DISTRIBUTION OF MOUND-BUILDING INDIANS
The mounds of these first Americans of which we know are found between
Oregon and the Wyoming valley, in Pennsylvania, and Onondaga county in
New York; they extend from Manitoba in Canada to the Gulf of Mexico.
The great seat of empire was in the drainage area of the Mississippi
river; on this river and its tributaries were the heaviest
mound-building populations. Few mounds are found east of the Alleghany
mountains.
In the _Catalogue of Prehistoric Works East of the Rocky Mountains_,
issued by the Bureau of Ethnology of the Smithsonian Institution,[5] the
geographical extent and density of the mounds in central North America
is brought out state by state with striking suggestiveness. While the
layman is warned that these maps "present some features which are
calculated to mislead," and that the maps indicate "to some extent the
more thoroughly explored areas rather than the true proportion of the
ancient works in the different sections," still some conclusions have
already been reached which future exploitation will never weaken.
It is not expected that future investigation will change the verdict
that the heaviest mound-building population found its seat near the
Mississippi and Ohio rivers. "There is little doubt," writes Dr. Thomas,
"that when Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia have been thoroughly
explored many localities will be added to those indicated ... but it is
not likely that the number will be found to equal those in the area
drained by the Ohio and its affluents or in the immediate valley of the
Mississippi."[6]
This fact, that the heaviest populations of the mound-building Indians
seem to have been near the Mississippi and Ohio is, of course, shown by
the archæological maps. In a rough way, subject to the limitations
previously mentioned, it can be found that the following fourteen states
contain evidences of having held the heaviest ancient populations:
Ohio,
Wisconsin,
Tennessee,
Illinois,
Florida,
New York,
Kentucky,
Indiana,
Michigan,
Georgia and Arkansas,
Missouri and North Carolina,
Minnesota,
Iowa,
Pennsylvania.
Now, by our last census the states which contain the largest population
today are:
New York,
Pennsylvania,
Illinois,
Ohio,
Texas,
Missouri,
Massachusetts,
Indiana,
Michigan,
Iowa,
Georgia,
Kentucky,
Wisconsin,
Tennessee.
Thus of the fourteen most thickly populated states today perhaps twelve
give fair evidence of having been most thickly populated in prehistoric
times. As a general rule (but one growing less reliable every day) the
heaviest population has always been found in the best agricultural
regions; the states having the largest number of fertile acres have had,
as a rule, the largest populations--or did have until the cities grew as
they have in the past generation.
This argument, though necessarily loose, still is of interest and of
some importance in the present study. The earliest Indians found,
without any question, the best parts of the country they once inhabited
if we can take the verdict of the present race which occupies the land.
Coming down to a smaller scope of territory, can it be shown that in the
case of any one state the early Indians occupied the portions most
heavily populated today? It has been said that, in Ohio, four counties
contain evidence of having been the scenes of special activity on the
part of the earliest inhabitants: Butler, Licking, Ross, and Franklin.
These are interior counties (at a distance from the Ohio and Lake Erie)
and, of the remaining sixty-three interior counties in the state, only
seven exceeded these four in population in 1880--when the cities had
not so largely robbed the country districts of their population as now.
Thus the aborigines seem to have been busiest where we have been busiest
in the last half of the nineteenth century.
[Illustration: ARCHAEOLOGICAL MAP OF WISCONSIN
[_Showing interior location of remains_]]
In Wisconsin the mound-building Indians labored most in the southern
part of the state, where the bulk of that state's population is
today--seventy-five per cent being found in the southern (and smaller)
half of the state.
In Michigan, a line drawn from the northern coast of Green Bay to the
southwestern corner of the state includes a very great proportion of the
archæological remains in the state. That line today embraces on the
southeast thirty-three per cent of the counties of the state, yet
sixty-three per cent of the population.
Thus it can be said that in a remarkable measure the mound-building
peoples found with interesting exactness the portions of this country
which have been the choice spots with the race which now occupies it.
Here, in the valleys, and between them, toiled their prehistoric
people. Their low grade of civilization is attested by the rude
implements and weapons and domiciles with which they seem to have been
content. Divided, as it is practically sure they were, into numerous
tribes, there must have been some commerce and there was, undoubtedly,
much conflict. Above their poorly cultivated fields, or in the midst of
them, they erected great earthen and stone fortresses, and, flung far
and wide over valley and hill, stand the mounds in which they buried
their dead.
[Illustration: ARCHAEOLOGICAL MAP OF OHIO
[_Showing interior location of remains_]]