two years they had opened over two hundred mounds, and explored about a hundred earthwork enclosures, and had gathered a considerable collection of specimens of moundbuilders’ relics.[1723] They had begun their work under the auspices of the American Ethnological Society, but the cost of the production of the volume exceeded the society’s resources, and the transfer was made to the Smithsonian Institution. The work took a commanding position at once, and still remains of essential value, though some of the grounds of its authors are not acceptable to present observers; and indeed in his work on the mounds of New York, which the Smithsonian Institution included in the second volume of their _Contributions_, Squier found occasion to alter some of his opinions in his earlier work, or at least to ascribe the mounds of that State to the Iroquois. The third volume of the same _Contributions_ (1852) introduces to us one of the ablest of the local investigators in a paper by Charles Whittlesey, of “Descriptions of Ancient Works in Ohio,”—the forerunner of numerous papers which he has given to the public in elucidation of the mounds.[1724] Three years later (1855), in the seventh volume of the _Smithsonian Contributions_, a new field in the emblematic and animal mounds of the northwest was for the first time brought to any considerable extent to public attention in the paper by Increase A. Lapham, on the “Antiquities of Wisconsin.” Lapham had made his explorations under the auspices of the American Antiquarian Society,[1725] and his manuscript had been revised by Haven, when it was decided to consign it for publication to the Smithsonian Institution.

Engraved from a photograph dated 1863, kindly furnished by his friend, Prof. J. D. Whitney. Lapham died in 1875. Cf. _Amer. Journal of Science_, x. 320; xi. 326, 333; _Trans. Wisc. Acad. Science_, iii. 264.]

The animal mounds had been indeed earlier mentioned, and the great serpent mound of Ohio had long attracted attention; but it was in the territory now known as Wisconsin that these mounds were found chiefly to abound. Long, in 1823, speaks of mounds in this region; but the forest coverings seem to have prevented any observer detecting their shapes till Lapham first noted this peculiarity in 1836. In April, 1838, R. C. Taylor was the earliest to figure them in the _Amer. Journal of Science_ (Silliman’s), and again they were described by S. Taylor in _Ibid._, 1842. Prof. John Locke referred to them in a _Report on the mineral lands of the United States_, made to Congress in 1844. William Pidgeon, who had been a trader among the Indians, published in his _Traditions of De-coo-dah, and Antiquarian researches: comprising extensive exploration, surveys and excavations of the Mound Builders in America; the traditions of the last Prophet of the Elk Nation, relative to their origin and use, and the evidences of an ancient population more numerous than the present Aborigines_ (N. Y., 1853; again 1858) what he pretended was in large part the results of his intercourse with an Indian chief, involving some theories as to the symbolism of the mounds. The book contained so many palpable perversions, not to say undisguised fictions, that the Smithsonian Institution refused to publish it;[1726] and the book has never gained any credit, though some unguarded writers have unwittingly borrowed from it.[1727]

In the eighth volume of the _Smithsonian Contributions_,[1728] Haven, the librarian of the Amer. Antiq. Soc., summed up the results of mound exploration as they then stood. The steady and circumspect habit of Haven’s mind was conspicuous in his treatment of the mounds. It is to him that the later advocates of the identity of their builders with the race of the red Indians look as the first sensibly to affect public opinion in the matter.[1729] He argued against their being a more advanced race (p. 154), and in his _Report_ of the Am. Antiq. Soc., in 1877 (p. 37), he held that it might yet be proved that the moundbuilders and red Indians were one in race, as M’Culloh had already suggested.

At the time when Haven was first intimating (1856) that this view might yet become accepted, it was doubtless held to be best established that those who built the mounds were quite another race from those who lived among them when Europeans first knew the country. The fact that the Indians had no tradition of their origin was held to be almost conclusive, though it is alleged that the southern Indians in later times retained no recollections of the expedition of De Soto, and Dr. Brinton thinks that it is common for Indian traditions to die out.[1730] It is not till recent years that any considerable number of moundbuilder skulls have been known, and from the scant data which the early craniologists had, their opinion seems to have coincided with those in favor of a vanished race.[1731] It was a favorite theory, not yet wholly departed, that they were in some way connected with the more southern peoples, the Pueblo Indians, the Aztecs, or the Peruvians; either that they came from them, or migrated south and became one with them.[1732] The bolder theory, that we see their descendants in the red Indians, is perhaps gaining ground, and it has had the support of the Bureau of Ethnology and some able expounders.[1733]

This follows a survey given in Squier’s _Serpent Symbol_ (N. Y., 1851), p. 137. It is criticised by Putnam in _Peabody Museum Reports_, xviii. 348, and _Amer. Antiq. Soc. Proc._, Oct., 1883. Putnam has recently purchased over sixty acres about the effigy, which is to be held by the trustees of the Peabody Museum as a park (_Repts._, xxi. 14); and his recent explorations show that the projections in the side of the head (shaded dark in the cut) are not a part of the construction. He also finds two distinct periods of occupation in this region, to the oldest of which he attributes this work (_Peab. Mus. Rept._ 1888). W. H. Holmes made a survey in 1886 (_Amer. Antiquarian_, May, 1887, ix. 141; _Science_, viii. 624, Dec. 31, 1886). Cf. J. P. MacLean, in _Amer. Antiquarian_, vii. 44, and his _Moundbuilders_, p. 56; Baldwin’s _Anc. America_, 29. T. H. Lewis describes a snake mound in Minnesota (_Science_, ix. 393). On the serpent symbol see S. D. Peet, in _Amer. Antiquarian_, viii. 197; ix. 13, where he manifests a somewhat omnivorous appetite.]

Of the opposing theory of a disappeared race, Capt. Heart in reply to Barton (_Amer. Philolog. Asso. Proc._ iii.) gave, as Thomas thinks, “the earliest clear and distinct expression,” but Squier and Davis may be considered as first giving it definite meaning; and though Squier does not seem to have actually revoked this judgment as respects the mounds in the Mississippi valley, he finally reached the conclusion that those in New York were really the work of the Iroquois.[1734] This ancient-race theory, sometimes amounting to a belief in their autochthonous origin, has impressed the public through some of the best known summaries of American antiquities, like those of Baldwin, Wilson, and Short,[1735] and has been adopted by men of such reputation as Lyell.[1736] The position taken by Professor F. W. Putnam, the curator of the Peabody Museum of Archæology at Cambridge, is much like that taken earlier by Warden in his _Recherches_, that both views are, within their own limitations, correct, and, as Putnam expresses it, “that many Indian tribes built mounds and earthworks is beyond doubt; but that all the mounds and earthworks of North America are by these same tribes, or their immediate ancestors, is not thereby proved.”[1737] Thomas (_Fifth Report, Bureau Ethnol._) holds this statement to be too vague. It is certainly shown in the whole history of archæological study that uncompromising demarcations have sooner or later to be abandoned.

Morgan finds it difficult to dissociate the mounds with his favorite theory of communal life.[1738] There is no readier way of marking the development of opinion on this question than to follow the series of the _Annual Reports_ of the Smithsonian Institution, as hardly a year has passed since 1861 but these _Reports_ have had in them contributions on the subject.[1739] Among periodicals, the more constant attention to the mounds is conspicuous in the _American Antiquarian_.[1740]

The basis for estimating the age of the mounds is threefold. In the first place, there are very few found on the last of the river terraces to be reclaimed from the stream. In the second place, the decay of the skeletons found in them can be taken as of some indication, if due regard be had to the kind of earth in which they are buried. Third, the age of trees upon them has been accepted as carrying them back a certain period, at least, though this may widely vary, if you assume their growth to be subsequent to the abandonment of the mounds, or if, as Brinton holds,[1741] the trees were planted immediately upon the building. The dependence upon counting the rings is by no means a settled opinion as to all climes; but in the temperate zone the best authorities place dependence upon it. Unfortunately it cannot carry us back much over 600 years.[1742]

* * * * *

The early attempts to disclose the ethnological relations of the moundbuilders on cranial evidence were embarrassed by the fewness of the skulls then known. Morton (_Crania Americana_) called the four examined by him identical with those of the red Indian.[1743] At present, considerable numbers are available; but still Wilson (_Prehistoric Man_, ii. 128) holds that “we lack sufficient data,” and in the consideration of them sufficient care has not always been taken to distinguish intrusive burials of a later date.[1744]

J. W. Foster (_Prehist. Races_, ch. 8; _Amer. Assoc. Adv. Sci. Trans._, 1872; and _Amer. Naturalist_, vi. 738) held to a lower type of skull, on this evidence, than Wilson (_Prehist. Man_, ii. ch. 20) contended for. There are examples of the wide difference of views (MacLean, 142), when some, like Morgan, connect them with the Pueblo skulls (_No. Amer. Rev._, cix., Oct., 1869), and others, like Morton, Winchell, Wilson, Brasseur, and Foster, find their correspondences in those of Mexico and Peru.[1745] Putnam, whose experience with mound skulls is greatest of all, holds to the southern short head and the northern long head (_Rept._ 1888). Probably we have no better enumeration of the variety of objects and relics found in the mounds, though much has since been added to the collection, than in Rau’s _Catalogue of the Archæological Collection of the National Museum_ (Washington, 1876).[1746] Unfortunately he shows little or no discrimination between discoveries in the mounds and those of the surface. The interest in such collections has naturally brought prominently to the attention of every student of such collections the tricks of fraudulent imitators, and there are several well-known instances of protracted controversies on the genuineness of certain relics.[1747]

There remains in this survey of the literature of the mounds in all their varieties, to go over it, finally, in relation to their geographical distribution:[1748]—

New England is almost destitute of these antiquities. The one that has attracted some attention is what is described as a fortification in Sanbornton, in New Hampshire, which when found was faced with stone externally, and the walls were six feet thick and breast-high, when described about one hundred and fifteen years ago. There is a plan of it, with a descriptive account, preserved in the library of the American Antiq. Society,[1749] and another plan and description in M. T. Runnels’s _Hist. of Sanbornton_ (Boston, 1882), i. ch. 4. Squier also figured it.

After a cut in Wilson’s _Prehistoric Man_, i. 274, engraved from a rubbing taken from the original. Wilson adds: “Mr. Whittlesey has included this tablet among his Archæological Frauds; but the result of inquiries made by me has removed from my mind any doubt of its genuineness.” Cf. other cuts in M. C. Read, _Archæol. of Ohio_ (1888); Squier and Davis, fig. 195; Short, p. 45; MacLean, 107; and _Second Rept. Bur. of Ethnol._, pp. 133-34.]

As we move westward, the mounds begin to be numerous in the State of New York, and particularly in the western part of it. One of the earliest descriptions of them, after that of the missionary Kirkland (about 1788), is in the “Journal of the Rev. John Taylor while on a mission through the Mohawk and Black River Country in 1802,” which was first printed, with plans of the works examined, in the _Documentary Hist. New York_ (vol. iii. quarto ed.). In 1818 DeWitt Clinton published at Albany his _Memoir on the Antiquities of the western part of New York_, in which he attributes their origin to the Scandinavians.[1750] They were again described in David Thomas’s _Travels through the western country in 1816_ (Auburn, 1819). There is not much else to note for twenty-five years. In 1845, Schoolcraft made to the N. Y. Senate his _Report on the Census of the Iroquois Indians_ (Albany and N. Y., 1846, 1847, 1848), which is better known, perhaps, in the trade edition, _Notes on the Iroquois; or Contributions to the Statistics, Aboriginal History, Antiquities and General Ethnology of Western New York_ (N. Y. 1846). In 1850, the _Third Report_ of the Regents of the University of the State of N. Y. contains F. B. Hough’s paper on the earthwork enclosures in the State, with cuts. The same year (1850) came the essential authority on the New York mounds, E. G. Squier’s _Aboriginal Monuments of the State of N. Y., comprising the results of original surveys and explorations, with an illustrative appendix_ (Washington, 1850), which the next year made part of the second volume of the _Smithsonian Contributions_.[1751] He enumerates in New York about 250 defensive structures, beside burial mounds and in his appendix describes those in New Hampshire and some in Pennsylvania.[1752] Some new explorations of the New York mounds were made in 1859 by T. Apoleon Cheney, who describes them, giving plans and cuts, in the _Thirteenth Report_ of the Regents of the University.[1753]

Reduced from an early engraving in T. M. Harris’s _Journal of a Tour into the territory northwest of the Alleghany, 1803_ (Boston, 1805). Harris’s plan in relation to the new town of Marietta is given in Vol. VII. p. 540. To follow down the plans chronologically, we find that of Winthrop Sargent, communicated to the Amer. Academy in 1787, reproduced in their _Memoirs_, new ser. v. part i. The _Columbian Mag._, May, 1787, vol. i. 425, and the _N. Y. Mag._ (1791) had plans. One was in Schultz’s _Travels_ (1807), 146. Atwater, of course, gave one in 1820. A survey by S. Dewitt, 1822, is in Josiah Priest’s _Amer. Antiquities_, 3d ed., Albany, 1833. Others are in the _Amer. Pioneer_, Oct., 1842, June 1843, and in S. P. Hildreth’s _Pioneer History_, 212 (Jan., 1843). Whittlesey made the survey in Squier and Davis (who also give a colored view), and it is reduced in Foster. Cf. also _Amer. Antiquarian_, Jan., 1880; _Mag. Amer. Hist._, 1885, p. 547; Henry A. Shepard’s _Antiquities of Ohio_ (Cinn., 1887); Nadaillac’s _L’Amérique préhistorique_, 105, and _Les prem. Hommes_, ii. 33.]

It was, however, in Ohio that the interest in these mounds was first incited, and that the more thorough exploration has been made.[1754] The earliest pioneers reported upon them. Cutler described them in 1789 in a letter to Jeremy Belknap.[1755] Benj. S. Barton described a mound at Cincinnati in 1799.[1756] Dr. Harris in 1805 was seemingly the earliest traveller to note them in _Journal of a Tour_, where he gives one of the earliest engravings. A plan of those at Circleville, with description by J. Kilbourne, is given in the _Ohio Gazetteer_ (Columbus, 1817). Caleb Atwater, in 1820, was more familiar with them than with others of his broader field. Warden in his _Recherches_ noted the early describers. Gen. Harrison discussed the mounds in his _Discourse on the Aborigines of the Valley of the Ohio_ (Cincinnati, 1838). Squier and Davis, of course, brought them within their range,[1757] and Col. Whittlesey supplemented their work in the third volume of the _Smithsonian Contributions_. Whittlesey and Matthew C. Read contributed the Report on the Archæology of Ohio, which forms the second portion of the _Final Report of the Ohio State Board of Centennial Managers_ (Columbus, 1877), and in it is a list of the ancient enclosures, which is not, as Short says (p. 82), as complete as it should be. A survey of the mounds was made by E. B. Andrews, and published in the _Peabody Mus. Repts._ (no. x.), 1877. The Ohio State Archæological and Historical Society started in June, 1887, the _Ohio archæological and historical Quarterly_, which has vigorously entered the field, and in it (March, 1888) G. F. Wright has reported on the present condition of the mounds. M. C. Read’s _Archæology of Ohio_ (Cleveland, 1888) was published by the Western Reserve Historical Society, whose series of Tracts is of importance for the study of the mounds.[1758] Henry A. Shepard’s _Antiquities of the State of Ohio_ (Cincinnati, 1887) summarizes the discoveries to date.[1759] Thomas (_Fifth Rept. Bur. Ethnol._) claims that the Ohio mounds were built by Indians, but not by the Indians, nor by the ancestors of them, who inhabited this region at the coming of the whites; but by an Indian race driven south, of whom he finds the modern representatives in the Cherokees.

_LITH. OF SARONY & MAJOR, 117, FULTON ST. N. Y._

From E. G. Squier’s _Aboriginal Monuments of the Mississippi Valley_ (N. Y., 1847), taken from _Amer. Ethnol. Soc. Trans._, ii. The letters A, B, C, etc. mark the ancient works. Enclosures are shown by broken lines. The mounds are designated by small dots. Some of the best maps which we have showing the geographical positions of groups of mounds accompany Thomas’s paper in the _Fifth Rept., Bur. Ethnol._]

The works at Marietta, on the Muskingum River, were the earliest observed. Taking the southern and southeastern counties, there are no very conspicuous examples elsewhere, though the region is well dotted with earthworks.[1760] Those at Cincinnati were, after those at Marietta, the earliest to be noticed.[1761] The adjacent Little Miami Valley is the region which Professor Putnam and Dr. Metz have been of late so successfully working.[1762]

After a cut in Wilson’s _Prehistoric Man_, i. 269, made from surveys “executed while the chief earthworks could still be traced in all their integrity;” and they “illustrate rites and customs of an ancient American people, without a parallel among the monumental memorials of the old world.” Cf. Atwater, Warden, Squier and Davis, and MacLean.]

Of all the works in the central portions of Ohio, and indeed of all in any region, those at Newark, in Licking County, are the most extensive, and have been often described.[1763] In the east[1764] and west[1765] there are other of these earthworks; but those in the north have been particularly examined by Col. Whittlesey and others.[1766] The enclosure called Fort Azatlan, at Merom on the Wabash River, is the most noticeable in Indiana.[1767] In Illinois, the great Cahokia truncated pyramid, 700 feet long by 500 wide and 90 high, is the most important.[1768]

Henry Gillman, of Detroit, has been the leading writer on the mounds of Michigan.[1769] The supposed connection of their builders with the ancient copper mines of Lake Superior is considered in another place. Thomas (_Fifth Rept., Bur. Ethnol._) contends that much of the copper found in the mounds was of European make, and had no relation to any aboriginal mining.

Wisconsin is the central region of what are known as the animal, effigy, symbolic, or emblematic mounds. Mention has been made elsewhere of the earliest notices of this kind of earthwork. The most extensive examination of them is the _Antiquities of Wisconsin as surveyed and described by I. A. Lapham_ (Washington, 1855), with a map showing the sites.[1770] The consideration of these effigy mounds has given rise to various theories regarding their significance, whether as symbols or to totems.[1771] It is Thomas’s conclusion that the effigy mounds and the burial mounds of Wisconsin were the work of the same people (_Fifth Rept., Bur. Ethnol._).

The existence of what is called an elephant or mastodon mound in Grant County has been sometimes taken to point to the age of those extinct animals as that of the erection of the mounds.[1772] Putnam, referring to the confined area in which these effigy mounds are found, says that the serpent mound, the alligator mound,[1773] and Whittlesey’s effigy mound in Ohio, and two bird mounds in Georgia,[1774] are the only other works in North America to which they are at all comparable.[1775]

When Lewis and Clark explored the Missouri River in 1804-6, they discovered mounds in different parts of its valley; but their statements were not altogether confirmed till the parties of the United States surveyors traversed the region after the civil war, as is particularly shown in Hayden’s _Geological Survey, 6th Rept._, in 1872. Within the present State of Missouri the mounds which have attracted most notice are those near the modern St. Louis.[1776] In Iowa (Clayton County) there is said to be the largest group of effigy mounds west of the Mississippi.[1777] The mounds of Iowa and the neighboring region are also discussed by Thomas in the _Fifth Rept. Bur. Ethnol._ O. H. Kelley has reported on the remains of an ancient town in Minnesota.[1778] In Kansas there is little noticeable,[1779] and there is not much to record in Dacotah,[1780] Utah,[1781] California,[1782] and Montana.[1783] We find scant accounts of the mounds in Oregon and Washington in the narrative of the Wilkes Exploring Expedition and in the earlier story of Lewis and Clark. Some of the mounds are of doubtful artificiality.[1784]

Along the lower portion of the Mississippi, but not within three hundred miles of its mouth, we find in Louisiana other mound constructions, but not of unusual significance.[1785]

The first effigy mound, a bear, which was observed south of the Ohio, is near an old earthwork in Greenup County, Kentucky.[1786] The mounds of this State early attracted notice.[1787] Bishop Madison[1788] thought them sepulchral rather than military. In the _Western Review_ (Dec., 1819) one was described near Lexington. Rafinesque added a not very sane account of them to Marshall’s _History of Kentucky_, in 1824, which was also published separately, and since then all the general histories of Kentucky have given some attention to these antiquities.[1789]

In Tennessee we find in connection with the earthworks the stone graves, which the explorations of Putnam, about ten years ago, brought into prominence.[1790] The chief student of the aboriginal mounds in Georgia has been Col. C. C. Jones, Jr., who has been writing on the subject for nearly forty years.[1791] The mounds in the State of Mississippi, as including the region of the Natchez Indians, derive some added interest because of the connection sometimes supposed to exist between them and the race of the mounds.[1792] The same characteristics of the mounds extend into Alabama.[1793] The mounds in Florida attracted the early notice of John and William Bartram, and are described by them in their _Travels_, and have been dwelt upon by later writers.[1794] The seaboard above Georgia has not much of interest.[1795] Concerning the mounds along the Canadian belt there is hardly more to be said.[1796]

* * * * *

Lubbock classes the signs of successive periods in North America thus: original barbarism, mounds, garden beds, and then the relapse into barbarism of the red Indian. The agricultural age thus follows that of the mound erection, in his view, though, as Putnam says, there seems enough evidence that the constructors of the old earthworks were an agricultural race.[1797]

* * * * *

There is another class of relics which, outside the hieroglyphics of Central America, has as yet had little comprehensive study, though the general books on American archæology enumerate some of the inscriptions on rocks, which are so widely scattered throughout the continent.[1798]

Out of all this discussion has risen the new science of Anthropology, broad enough in its scope to include not only archæology in its general acceptation, but to sweep into its range of observation various aspects of ethnology and of geology. It is a new science as at present formulated; but under other conditions it is traced from its origin with the ancients in a paper by T. Bendyshe in the _Memoirs of the Anthropological Society of London_ (vol. i. 335). Its progress in America is treated by O. T. Mason in the _American Naturalist_ (xiv. 348; xv. 616). The most approved methods of modern research are explained in Emil Schmidt’s _Anthropologische Methoden; Anleitung zum beobachten und sammeln für Laboratorium und Reise_ (Leipzig, 1888). “The methods of archæological investigation are as trustworthy as those of any natural science,” says Lubbock (_Scientific Lectures_, 139). Beside the publications of the various Archæological, Anthropological, and Ethnological Societies and Congresses[1799] of both hemispheres, we find for Europe a considerable centre of information in the _Materiaux pour l’histoire primitive et naturelle (philosophique) de l’homme_,[1800] and for America in the publications of the Smithsonian Institution,[1801] in the _Comptes rendus_ of the successive Congresses of Américanistes, and in such periodicals as the _American Antiquarian_, the _American Anthropologist_, and the _Folk Lore Journal_.

The broad subject of prehistoric archæology is covered in a paper by Lubbock, which is included in his _Scientific Lectures_ (Lond., 1879);[1802] in H. M. Westropp’s _Prehistoric Phases, or Introductory Essays on Prehistoric Archæology_ (Lond., 1872); in Stevens’s _Flint Chips_ (1870); by Dr. Brinton in the _Iconographic Encyclopædia_, vol. ii.; and more popularly in Charles F. Keary’s _Dawn of History, an introd. to prehistoric study_ (N. Y., 1879), and in Davenport Adams’s _Beneath the Surface, or the Underground World_.

The French have contributed a corresponding literature in Louis Figuier’s _L’Homme Primitif_ (Paris, 1870);[1803] in Zaborowski’s _L’homme préhistorique_ (Paris, 1878); and in the Marquis de Nadaillac’s _Les premiers hommes et les temps préhistoriques_ (Paris, 1881), and his _Mœurs et monuments des peuples préhistoriques_ (Paris, 1888), not to mention others.[1804]

The principal comprehensive works covering the prehistoric period in North America, are J. T. Short’s _North Americans of Antiquity_ (N. Y., 1879, and later); the _L’Amérique préhistorique_ of Nadaillac (Paris, 1883);[1805] Foster’s _Prehistoric Races of the United States_ (Chicago, 1873; 6th ed., 1887); and the compact popular _Ancient America_ (N. Y., 1871) of John D. Baldwin. Beside Bancroft’s _Native Races_, there are various treatises of confined nominal scope, but covering in some degree the whole North American field, which are noted in other pages.[1806]

The purely ethnological aspects of the American side of the subject are summarily surveyed in A. H. Keane’s “Ethnology of America,” appended to Stanford’s _Compendium of Geography, Cent. America_, etc. (London, 2nd ed., 1882), and there are papers on Ethnographical Collections in the _Smithsonian Report_ (1862).[1807] The great repository of material, however, is in the _Contributions to North American Ethnology_, being a section of Major Powell’s _Survey of the Rocky Mountain Region_, and in the _Annual Reports_ of the Bureau of Ethnology since 1879, made under Major Powell’s directions, and in the _Reports of the Peabody Museum_.[1808]