THE MOUND-BUILDERS.
EARTH-PYRAMIDS—MONUMENTS OF THE MOUND-BUILDERS—SEATS OF ANCIENT
POPULATION—DIFFERENT CLASSES OF WORKS—ANCIENT STRONGHOLDS—
NATURAL SITES—FORT HILL, OHIO—IROQUOIS STRONGHOLDS—ANALOGOUS
STRONGHOLDS—FORTIFIED CIVIC SITES—SACRED ENCLOSURES—NEWARK
EAGLE MOUND—GEOMETRICAL EARTHWORKS—PLAN OF NEWARK EARTHWORKS,
OHIO—A STANDARD OF MEASUREMENT—DIVERSITY OF WORKS—THE
CINCINNATI TABLET—A GEOMETRICAL INSTRUMENT—TRACES OF EXTINCT
ARTS.
The progress hitherto noted has related chiefly to the tools of the
workman. In Mexico, and still more in Central America and Peru, those
were applied both to sculpture and architecture on a grand scale. But
some of the most singular memorials of the primitive architecture of the
New World survive in the form of gigantic earthworks, perpetuating in
their construction remarkable evidence of geometrical skill.
Along the broad levels drained by the Mississippi and its numerous
tributaries traces of America’s allophylian population abound; and the
Ohio valley is pre-eminently remarkable for the number and magnitude of
such works. The Ohio and its tributary streams flow through a fine
undulating, fertile country, which now forms one of the great centres of
population; and the evidence of modern enterprise and skill which
abounds there gives additional interest to traces which disclose to us
proof that this vast area is not now rescued for the first time from the
primeval forest, with its wild fauna, and still wilder savage man.
In a region such as this, attracting population to the broad alluvial
terraces overlooking its smoothly-flowiug rivers, it was natural that
the building instinct of man should first employ itself on earthworks;
and that the monuments should assume a pyramidal form. The great mound
of Miamisburg, Ohio, is sixty-eight feet high, and eight hundred and
fifty-two feet in circumference at its base. The more famous Grave Creek
Mound of Virginia rises to a height of seventy feet, and measures at its
base one thousand feet in circumference. Other and still larger
earthworks have been noted, such as the truncated pyramid at Cahokia,
Illinois, which, while it remained intact, occupied an area upwards of
two thousand feet in circumference, and reared its level summit, of
several acres in extent, to a height of ninety feet. But this last
belongs to a different class from the sepulchral mounds which appear to
be unsurpassed by any known works of their kind. “We have seen mounds,”
remarks Flint, an American topographer, with a just appreciation of the
relation of these earthworks to the features of the surrounding
landscape, “which would require the labour of a thousand men employed on
our canals, with all their mechanical aids, and the improved implements
of their labour, for months. We have more than once hesitated in view of
one of those prodigious mounds, whether it were not really a natural
hill. But they are uniformly so placed, in reference to the adjacent
country, and their conformation is so unique and similar, that no eye
hesitates long in referring them to the class of artificial erections.”
The exploration of these huge earth pyramids has set at rest any doubts
as to their artificial origin; and has, moreover, established the fact
that they are structures erected to perpetuate the memory of the
honoured dead in ages utterly forgotten, and by a race of which they
preserve almost the sole remaining vestiges.
The works of the Mound-Builders extend over a wide area, and include
many other structures besides those of a sepulchral character. The
people by whom they were executed must have been in a condition very
different from the forest tribes of the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries. Nevertheless, though congregated at many favourite points in
large communities, they may have been isolated by extensive tracts of
forest from the regions beyond the river-systems on which they were
settled. The country lying remote from the larger tributaries of the
Mississippi was probably in the era of the Mound-Builders, as in later
times, covered with forest; while perchance on outlying regions, or
beyond the great Lakes and the Rocky Mountains, the progenitors of
modern Indian tribes lurked: like the barbarians of ante-Christian
Europe, beyond the Rhine and the Baltic.
The fertile valley of the Scioto appears to have been one of the seats
of densest population, as indicated by the numerous works which
diversify its surface. Corresponding evidence preserves the traces of an
equally numerous population in the Miami Valley; and the mounds and
earthworks of various kinds throughout the state of Ohio are estimated
at between eleven and twelve thousand. They are stated to be scarcely
less numerous on the Kenhawas in Virginia than on the Scioto and Miamis,
and are abundant on the White River and Wabash, as also upon the
Kentucky, Cumberland, Tennessee, and numerous other tributaries of the
Ohio and Mississippi. Works accumulated in such numbers, and, including
many of great magnitude and elaborateness of design, executed by the
combined labour of large bodies of workmen, afford indisputable evidence
of a settled and industrious population. Beyond those carefully explored
regions, traces of other ancient structures have been observed at widely
separated points; though caution must be exercised in generalising from
data furnished by casual and inexperienced observers. All primitive
earthworks, whether for defence, sepulchral memorials, or religious
rites, have certain features in common; and the tendency of the popular
mind is rather to exaggerate chance resemblances into forced analogies
and parallels, than to exercise any critical discrimination. Including,
however, all large earthworks essentially dissimilar from the slight
structures of the modern Indian, they appear to stretch from the upper
waters of the Ohio to the westward of Lake Erie, and thence along Lake
Michigan, nearly to the Copper Regions of Lake Superior. Examples of a
like character have been traced through Wisconsin, Iowa, and the
Nebraska Territory; while in the south their area is bounded by the
shores of the Gulf of Florida and the Mexican territory, where they seem
gradually to lose their distinctive character, and pass into the great
teocallis of a higher developed Mexican architecture. Their affinities
are indeed more southern than northern. They are scarcely, if at all, to
be found to the eastward of the water-shed between the Mississippi and
the Atlantic, in the States of Pennsylvania, New York, or Virginia; and
they have been rightly designated, from their chief site, the Ancient
Monuments of the Mississippi Valley, including those of its tributaries,
and especially of the valley of the Ohio. There their localities fully
accord with those which, in the primitive history of the Old World,
reveal the most abundant traces of an aboriginal population, in their
occupation of the broad alluvial terraces, or “river bottoms,” as they
are styled. To the north the memorials of an ancient population are of a
different character; and the earthworks in the vicinity of the Great
Lakes must be classed by themselves, as indicating distinct customs and
rites.
The remarkable works thus traceable over so large an extent of the North
American continent admit of being primarily arranged into the two
subdivisions of Enclosures and Mounds, and those again embrace a variety
of works evidently designed for very different uses. Under the first of
these heads are included the fortifications or strongholds; the sacred
enclosures, destined, as is assumed, for religious rites; and numerous
miscellaneous works of the same class, generally symmetrical in
structure, but the probable use of which it is difficult to determine.
The second subdivision embraces the true mound-buildings, including what
have been specially designated sacrificial, sepulchral, temple, and
animal-mounds. All partake of characteristics pertaining to a broad
level country; but this is nowhere so strikingly apparent as where
mounds seem to have been purposely erected as observatories or points of
sight from whence to survey the works elaborated on a gigantic scale on
the level plain. In addition to the striking features which their
external aspect exhibits: wherever they have been excavated interesting
relics of the ancient builders have been disclosed, adding many graphic
illustrations of their social condition, and of the artistic and
industrial arts of the period to which they pertain.
The British hill-forts, the remarkable vitrified forts of Scotland, and
the larger strongholds of the British aborigines, such as the ingenious
circumvallations of the White Caterthun overlooking the valley of
Strathmore, all derive their peculiar character from the mountainous
features of the country; while on the low ground, under the shadow of
the Ochils, the elaborate earthworks of the Camp of Ardoch show the
strikingly contrasting castrametation of the Roman invaders. The ancient
raths of Ireland, which abound in the level districts of that country,
as well as on heights where stone is not readily accessible, also
furnish highly interesting illustrations of earthworks with a special
character derived from the features of their localities. An earthen
_dune_ or _rath_, as in the celebrated Rath Keltair at Downpatrick,
occupies a commanding site, where it is strongly entrenched, with a
considerable space of ground enclosed within its outworks. The
celebrated Hill of Tara, in the county of Meath, ceased, according to
tradition, to be the chief seat of the Irish kings, since its desertion
in the latter part of the sixth century, shortly after the death of
Dermot, the son of Fergus. It appears to have been a fortified city; and
now, after the devastations of thirteen centuries, its dunes,
circumvallations and trenches, present many interesting points of
comparison with the more extensive earthworks of the Mississippi valley.
But neither the Scottish White Caterthun, nor the Irish Bath Keltair, or
even the Rath Righ of Tara Hill, can compare with the remarkable
American stronghold of Fort Hill, Ohio, or Fort Ancient on the Little
Miami River, in the same State.
The valley of the Mississippi is a vast sedimentary basin extending from
the Alleghanies to the Rocky Mountains. Through this the great river and
its numerous tributaries have made their way for countless ages, working
out shallow depressions in the plain, on which are recorded successive
epochs of change in the terraces that mark the deserted levels of
ancient channels. The edges of these table-lands bordering on the
valleys are indented by numerous ravines; and the junctions of many
lesser streams with the rivers have formed nearly detached peninsulas,
or in some cases tracts of considerable elevation insulated from the
original table-land. Many of those bluff headlands, peninsulas, and
isolated hills presented all the requisite adaptations for native
strongholds. They have, accordingly, been fortified with great labour
and skill. Embankments and ditches enclose the whole space, varying in
strength according to the natural resources of the ground. The
approaches are guarded by trenches and overlapping walls, more or less
numerous in different forts; and have occasionally a mound alongside of
the other defences of the approach, but rising above the rest of the
works, as if designed both for out-look and additional defence. In some
few cases the walls of these enclosures are of stone, but if they were
ever characterised by any attempt at regular masonry all traces of it
have disappeared, and there seems little reason for supposing that such
walls differed in essential character from the earthworks. No cement was
used, and in all probability we have in them only the substitution of
stone-heaps instead of earth-banks, owing to special local facilities.
One of the simplest, but most extensive of those primitive strongholds,
is Fort Hill, Ohio. The defences occupy the summit of a height, elevated
about five hundred feet above the bed of Bush Creek, which flows round
two sides of the hill, close to their precipitous slope. Along the edge
of this hill a deep ditch has been cut, and the materials taken from it
have been piled up into an embankment, rising from six to fifteen feet
above the bottom of the ditch. In its whole extent the wall measures
eight thousand two hundred and twenty-four feet, or upwards of a mile
and a half in length; and encloses an area of forty-eight acres, now
covered with gigantic forest-trees. One of them, a chestnut, measured
twenty-one feet, and an oak, though greatly decayed, twenty-three feet
in circumference, while the trunks of immense trees lay around in every
stage of decay. Such was the aspect of Fort Hill, Ohio, a few years ago,
and it is probably in no way changed now. Dr. Hildreth counted eight
hundred rings of annual growth in a tree which grew on one of the mounds
at Marietta, Ohio; and Messrs. Squier and Davis, from the age and
condition of the forest, ascribed an antiquity to its deserted site of
considerably more than a thousand years. In their present condition,
therefore, the walls of “Fort Hill” are ruins of an older date than the
most venerable stronghold of the Normans of England; and we see as
little of their original completeness, as in the crumbling Norman keep
we are able to trace all the complex system of bastions, curtains,
baileys, buttress-towers, and posterns, of the military architecture of
the twelfth century. Openings occur in the walls, in some places on the
steepest points of the hill, where access is impossible; and where,
therefore, we must rather suppose that platforms may have been projected
to defend more accessible points. The ditch has in many places been cut
through sandstone rock as well as soil; and at one point the rock is
quarried out so as to leave a mural front about twenty feet high. Large
ponds or artificial reservoirs for water have been made within the
enclosure; and at the southern point, where the natural area of this
stronghold contracts into a narrow and nearly insulated projection
terminating in a bold bluff, it rises to a height of thirty feet above
the bottom of the ditch, and has its own special reservoirs, as if here
were the keep and citadel of the fortress: doubtless originally
strengthened with palisades and military works, of which every trace had
disappeared before the ancient forest asserted its claim to the deserted
fortalice. Here then, it is obvious we look on no temporary retreat of
some nomadic horde, but on a military work of great magnitude; which,
even with all the appliances of modern engineering skill, would involve
the protracted operations of a numerous body of labourers, and when
completed must have required a no less numerous garrison for its
defence. The contrast is very striking between such elaborate works and
the most extensive of those still traceable in Western New York the
origin of which appears to be correctly assigned to Iroquois and other
tribes known to have been in occupation of their sites in comparatively
recent times.
Among the native Indian tribes who have come under direct observation of
Europeans, none played a more prominent part than the Iroquois. At the
period of Dutch discovery in the beginning of the seventeenth century,
they occupied the territory between the Hudson and the Genesee rivers,
of which they continued to maintain possession for nearly two centuries,
in defiance of warlike native foes, and the more formidable aggression
of the French invaders. Their numbers, at the period of their greatest
prosperity, about the middle of the seventeenth century, have been
variously estimated from 70,000, which La Hontan assigned to them, to
the more probable estimate of 25,000 given by the historian of their
League. Very exaggerated pictures have been drawn by some modern writers
of the Iroquois confederacy. It was a union of tribes of savage hunters,
among whom only the germs of incipient civilisation are traceable. They
had indeed acquired settled habits, and devoted themselves to some
extent to agriculture. But with all the matured arts resulting from
combined action in the maintenance of their territory for successive
generations against fierce hostile tribes, and the defence of an
extensive frontier constantly exposed to invasion, the traces of the
Iroquois strongholds are of so slight a description that many of them
have already been obliterated by the plough.
From the facts thus presented to our consideration, it is obvious that
the highest estimate we can entertain of the powers of combination
indicated by the famous League of the Iroquois, furnishes no evidence of
a capacity for the construction and maintenance of works akin to the
strongholds of the Mound-Builders in the Ohio valley. Striking as is the
contrast which the Iroquois present to more ephemeral savage tribes, the
remains of their earthworks present in some respects a greater contrast
to those of the Mound-Builders than the latter do to the elaborate
architecture of Mexico and Yucatan. There are indeed points of
resemblance between the strongholds of the two, as there are between
them and the British hill-forts, or any other earthworks erected on
similar sites; but beyond such general elements of comparison,—equally
interesting, but as little indicative of any community of origin as the
correspondence traceable between the flint and stone weapons in use by
the builders of both,—there is nothing in such resemblances calculated
to throw any light on the origin of those remarkable monuments of the
New World. It is rather from the contrast between the two that we may
turn the remains of Iroquois defences to account, as suggestive of a
greatly more advanced condition of social life and the arts of a settled
population among the Mound-Builders of the Mississippi and its
tributaries.
Further proofs of the settled character of this ancient population are
furnished by another class of defensive works, supposed to mark the
sites of fortified towns. One of these, called “Clark’s Work,” on the
north fork of Point Creek, in the Scioto valley, embraces an area of one
hundred and twenty-seven acres; and encloses within its circumvallations
sacrificial mounds, and symmetrical earthworks assumed with every
probability to have been designed for religious or civic purposes. A
stream has been turned into an entirely new channel, in order to admit
of the completed circuit of the walls. “The embankments measure together
nearly three miles in length; and a careful computation shows that,
including mounds, not less than three million cubic feet of earth were
used in their composition.”[83] Within the enclosures thus laboriously
executed, many of the most interesting relics of ancient art have been
dug up, including several coiled serpents of carved stone, carefully
enveloped in sheet mica and copper; pottery, fragments of carved ivory,
discoidal stones, and numerous fine sculptures.
It is obvious that the population capable of furnishing the requisite
labour for works of so extensive a nature must have been numerous, and
its resources for the maintenance of such a phalanx of workers
proportionally abundant. The garrisons of the great strongholds, and the
population that found shelter within such mural defences as “Clark’s
Work,” must also have been very large, requiring for their subsistence
the contributions of an extensive district. But this only accords with
other proofs of the condition of the Mound-Builders as a settled people.
When we turn from the consideration of single large fortifications
crowning the insulated heights, and estimate the number and extent of
mounds, symmetrical enclosures, and works of various kinds connected
with the arts of peace and the rites of religious worship, which give so
striking a character to the river-valleys and terraces, it is no longer
possible to doubt that many sections of this fertile region were once
before filled by an industrious, settled population.
The Sacred Enclosures have been separated from the military works of the
Mound-Builders on very obvious grounds. Their elaborate fortifications
occupy isolated heights specially adapted for defence; whereas the broad
river-terraces have been selected for their religious works. There, on
the great unbroken levels, they form groups of symmetrical enclosures,
square, circular, elliptical, and octagonal, with long connecting
avenues, suggesting comparisons with the British Avebury, or the
Hebridean Callernish; with the Breton Carnac; or even with the temples
and Sphinx-avenues of the Egyptian Karnak and Luxor.
The predominant impression suggested by the great military earthworks of
the Mound-Builders is that of the action of a numerous population,
co-operating under the guidance and authority of approved leaders, with
a view to the defence of large communities. Elaborate fortifications
such as that of “Clark’s Work” in the Scioto Valley, or “Fort Ancient”
on the Little Miami River, are constructed on well-chosen hills or
bluffs, and strengthened by ditches, mounds, and complicated approaches;
but the lines of earthwork, like those of the great Scottish hill-forts,
are everywhere adapted to the natural features of the site. With the
sacred enclosures it is wholly different. Some of these also do, indeed,
impress the mind with the imposing scale of their embankments. On first
entering the great circle at Newark, and looking across its broad trench
at the lofty embankment overshadowed with full-grown forest-trees, my
thoughts reverted to the Antonine vallum, which by like evidence still
records the presence of the Roman masters of the world in North Britain.
But after driving over a circuit of several miles embracing the
remarkable group of earthworks of which this is only a single feature,
and satisfying myself by personal observation of the existence of
parallel avenues which have been traced for nearly two miles; and of the
grand central oval, circle, and octagon, the smallest of which measures
upwards of half-a-mile in circumference: all idea of mere combined
labour is lost in the higher conviction of manifest skill, and even
science. The angles of the octagon are not coincident, but the sides are
very nearly equal; and the enclosure approaches so closely to a perfect
figure that its error is only demonstrated by actual survey. Connected
with it by parallel embankments 350 feet long, is a true circle,
measuring 2880 feet in circumference; and distant nearly a mile from
this, but connected with it by an elaborate series of earthworks, is the
circular structure above referred to. Its actual form is an ellipse, the
respective diameters of which are 1250 feet, and 1150 feet,
respectively; and it encloses an area of upwards of 30 acres.
At the entrance of this great circle the enclosing embankment curves
outward on either side for a distance of 100 feet, leaving a level way
between the ditches, 80 feet wide. The earthen mound, which is here
higher than at any other point, measures about 30 feet from the bottom
of the ditch to the summit. The area of the enclosure is so nearly a
perfect level that Mr. J. M. Dennis, to whose intimate local knowledge I
was indebted for a thorough survey of the works, informed me that he had
observed during the rains of the previous spring the water stood at a
uniform level nearly to the edge of the ditch. In the centre of this
enclosure is an earthen mound, still called “The Eagle.” Mr. Squier says
of it: “It much resembles some of the animal-shaped mounds of Wisconsin,
and was probably designed to represent a bird with expanded wings.” It
has been opened and found to contain a hearth, or “altar.” The fact is
important; as it distinguishes it in this respect essentially from the
emblematic mounds of Wisconsin, and tends to confirm the idea that the
great circle and its related groups of earthworks all bore some
reference to sacred games, or other strange rites of religion, once
practised within their circumvallations. But successive excavations have
greatly marred the original contour of the mound; and now that, with a
view to the preservation of the principla earthwork, it has been secured
as the Licking County fair ground, the erection of a grand stand on the
summit of the Eagle Mound has contributed still further to obscure the
traces of its primary form.
From the elliptical enclosure a wide avenue of two dissimilar parts,
seemingly constructed without relation to each other, leads to a square
of twenty acres, with seven mounds disposed symmetrically within the
enclosing walls, and numerous other works occupy hundreds of acres with
their geometrical configurations. But in spite of the intelligent
interest which prevails in reference to those remarkable monuments of an
ancient people, the industrial operations of the modern occupants of
their sites are fast obliterating all but the most prominent works. In
the great octagon I noticed a difference of nearly five feet between the
height of the embankments still standing on uncleared land, and those
portions which have been long under the plough. But for the aid of my
intelligent guide I should have found it impossible to trace out the
indications of the parallel ways; and already many of the smaller mounds
and enclosures have entirely disappeared. Roads, railways, and a canal,
have successively invaded the sacred enclosures, and wrought more
changes in a single generation than had been effected in all the
previous interval since the discovery of America. But the accompanying
plan (Fig. 70), derived from surveys executed while the chief earthworks
could still be traced in all their integrity, will enable the reader to
comprehend their character; and if he clearly realises the scale on
which these geometrical figures are constructed, he can be at no loss in
recognising their essential difference from the ephemeral earthworks
which mark the sites of Indian stockades or sepulchral mounds. While
they present certain analogies to mound-groups and enclosures both of
Europe and Asia, in many other respects they are totally dissimilar: and
illustrate rites and customs of an ancient American people without a
parallel among the monumental memorials of the Old World.
[Illustration: FIG. 70.—Newark Earthworks, Ohio.]
Several striking coincidences between the details of these works and
others of the same class are worthy of notice. The diameter of the
circle, the perfect form of which has been noted, is nearly identical
with two others forming parts of remarkable groups in the Scioto valley,
one of them seventy miles distant. The square has also the same area as
a rectangular enclosure belonging to the “Hopeton Works,” where it is
attached to a circle 1050 feet in diameter, and to an avenue constructed
between two parallel embankments 2400 feet long, leading to the edge of
a bank immediately over the river-flat of the Scioto. A like coincidence
in the precise extent of the area enclosed has been noticed in the
octagon of a group, called the High Bank Works, on the same
river-terrace; and in another, at the junction of the Muskingum and Ohio
rivers. The authors of the elaborate surveys embodied in the Smithsonian
Contributions to Knowledge, remark generally that the figures of the
Scioto valley earthworks are not only accurate squares and perfect
circles, but are in most cases of corresponding dimensions; each square
being 1080 feet a side, and the diameter of each of the larger and
smaller circles a fraction over 1700 and 800 feet. This they observe is
“a coincidence which could not possibly be accidental, and which must
possess some significance. It certainly establishes the existence of
some standard of measurement among the ancient people, if not the
possession of some means of determining angles.”[84] It is no less
important to note that it establishes the use of instruments. A standard
of measurement could not otherwise exist, still less be applied, on so
large a scale in geometrical construction; and the very simplest
instruments that we can conceive of, constitute no less certain evidence
of a condition of intellectual development attained by this ancient
people very different from anything achieved by the most advanced Indian
tribes. Varied, moreover, as the combinations of their singular groups
of earthworks are, traces are clearly discernible that certain
well-defined plans of construction, and a proportionate scale of parts,
guided their builders. Justly estimating the importance of such
coincidences, and the still greater value of the evidence of the
construction of geometric figures on so large a scale, the authors of
the surveys have detailed their method of procedure, in order “to put at
once all scepticism at rest, which might otherwise arise as to the
regularity of these works.” This important point rests accordingly on
the most satisfactory evidence;[85] nor are even the imperfections
observed in the construction of some of the rectangular figures without
their significance, as a test of the extent to which geometry had been
mastered by the ancient builders.
That this remarkable class of earthworks originated in some totally
different purpose from the strongholds already described, is obvious.
Their site is invariably on a level plateau, and their avenues are
connected with the neighbouring flats by laboriously constructed
approaches, as if to facilitate the solemn march of processions. The
embankments are frequently slight; where a ditch occurs it is generally
in the interior; and their whole construction is in striking contrast to
the defensive enclosures in their vicinity. At Newark they extend over
the level terrace, and, with outlying structures, embrace an area of
several miles in extent; while on each side of the Valley, formed by the
Racoon Creek, military works occupy prominent elevations presenting
special natural advantages for defence. One of those, obviously of a
defensive character, encloses the summit of a high hill; but it also
contains a small circle with tumuli, covering “altars” corresponding to
those hereafter described, which give their peculiar character to the
sacred mounds. There is no room, therefore, for doubt that the various
works referred to illustrate what may be styled the civil, military, and
ecclesiastical structures of the same people, including in the latter
public games, such as among many ancient nations constituted one special
feature of their religious festivals.
One important inference deducible from the peculiar features of the
works here referred to, is the state of knowledge of their constructors.
The most skilful engineer of our own day would find it difficult,
without the aid of instruments, to lay down an accurate square on the
scale of some of those described, enclosing an area four-fifths of a
mile in circumference. Circles of moderate dimensions might indeed be
constructed, so long as it was possible to describe them by a radius;
but with such works measuring five thousand four hundred feet, or
upwards of a mile in circumference, the ancient geometrician must have
had instruments, and means of measuring arcs: for it seems impossible to
conceive of the accurate construction of figures on such a scale,
otherwise than by finding the angle by its arc, from station to station,
through the whole course of their delineation. It is no less obvious
from the correspondence in area and relative proportions of so many of
the regular enclosures, that the Mound-Builders possessed a recognised
standard of measurement; and that some peculiar significance, possibly
of astronomical origin, was attached to figures of certain forms and
dimensions.
[Illustration: FIG. 71.—Cincinnati Tablet.]
The city of Cincinnati occupies a remarkable site, within a fine basin
of hills, on the Ohio river, which had for its older occupants the
remarkable people now referred to. But the growth of the modern city has
swept away every vestige of their old earthworks; and no definite record
of their details has been preserved. One memorial, however, survives,
which was discovered in 1841, when excavating a large mound within the
limits of the city. It has been the subject of ingenious speculations;
and may have some bearing on our present investigations. In the centre
of the mound, slightly below the level of the natural surface, a
skeleton was found greatly decayed, alongside of which lay two pointed
bones, about seven inches long, formed from the tibia of the elk, and
the engraved tablet shown in the accompanying illustration (Fig. 71). It
is made of fine-grained sandstone, and measures five inches in length,
by two and six-tenths across the middle, and three inches at the ends.
Upon its smooth surface an elaborate figure is represented, by sinking
the interspaces within a rectangular border, so as to produce what has
been regarded by some as a hieroglyphic inscription. But the most
remarkable feature of its graven device is the series of lines by which
the plain surface at each end is divided. The ends of the stone, it will
be observed, form arcs of circles of different dimensions. The greater
arc is divided by a series of lines, twenty-seven in number, into equal
spaces, and within this is another series of seven oblique lines. The
lesser arc at the opposite end is divided in like manner by two series
of twenty-five and eight lines, similarly arranged. This tablet has not
failed to receive due attention. It has been noted that it bears a
“singular resemblance to the Egyptian cartouche.” Its series of lines
were discovered to yield, in the sum of the products of the longer and
shorter ones, a near approximation to the number of days of the year. An
astronomical origin was accordingly assigned to it; and it has been
surmised to be an ancient calendar, recording the approximation of the
Mound-Builders to the true length of the solar year. Mr. Squier perhaps
runs to an opposite extreme in suggesting that it is nothing more than a
stamp, of which specimens have been found made of clay, both in Mexico
and in the Mississippi mounds; and which were probably used in
impressing ornamental patterns on cloth or prepared skins. Such clay
stamps always betray their purpose by the handle attached to them, as in
the corresponding bronze stamps common on Roman sites; whereas the
Cincinnati tablet is about half an inch in thickness, with no means of
holding or using it as a stamp, and bears on its unfinished reverse
grooves apparently made in sharpening the tools by which it was
engraved. But whatever theory be adopted as to its original object or
destination, the series of lines on its two ends have justly attracted
attention: for they constitute no part of the device; and can scarcely
be regarded as an ornamental border. Possibly in them we have a record
of certain scales of measurement in use by the Mound-Builders; and if
so, the discovery is calculated to add fresh interest to our study of
the geometrical structures, which, far more than their great mounds, are
the true characteristics of that mysterious people.[86]
The precise objects aimed at in the construction of the remarkable
series of American earthworks here referred to must obviously be
difficult to determine with certainty. Analogies to these structures
have been traced in the works of Indian tribes formerly in occupation of
Carolina and Georgia. They were accustomed to erect a circular terrace
or platform on which their council-house stood. In front of this, a
quadrangular area was enclosed with earthen embankments, within which
public games were played and captives tortured. To this was sometimes
added a square or quadrangular terrace at the opposite end of the
enclosure. Upon the circular platform it is also affirmed that the
sacred fire was maintained by the Creek Indians, as part of their most
cherished rites as worshippers of the sun. But even the evidence, thus
far, is vague and unsatisfactory; and any recognisable analogies point,
at best, only to the possibility of some of the Indian tribes having
perpetuated on a greatly inferior scale some maimed rites borrowed from
their civilised precursors. The scale upon which the Southern Indian
earthworks were constructed may compare with those of the Iroquois in
the State of New York, but in no degree approximates to the erections of
the Mound-Builders. What, for example, shall we make of the graded ways,
such as that of Piketon, Ohio, where an approach has been laboriously
formed from one terrace to another, one thousand and eighty feet long by
two hundred and fifteen feet in greatest width? The excavated earth has
been employed, in part, to construct lofty embankments on each side of
the ascent, which are now covered with trees of large size. Beyond this
approach, mounds and half-obliterated earthworks indicate that it was
only part of an extensive series of structures. But, viewed alone, it is
one of the most remarkable monuments of prehistoric times to be found on
the whole continent, and certainly bears not the slightest resemblance,
either in its character or the great scale on which it is executed, to
any known work of the Red Indians.
-----
[83] _Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley_, pp. 26-29, plate x.
[84] _Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley_, p. 48.
[85] _Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley_, p. 57.
[86] The woodcut is engraved from a rubbing taken from the original. Mr.
Whittlesey has included this tablet among his “Archæological Frauds”;
but the result of inquiries made by me during a recent visit to
Cincinnati has removed from my mind any doubt of its genuineness.