Careful study of what is shown in the many reports on these ancient
remains seems plainly to authorize the conclusion that the
Mound-Builders entered the country at the South, and began their
settlements near the Gulf. Here they must have been very numerous, while
their works at every point on the limit of their distribution, north,
east, and west, indicate a much less numerous border population. Remains
of their works have been traced through a great extent of country. They
are found in West Virginia, and are spread through Michigan, Wisconsin,
and Iowa to Nebraska. Lewis and Clarke reported seeing them on the
Missouri River, a thousand miles above its junction with the
Mississippi; but this report has not been satisfactorily verified. They
have been observed on the Kansas, Platte, and other remote Western
rivers, it is said. They are found all over the intermediate and the
more southern country, being most numerous in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois,
Wisconsin, Missouri, Arkansas, Kentucky, Tennessee, Louisiana,
Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, and Texas.
This ancient race seems to have occupied nearly the whole basin of the
Mississippi and its tributaries, with the fertile plains along the Gulf,
and their settlements were continued across the Rio Grande into Mexico;
but toward their eastern, northern, and western limit the population was
evidently smaller, and their occupation of the territory less complete
than in the Valley of the Ohio, and from that point down to the Gulf. No
other united people previous to our time can be supposed to have
occupied so large an extent of territory in this part of North America.
It has heretofore been stated that remains of this people exist in
Western New York, but a more intelligent and careful examination shows
that the works in Western New York are not remains of the
Mound-Builders. This is now the opinion of Mr. Squier, formed on
personal investigation since the great work of Squier and Davis was
published.