gcls_WFP_567
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Fort Ancient of Southern Ohio.
We are indebted to Mrs. John H. Bateman, of Greenville, for the rock from Fort Ancient of Southern Ohio. These fortifications were the creations of the Mound Builders of pre-historic times. Extracts from a published phamplet are given below. This stone adds to our interesting collections of ancient relics.
I then informed him that the archaeologists and archaeographers, the enthnologists and ethnographers have finally determined that they were made by that remarkable race formerly inhabiting the interior of North America, known as the Mound-Builders, and that they were made at that period in American chronology known as the prehistoric age."
These humorous answers afforded the inquirer little information; but they expressed, in a different form, the answer which all, even after the most exhaustive research, must give, namely, "No one knows."
What race of people built this most remarkable work we can not know, nor even whether or no it was the race we call the Mound-Builders. There are two theories among archaeologists concerning the Mound-Builders; one is that they were simply some tribe or tribes of Indians; the other, that they belonged to a more ancient and civilized people. The advocates of one theory point to the facts that, while their earthworks are extensive, no mark of a chisel has been found on one of the building stones; no implement, utensil or ornament has been found in their works indicating mechanical skill beyond that of some tribes of Indians; nothing in their works indicate exact measurement; their circles are not perfect circles, their squares are not perfect squares. On the other hand, it is claimed that the tribes of Indians which the whites found in possession of the country had no knowledge of the origin of these works, and could give no information concerning them.
While Fort Ancient bears evidence that it was intended as a work of defense, and is properly called a fort, the real purpose of the mounds and many earthworks is still a mystery. By whom built, at what period, and for what purpose, we can never know. Their builders left no history of their race to tell us whence they came or how they disappeared. Even tradition is silent concerning them; their very name is lost forever; and in the abscence of positive knowledge, we call them the Mound-Builders, a name indicative of our ignorance.
More than ten thousand mounds in Southern Ohio alone stand as mute monuments to the industry of this unknown race; and many others are scattered throughout that part of the United States which lies between the Great Lakes on the north and the Gulf of Mexico on the south, and is bounded on the west by the States lining the west bank of the Mississippi River, and on the east by a line drawn through the middle of the States of New York and Pennsylvania, and extending southward so as to include the greater part of the Carolinas and the whole of Georgia and Florida.
While it can never be known who the Mound-Builders were, still it may be interesting to learn what the archaeologists and theorists have concluded or surmised about them.
Who Were the Mound-Builders? Whence Came They?
From the fact that there are no similar earthworks east of the Allegheny Mountains, it is agreed that they did not come from that region. It is argued, however, that they came from Iceland, and that this country is the "New Iceland" mentioned in the "Sagas" of that island; that they were of the tribes of Northern Asia, and that they crossed over by Behring Strait; that they were the Mandan Indians who built similar lodges and molded pottery of identical shapes and designs at their villages along the Upper Missouri; that they were a tribe of Indians from the Gulf States; that they were a tribe of the Lenapes, a powerful stock of Indians from the north. Still others maintain that the Mound-Builders were none other than the Shawnees, a tirbe of the Algonquin stock which migrated from the northwest, entered this territory about 1710, and wwere in possession of it when the white man came.
[Black and white photograph of a landscape with mounds and trees.]
Another View of the Walls
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