Mound Builders
Many
The first mound building was an early marker of political and social complexity among the cultures in the Eastern United States.
From about 800 CE, the mound-building cultures were dominated by the
Mounds
The namesake cultural trait of the Mound Builders was the building of mounds and other earthworks. These burial and ceremonial structures were typically flat-topped pyramids or platform mounds, flat-topped or rounded cones, elongated ridges, and sometimes a variety of other forms. They were generally built as part of complex villages. The early earthworks built in Louisiana around 3500 BCE are the only ones known to have been built by a hunter-gatherer culture, rather than a more settled culture based on agricultural surpluses.
The best-known flat-topped pyramidal structure is Monks Mound at Cahokia, near present-day Collinsville, Illinois. This community was the center of the Mississippian culture. This mound appears to have been the main ceremonial and residential mound for the religious and political leaders; it is more than 100 feet (30 m) tall and is the largest pre-Columbian earthwork north of Mexico. This site had numerous mounds, some with conical or ridge tops, as well as palisaded stockades protecting the large settlement and elite quarter. At its maximum about 1150 CE, Cahokia was an urban settlement with 20,000–30,000 people. This population was not exceeded by North American European settlements until after 1800.
Some effigy mounds were constructed in the shapes or outlines of culturally significant animals. The most famous effigy mound, Serpent Mound in southern Ohio, ranges from 1 foot (0.30 m) to just over 3 feet (0.91 m) tall, 20 feet (6.1 m) wide, more than 1,330 feet (410 m) long, and shaped as an undulating serpent.
Early descriptions
Between 1540 and 1542, Hernando de Soto, the Spanish conquistador, traversed what became the southeastern United States. There he encountered many different mound-builder peoples who were perhaps descendants of the great Mississippian culture. De Soto observed people living in fortified towns with lofty mounds and plazas and surmised that many of the mounds served as foundations for priestly temples. Near present-day Augusta, Georgia, de Soto encountered a group ruled by a queen, Cofitachequi. She told him that the mounds within her territory served as burial places for nobles.
The artist
Sometimes the deceased king of this province is buried with great solemnity, and his great cup from which he was accustomed to drink is placed on a tumulus with many arrows set about it.
— Jacques le Moyne, 1560s
Archaeological surveys
The most complete reference for these earthworks is
Chronology
Archaic era
Radiocarbon dating has established the age of the earliest Archaic mound complex in southeastern Louisiana. One of the two Monte Sano Site mounds, excavated in 1967 before being destroyed for new construction at Baton Rouge, was dated at 6220 BP (plus or minus 140 years).[6] Researchers at the time thought that such hunter-gatherer societies were not organizationally capable of this type of construction.[6] It has since been dated as about 6500 BP or 4500 BCE,[7] although not all agree.[8]
With the 1990s dating of Watson Brake and similar complexes, scholars established that pre-agricultural, pre-ceramic American societies could organize to accomplish complex construction during extended periods, invalidating scholars' traditional ideas of Archaic society.[11] Watson Brake was built by a hunter-gatherer society, the people of which occupied this area only on a seasonal basis. Successive generations organized to build the complex mounds over 500 years. Their food consisted mostly of fish and deer, as well as available plants.
Poverty Point, built about 1500 BCE in what is now Louisiana, is a prominent example of Late Archaic mound-builder construction (around 2500 BCE – 1000 BCE). It is a striking complex of more than 1 square mile (2.6 km2), where six earthwork crescent ridges were built in concentric arrangement, interrupted by radial aisles. Three mounds are also part of the main complex, and evidence of residences extends for about 3 miles (4.8 km) along the bank of Bayou Macon. It is the major site among 100 associated with the Poverty Point culture and is one of the best-known early examples of earthwork monumental architecture. Unlike the localized societies during the Middle Archaic, this culture showed evidence of a wide trading network outside its area, which is one of its distinguishing characteristics.
Woodland period
The oldest mound associated with the Woodland period was the mortuary mound and pond complex at the Fort Center site in Glade County, Florida. Excavations and dating in 2012 by Thompson and Pluckhahn show that work began around 2600 BCE, seven centuries before the mound-builders in Ohio.
The Archaic period was followed by the Woodland period (circa 1000 BCE). Some well-understood examples are the
Coles Creek culture
The Coles Creek culture is a Late Woodland culture (700–1200 CE) in the
Mississippian cultures
Around 900–1450 CE, the Mississippian culture developed and spread through the Eastern United States, primarily along the river valleys.[16] The largest regional center where the Mississippian culture was first definitely developed is located in Illinois along a tributary of the Mississippi and is referred to as Cahokia. It had several regional variants including the Middle Mississippian culture of Cahokia, the South Appalachian Mississippian variant at Moundville and Etowah, the Plaquemine Mississippian variant in south Louisiana and Mississippi,[17] and the Caddoan Mississippian culture of northwestern Louisiana, eastern Texas, and southwestern Arkansas.[18] Like the mound builders of the Ohio, these peoples built gigantic mounds as burial and ceremonial places.[19]
Fort Ancient culture
Fort Ancient is the name for a Native American culture that flourished from 1000 to 1650 CE among a people who predominantly inhabited land along the Ohio River in areas of modern-day southern Ohio, northern Kentucky, and western West Virginia.
Plaquemine culture
A continuation of the Coles Creek culture in the lower
Disappearance
Following the description by
Diseases
Later explorers to the same regions, only a few decades after mound-building settlements had been reported, found the regions largely depopulated with its residents vanished and the mounds untended. Conflicts with Europeans were dismissed by historians as the major cause of population reduction since few clashes had occurred between the natives and the Europeans in the area during the same period. The most widely accepted explanation today is that new infectious diseases brought from the Old World, such as
The
While this culture shows strong Mississippian influences, its bearers were most likely ethnolinguistically distinct from the Mississippians, possibly belonging to the
The Mosopelea is most likely identical to the Ofo (Oufé, Offogoula) recorded in the same area in the 18th century. The Ofo language was formerly classified as Muskogean but is now recognized as an eccentric member of the Western Siouan phylum. The late survival of the Fort Ancient culture is suggested by the remarkable amount of European-made goods in the archaeological record. Such artifacts would have been acquired by trade even before direct European contact. These artifacts include brass and steel items, glassware, and melted down or broken goods reforged into new items.
The Fort Ancient peoples are known to have been severely affected by disease in the 17th century (Beaver Wars period). Carbon dating seems to indicate that they were wiped out by successive waves of disease.
Massacre and revolt
Because of the disappearance of the cultures by the end of the 17th century, the identification of the bearers of these cultures was an open question in 19th-century ethnography. Modern stratigraphic dating has established that the "Mound builders" have spanned an extended period of more than five millennia so that any ethnolinguistic continuity is unlikely. The spread of the Mississippian culture from the late 1st millennium CE most likely involved cultural assimilation, in archaeological terminology called "Mississippianised" cultures.
19th-century ethnography assumed that the Mound-builders were an ancient prehistoric race with no direct connection to the Southeastern Woodland peoples of the historical period who were encountered by Europeans. A reference to this idea appears in the poem "The Prairies" (1832) by William Cullen Bryant.[31]
The cultural stage of the Southeastern Woodland natives encountered in the 18th and 19th centuries by British colonists was deemed incompatible[25] with the comparatively advanced stone, metal[dubious ], and clay artifacts of the archaeological record.[26] The age of the earthworks was also partly over-estimated.
Caleb Atwater's misunderstanding of stratigraphy caused him to significantly overestimate the age of the earthworks. In his book, Antiquities Discovered in the Western States (1820), Atwater claimed that "Indian remains" were always found right beneath the surface of the earth, while artifacts associated with the Mound Builders were found fairly deep in the ground. Atwater argued that they must be from a different group of people. The discovery of metal artifacts further convinced people that the Mound Builders were not identical to the Southeast Woodland Native Americans of the 18th century.[26]
It is now thought that the most likely bearers of the Plaquemine culture, a late variant of the Mississippian culture, were ancestral to the related Natchez and Taensa peoples.[32] The Natchez language is a language isolate.
The Natchez are known to have historically occupied the
Maps
-
Fort Ancient culture
Pseudoarchaeology
The myth of the Mound Builders
Based on the idea that the origins of the mound builders lay with a mysterious ancient people, various other suggestions were belonging to the more general genre of
Benjamin Smith Barton in his Observations on Some Parts of Natural History (1787) proposed the theory that the Mound Builders were associated with "Danes", i.e. with the Norse colonization of North America. In 1797, Barton reconsidered his position and correctly identified the mounds as part of indigenous prehistory.
Notable for the association with the Ten Lost Tribes is the
The reasoning Priest gives for his conclusion that there was an even earlier settler than the Native Americans relies upon his interpretation of the Biblical flood story. According to Priest, after the great flood disappeared, Noah and his ark landed in America. While surveying the land, Noah also discovered mounds that had been constructed before the waters rose. Upon seeing this, Noah questioned where these agricultural phenomena came from. "Surveying the various themes of mound builder origins, he could not decide whether the mounds were the work of Polynesians, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Israelites, Scandinavians, Welsh, Scotts, or Chinese, although he felt certain the Indians had not built them."[36] Priest's racism has also been discussed in detail by author Robert Silverberg,[37] archaeologist Stephen Williams,[38] and author Jason Colavito.[39] Later authors placing the Book of Mormon in this context include Silverberg (1969),[40] Brodie (1971),[41] Kennedy (1994),[42] and Garlinghouse (2001).[43]
Some nineteenth-century archaeological finds (e.g., earth and timber fortifications and towns,.
Lafcadio Hearn in 1876 wrote about a theory that the mounds were built by people from the lost continent of Atlantis.[26][52] The Reverend Landon West in 1901 claimed that the Serpent Mound in Ohio was built by God, or by man inspired by him. He believed that God built the mound and placed it as a symbol of the story of the Garden of Eden.[53][54]
More recently, Black nationalist websites claiming association with the Moorish Science Temple of America, have taken up the Atlantean ("Mu") association of the Mound Builders.[55] Similarly, the "Washitaw Nation", a group associated with the Moorish Science Temple of America established in the 1990s, has been associated with mound-building in Black nationalist online articles of the early 2000s.[56]
In a January 2023 episode of
Newark Holy Stone
On June 29, 1860, David Wyrick, the surveyor of
After his first expedition, Wyrick uncovered a small stone box that was found to contain an intricately carved slab of black limestone covered with archaic-looking Hebrew letters along with a representation of a man in flowing robes. When translated, once again by McCarty, the inscription was found to include the entire Ten Commandments, and the robed figure was identified as Moses. Naturally enough, it became known as the Decalogue Stone.
Rather than being found beneath only a foot or two of soil, the Decalogue Stone was claimed to have been buried beneath a forty-foot-tall stone mound. Instead of modern Hebrew typography, the characters on the stone were blocky and appeared to be an ancient form of the Hebrew alphabet. Finally, the stone bore no resemblance to any modern
Giants
In 19th-century America, many popular mythologies surrounding the origin of the mounds were in circulation, typically involving the mounds being built by a race of giants. A New York Times article from 1897 described a mound in Wisconsin in which a giant human skeleton measuring over 9 feet (2.7 m) in length was found.[60] In 1886, another New York Times article described water receding from a mound in Cartersville, Georgia, which uncovered acres of skulls and bones, some of which were said to be gigantic. Two thigh bones were measured with the height of their owners estimated at 14 feet (4.3 m).[61] President Abraham Lincoln referred to the giants whose bones fill the mounds of America.
But still there is more. It calls up the indefinite past. When Columbus first sought this continent – when Christ suffered on the cross – when Moses led Israel through the Red-Sea – nay, even, when Adam first came from the hand of his Maker – then as now, Niagara was roaring here. The eyes of that species of extinct giants, whose bones fill the mounds of America, have gazed on Niagara, as ours do now. Co[n]temporary with the whole race of men, and older than the first man, Niagara is strong, and fresh to-day as ten thousand years ago. The Mammoth and Mastodon – now so long dead, that fragments of their monstrous bones, alone testify, that they ever lived, have gazed on Niagara. In that long – long time, never still for a single moment. Never dried, never froze, never slept, never rested.[62]
The antiquarian author William Pidgeon in 1858 created fraudulent surveys of mound groups that did not exist.[63] Beginning in the 1880s, the supposed origin of the earthworks with a race of giants was increasingly recognized as spurious. Pidgeon's fraudulent claims about the archaeological record were shown to be a hoax by Theodore Lewis in 1886.[64] A major factor contributing to public acceptance of the earthworks as a regular part of North American prehistory was the 1894 report by Cyrus Thomas of the Bureau of American Ethnology. Earlier authors making a similar case include Thomas Jefferson, who excavated a mound and from the artifacts and burial practices, noted similarities between mound-builder funeral practices and those of Native Americans in his time.
Walam Olum
The Walam Olum hoax had considerable influence on perceptions of the Mound Builders. In 1836, Constantine Samuel Rafinesque published his translation of a text he claimed had been written in pictographs on wooden tablets. This text explained that the Lenape Indians originated in Asia, told of their passage over the Bering Strait, and narrated their subsequent migration across the North American continent. This "Walam Olum" tells of battles with native peoples already in America before the Lenape arrived. People hearing of the account believed that the "original people" were the Mound Builders and that the Lenape overthrew them and destroyed their culture. David Oestreicher later asserted that Rafinesque's account was a hoax. He argued that the Walam Olum glyphs were derived from Chinese, Egyptian, and Mayan alphabets. Meanwhile, the belief that the Native Americans destroyed the mound-builder culture had gained widespread acceptance.
See also
- List of burial mounds in the United States
- Petroform
- Prehistory of Ohio
- Southeastern Ceremonial Complex
- Tumulus, mounds (or barrows) of Europe and Asia
- Tumulus culture
- Mormon publications:
- Heartland model - an interpretation of the Book of Mormonthat the Mound Builders were among those peoples described.
- Zelph (Archaeology and the Book of Mormon)
References
- ^ Squier p. 1
- ^ Robert W. Preucel, Stephen A. Mrozowski, Contemporary Archaeology in Theory: The New Pragmatism, John Wiley & Sons, 2010, p. 177
- ^ Mallory O'Connor, Lost Cities of the Ancient Southeast (University Press of Florida, 1995).
- ^ Ephraim Squier and Edwin Davis, Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley (Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge, vol. 1. Washington DC, 1848)
- ^ Biloine Young and Melvin Fowler, Cahokia: The Great Native American Metropolis (University of Illinois Press, 2000).
- ^ a b Rebecca Saunders, "The Case for Archaic Period Mounds in Southeastern Louisiana", Southeastern Archaeology, Vol. 13, No. 2, Winter 1994. Retrieved November 4, 2011
- ^ "Important new findings in Louisiana". Archaeo News. Stone Pages. Retrieved September 5, 2011.
- ^ Joe W. Saunders, "Middle Archaic and Watson Brake", in Archaeology of Louisiana, edited by Mark A. Rees, Ian W. (FRW) Brown, LSU Press, 2010, p. 67
- ^ a b Saunders, in Rees and Brown (2010), Archaeology of Louisiana, pp. 69–76
- ^ Saunders, in Rees and Brown (2010), Archaeology of Louisiana, pp. 73–74
- ^ Saunders, in Rees and Brown (2010), Archaeology of Louisiana, p. 63
- ^ Russo, Brown
- ^ "Southeastern Prehistory-Late Woodland Period". Retrieved September 23, 2008.
- ISBN 978-0-8173-0947-3.
- ^ "Troyville-Coles Creek". Louisiana prehistory. July 1, 2010. Archived from the original on January 10, 2012.
- ^ Adam King (2002). "Mississippian Period: Overview". New Georgia Encyclopedia. Archived from the original on March 1, 2012. Retrieved July 1, 2010.
- ^ "Mississippian and Late Prehistoric Period". Retrieved July 1, 2010.
- ISBN 978-0-8153-0336-7.
- ^ Nash, Gary B. Red, White and Black: The Peoples of Early North America Los Angeles: 2015. Chapter 1, p. 6
- ^ "Mississippian and Late Prehistoric Period". Retrieved October 20, 2016.
- ^ a b "Plaquemine-Mississippian". Archived from the original on April 2, 2015. Retrieved October 20, 2016.
- ISBN 978-0-8153-0725-9.
- ^ "The Plaquemine Culture, A.D 1000". Retrieved September 8, 2008.
- ^ a b Thomas, Cyrus (2018). Burial Mounds of the Northern Sections. Salzwasser-Verlag Gmbh.
- ^ ISBN 978-1-60163-000-1.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-07-286948-4. Retrieved May 19, 2012.
- ^ Davis Brose and N'omi Greber (eds.), Hopewell Archaeology (Kent State University Press, 1979)
- ^ Roger Kennedy, Hidden Cities: The Discovery and Loss of Ancient North American Civilization (Free Press, 1994)
- ^ Robert Silverberg, "...And the Mound-Builders Vanished from the Earth", originally in the 1969 edition of American Heritage, collected in the anthology A Sense of History [Houghton-Mifflin, 1985]; available online here Archived August 28, 2008, at the Wayback Machine.
- ^ Gordon M. Sayre, "The Mound Builders and the Imagination of American Antiquity in Jefferson, Bartram, and Chateaubriand", Early American Literature 33 (1998): 225–249.
- ^ Bryant, William Cullen, "The Prairies" (1832) Archived January 5, 2007, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ "The Plaquemine Culture, A.D 1000". Retrieved September 8, 2008.
- ^ Curtis Dahl, "Mound-Builders, Mormons, and William Cullen Bryant", The New England Quarterly, vol. 34, no. 2, June 1961, pp. 178–90 ("Undoubtedly the most famous and certainly the most influential of all Mound-Builder literature is the Book of Mormon (1830)). Whether one wishes to accept it as divinely inspired or the work of Joseph Smith, it fits exactly into the tradition. Despite its pseudo-Biblical style and its general inchoateness, it is certainly the most imaginative and best sustained of the stories about the Mound-Builders" (at p. 187).
- ^ Harpster, Jack; Stalter, Jeff. "Captive! The Story of David Ogden and the Iroquois." ABC-CLIO, LLC., 2010, p. xi.
- ^ These tribes made up the Kingdom of Israel in Biblical times. When Assyria left their kingdom in ruins, the tribes disappeared and were never seen again.
- ^ Silverberg, Robert. "The Mound Builders." Ohio UP, 1986, pp. 65-66, cited in De Villo Sloan, 2002.
- ^ Silverberg, Robert (1968). Mound Builders of Ancient America: The Archaeology of a Myth. Greenwich, CT: New York Graphic Society.
- ISBN 978-0812213126.
- ISBN 978-0806164618.
- ^ Robert Silverberg, Mound Builders of Ancient America: The Archeology of a Myth (New York: New York Graphic Society, 1968); Silverberg 1969 .
- No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith(rev. ed., New York: Knopf, 1971) p. 36.
- ^ Kennedy 1994 .
- ^ Garlinghouse, Thomas, "Revisiting the Mound Builder Controversy", History Today, September 2001, Vol. 51, Issue 9, p. 38.
- ^ See Squier 1849
- ^ See mound builder homes of "clay-plastered poles": Stuart, George E., Who Were the "Mound Builders"?, National Geographic, Vol. 142, No. 6, December 1972, pg. 789
- ^ See Searching for the Great Hopewell Road, based on the investigations of archaeologist Dr. Bradley Lepper, Ohio Historical Society, Pangea Production Ltd, 1998
- ^ See Priest, Josiah, American Antiquities and Discoveries in the West, pg. 179;
- ^ See Mound Builders & Cliff Dwellers, Lost Civilizations series, Dale M. Brown (editor), pg. 26
- ^ Priest, Josiah, American Antiquities and Discoveries in the West, 176; Mound Builders & Cliff Dwellers, Lost Civilizations series, Dale M. Brown (editor), pg. 26
- ^ See Ritchie, William A. The Archaeology of New York State, pp. 259, 261
- ^ See freshwater pearl necklaces, and pearls sewn on clothing: Mound Builders & Cliff Dwellers, Lost Civilizations series, Dale M. Brown (editor), pg. 26
- ^ Hearn, Lafcadio (April 24, 1876). "The Mound Builders". The Commercial. Retrieved May 17, 2012.
- ^ Ohio Historical Society (1901). Ohio history, Volume 10. Retrieved July 25, 2011.
The Garden of Eden, it seems, is now definitely located. The site is in Ohio, "Adams" county, to be more precise...The Rev. Landon West of Pleasant Hill, O., a prominent and widely known minister of the Baptist church... arrives at the conclusion that this great work was created either by God himself or by man inspired by Him to make an everlasting object lesson of man's disobedience, Satan's perfidy and the results of sin and death. In support of this startling claim the Rev. Mr. West quotes Scripture and refers to Job 16:13: "By His spirit. He hath garnished the heavens; His hand hath formed the crooked serpent."
- Heifer Projectcharity, and his accomplishments no doubt helped preserve the memory of his father's Garden of Eden.
- ^ "The Mound Builders of North America Part I". Federation : MSTA. Retrieved December 24, 2017.
- ^ "The Black Washitaw Nation of America". May 12, 2010. Retrieved December 24, 2017.
- ^ "RANDALL CARLSON on TUCKER CARLSON TODAY - S02E123 - ENVIRONMENTAL EARTHWORKS". YouTube.
- ISBN 978-0-300-22560-0, retrieved April 14, 2022
- ISBN 978-0-07-286948-4.
- ^ "Wisconsin Mound Opened: Skeleton Found of a Man Over Nine Feet High with an Enormous Skull". The New York Times. December 20, 1897.
- ^ "Monster Skulls and Bones". The New York Times. April 5, 1886.
- ^ Lincoln, Abraham (1953). "Fragment: Niagara Falls [c. September 25–30, 1848]". In Basler, Roy P. (ed.). Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln. Vol. 2. pp. 10–11.
- ^ Pidgeon, William (1858) Traditions of Dee-Coo-Dah and Antiquarian Researches. Horace Thayer, New York.
- S2CID 133844936. Retrieved September 1, 2023.
Further reading
- Abrams, Elliot M.; Freter, AnnCorinne, eds. (2005). The Emergence of the Moundbuilders: The Archaeology of Tribal Societies in Southeastern Ohio. Athens: ISBN 978-0-8214-1609-9.
- Thomas, Cyrus. Report on the mound explorations of the Bureau of Ethnology. pp. 3–730. Twelfth annual report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1890–91, by J. W. Powell, Director. XLVIII+742 pp., 42 pls., 344 figs. 1894.
- Mark Jarzombek, Architecture of First Societies: A Global Perspective, (New York: Wiley & Sons, August 2013)
- Feder, Kenneth L. Frauds, Myths, and Mysteries: Science and Pseudoscience in Archaeology. 5th ed. New York: McGraw Hill, 2006.
- Squier, E. G.; Davis, E. H. (1847). Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley. Washington DC: Smithsonian Institution.
- Gale, George (1867). Upper Mississippi: or, Historical Sketches of the Mound-builders, the Indian tribes and the Progress of Civilization in the North-west, from A.D. 1600 to the Present Time. Chicago: Clarke.
External links
- Lost Race Myth Archived June 11, 2011, at the Wayback Machine
- LenaweeHistory.com | Mound Builders section, The Western Historical Society 1909, reprint.
- Artist Hideout, Art of the Ancients
- Ancient Monuments Placemarks
- The Mound Builders at Project Gutenberg
- With Climate Swing, a Culture Bloomed in Americas (mound builders in Peru)
- Science 19 September 1997 (a mound complex in Louisiana at 5400u–5000 years ago)
- Bruce Smith video on the 1880s Smithsonian explorations to determine who built the ancient earthen mounds in eastern North America can be viewed as part of series 19th Century Explorers and Anthropologists: Developing the Earliest Smithsonian Anthropology Collections