#大地之旅山西大同#
The discovery and study of mound remains occupies an extremely important place in the history of North American archaeology. As the mystery of the mound builder is gradually revealed, it is archaeologically proved that the ancient Indians of North America were the true owners of the mound remains. The exploration process of mound archaeology reflects the emergence process of modern archaeology, and also witnesses the continuous innovation and progress of North American archaeological theories and methods.
North American mounds, refers to the ancient Americans in different cultural periods of different forms and functions, obviously uplifted on the surface of the earthwork remains, they are one of the important symbols of ancient American culture, mainly distributed in the North American Rocky Mountains east of the vast area, north to the north of the Great Lakes shore, south to the Gulf of Mexico, east to the Atlantic coast. Mound remains appeared around 3400 BC and underwent a long period of development and evolution, until the arrival of Europeans in the New World at the end of the 15th century AD, which gradually eliminated this cultural phenomenon characterized by artificial construction of mounds.
Distribution of mounds during the Mississippi culture period
Some European colonists became interested in the widespread and numerous mounds early on, and sparked a multi-year debate over the attribution and nature of mound remains, focusing on whether they were built by Native Americans and their ancestors represented by Indians, or by mysterious "mound-builders" who had disappeared. It was not until the late 18th century, when Thomas Jefferson's excavations and detailed analysis of the mounds were carried out, that an important research basis was established for later people to overcome all kinds of unfounded speculations in the past and make correct judgments consistent with objective history.
Thomas Jefferson
Discovery of mound remains
The first Europeans to discover the Mounds in North America were the Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto and his expedition. In search of a new kingdom as rich as Peru, the expedition landed in Tampa Bay, Florida, in 1539 and began a North American expedition that lasted more than four years. The tradition of mound building continued in the southeastern North America where the expedition was active at the time, and Indian villages and towns often had one or more mounds on which temples and the residences of chiefs or nobles were built, all wooden buildings with roofs covered with palm leaves. In the eyes of the Spaniards, it was normal for the Indians to choose to raise the foundations in order to highlight the importance of such buildings, and they had no interest in the mounds, and their purpose was to pan for gold rather than scientific research. Despite the hardships and dangers of De Soto and his companions, nothing was achieved. However, it is worth mentioning that Jacques Le Moyne, an artist on a later French expedition, was attracted by the strange local mounds, and he created a painting of a group of Indians kneeling around the chief's cemetery for funeral activities: people were inserted around a burial mound no more than 1 meter high and about 2 meters in diameter, with an arrow shaft facing upwards, and a large snail shell placed on top of the mound. The painting by Lemoyne is believed to be the first painting to depict an Indian burial mound, and although the mound was small, it was probably only at the beginning of its construction as the nucleus of the entire mound.
Tomb piers of 16th-century Florida Indian chiefs and their funerary rites
In short, although Spanish and French expeditions witnessed the close relationship between Indians and mound architecture in the early to mid-16th century, except for a few people such as Le Moyne, who were curious about it, most explorers were focused on how to find and obtain more treasures in the area, and they were blind to Indian settlements and the mound buildings in their vicinity, let alone interested in their origins. As for the mound remains of ancient Indians, which are scattered in large numbers in dense forest areas or along the rivers, they are only natural landscapes similar to hills in the eyes of the expedition.
In the more than 100 years since the early 17th century, Britain established 13 colonies in North America, stretching from the coast of Hudson Bay in the north, the Florida peninsula in the south, the Appalachian Mountains in the west, and the Atlantic coast in the east. The colonists were not satisfied with this, and they set off a wave of migration and colonization to the west. Colonists discovered a large number of mound remains, either standing alone in a vast wasteland or densely distributed on the banks of river valleys. Because many mounds are located in dense forests or bushes, it is difficult to see their exact form. With the deforestation and land development, the mound gradually revealed a very regular and uniform shape, showing obvious artificial construction characteristics. These mounds are larger than 30 metres tall, while smaller ones rise only slightly above the surface. Many ancient mound remains have been destroyed by agriculture and town construction, and the continuous discovery of human bones, weapons, tools, ornaments and other relics has led to unprecedented interest in the remains of mounds and their builders.
Fertas mound complex painted in the mid-19th century. This map was drawn in 1850 by John Egan based on a 1846 survey by Montroville W. Dickeson.
As the colony continued to expand, by the beginning of the 19th century, colonists found that there were no mounds in the area from North Carolina to New England on the Atlantic coast, and the remains of mound-building activities could be seen everywhere, from the northern edge of the St. Lawrence River, Lake Ontario and Lake Erie to the western New York State to Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa and Nebraska, the southern edge of Florida to the Gulf Coast of eastern Texas, and the western edge to Oklahoma. The eastern rim is bordered by central North Carolina. The areas with the highest concentration of mound remains are Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, and Missouri, with clusters of mounds scattered across the terraces of almost all major rivers.
Small conical mounds in the Fertas mound group (Yang Nan, 2006)
Fertas mound group measured in the early 21st century
The mystery of the mound builder and the preliminary archaeological exploration
The earliest recorded remains of North American mounds began in the late 18th century, when missionary David Zei Sberger, in his book History of the American Indians of the North, described how he led a group of Indians from western Pennsylvania to establish a settlement in New Philade lphia, Ohio, in May 1772, during which time he discovered burial mounds. Since then, some descriptions of the various shapes and distribution of mounds have been reported, most of which suggest that the people who built these mounds may have been more advanced than the Ohio Indians of the time, but no one suggests that the Indians were not mound-builders, let alone speculate about the disappeared race. However, the myth of the "mound-builder" began to emerge by this time, such as Ezra Stiles, the president of Yale College, who argued that the discovery of the Ohio mound provided evidence for his view that the American Indians originated from the Canaanites, who were driven out of Palestine by the army of the Israeli Joshua. Benjamin Barton felt that the Ohio mounds looked the same as the burial mounds of the great Danish pirates, so he believed that these mounds should have been left by the Danish pirates. When these Danes arrived in Mexico, they became known as the Toltecs, arriving centuries before the Aztecs. In Patton's eyes, the mound builders were supposed to be of the same race as the Toltecs. At the same time, colonists from New England established a colony called Marietta in the heart of the Ohio mounds. It is worth noting that people confronted these early mound buildings with great reverence. To protect mound-like remains, General Rufus Putnam detailed a map of Marietta's earthwork structures, considered the first archaeological map of the United States. The Reverend Manasseh Cutler, who arrived in Marietta in 1788, in order to prove the age of the mounds, through the observation of the cross-section of the felled trees growing at the top of the mound and the calculation of tree rings, it is believed that these trees grew between 400 and 1000 years, so it is clear that the age of the formation of the mound remains is not later than the age of tree growth. Although Cutler's statistics are not entirely correct (he doesn't know that some trees grow in their rings more than once a year, and the number of laps in the rings does not exactly correspond to the actual number of years the tree grows), the significance of this exploration work is self-evident. First of all, the practice of inferring the age of the site based on tree rings is unprecedented, which marks the beginning of the tree ring breaking method; Secondly, it proves that the Ohio mound was not built by the Indians at that time, but is a relic of antiquity.
In contrast to the exciting speculations or explorations of the remains of the mound in the Ohio region mentioned above, the investigation in the southeast, where DeSoto traveled, is more pragmatic, with William Bartram and Thomas Jefferson being the most important representatives.
Bartlam provides vivid and concrete research materials for the discussion of ancient mound remains. During his 4-year field expedition, he found many mounds in Georgia, Florida and other places, and clearly pointed out that those conical piers and platform piers were man-made. Although Bartram saw a variety of different mound buildings still being used in a tribe of Indians in Florida, he did not consider all the mounds in the Southeast to be more recent in age, and many of them were clearly ancient remains. He believed that the Indian traditions of the Creeks or other tribes should be derived from the ancient local culture and tried to carefully discern the differences between the Creek Indians and the mound buildings of their ancestors. He classified the mounds according to their use, including cemeteries, lookouts, fortress bases, entertainment venues, sacrificial platforms, and other different earthwork structures. This approach to classifying mound remains from a functional point of view undoubtedly has positive significance for later archaeological developments.
Mound tomb complex with square at the site of Cahokia
Cahokia Monk Mound (Yang Nan, 2007)
Jefferson was a man with a wide range of scientific interests, having studied American Indians since his youth. In response to the widespread belief that the mound was not built by indigenous Indians, but belonged to the mysterious "mound-builder" who had disappeared, Jefferson intended to use excavations to understand the meaning of the mound and its nature. In 1784, Jefferson opened a trench in a burial mound on his estate in Virginia, and meticulous excavations allowed him to clearly distinguish between the different layers. He found that there were multiple layers of human skeletons inside the mound, each covered with earth, so that the mound gradually expanded in size and finally reached a height of 3.6 meters, according to which he correctly believed that the formation of this tomb mound actually reflected the process of repeated use of the cemetery. This excavation is called "the first scientific excavation in the history of archaeology", and with the further scientificization of the goals and methods of Mound Archaeology, it eventually promoted the emergence and development of modern archaeology in North America. Jefferson is also known as the "father of American archaeology." Its significance can be expressed as: first, at that time, rare and important excavations of such scientific significance, Jefferson was ahead of the times; Second, through extremely detailed excavations, Jefferson paid attention to the strata and their stratigraphic relationships, and revealed the formation process of tomb piers; Third, Jefferson's excavations were not just about acquiring relics, but most importantly about solving archaeological problems.
Jefferson did not jump to a conclusion on the issue of "mound builders", stressing that according to the available materials, there was no reason to believe that the ancestors of the Indians at that time were not the builders of mounds, and more archaeological evidence was needed to truly solve the problem of "mound builders", which fully reflected the rigorous and realistic scientific spirit of his research. In his 1785 Virginia Notes, Jefferson detailed the excavation and its methods, described and analyzed the hierarchical relationships between the burials, and discussed the formation of burial mounds. The scientific archaeological excavation methods described in the book are in stark contrast to the mostly disorganized excavations of the time, which were mostly aimed at digging for treasures, but it deals with the substantive question of what is archaeology. It is therefore regarded as the first truly scientifically significant archaeological publication in the New World.
Flint arrows at pier 72 in Cahokia
Model of a noble burial figure at 72 pier in Cahokia
The controversy over the question of "mound-builders" and archaeological activities unfolded
As colonists' townships continued to be established along the Ohio Valley and its tributaries, more and more mound remains were found. The "mound builder" controversy appeared frequently in scholarly publications, and by the early 19th century there were two completely opposing views, notably the Right Reverend James Madison and the Reverend Thaddeus M. Harris.
Bishop Madison's 1803 article "Imaginary Western Fortifications" rejected the racial vanishing theory of various "mound builders" and asserted that those mounds and other earthworks were built by the ancestors of the Indians who now live in the mounds.
In his 1805 Travels to the Northwest of the Allegheny Mountains, Reverend Harris concluded that the complex and skilled earthworks were not of barbaric Indians, but must have been created by some higher race, based on the fact that he had spent much of his time in Ohio two years earlier investigating the mounds around the Marietta colony. This made Barton's assertion that the "mound-builders" were traditional Toltecs in Mexico, but Harris emphasized only that "there was an aristocratic mound-building civilization in the early stages of the Ohio Valley, and it was only after they eventually migrated to Mexico that the northern regions were occupied by Indians."
Apparently more were on the Harris faction, and they did not believe that the Indians were capable of building large, well-shaped mounds. To the whites, the myth of the "mound-builder" is a satisfying explanation, and the remains of the mounds in the heartland of America symbolize the glorious ideals once possessed by a vanished prehistoric race, even better if the vanished race were giants, whites, Israelites, Toltecs, or Vikings. Bruce Trigg once concluded in The History of Archaeological Thought: "Racial myths overshadow religious interpretations as justification for the usurpation of Indian lands and the violation of their legitimate rights." It is widely accepted that Indians are cruel and warlike in nature and cannot have made significant cultural progress biologically", and that "although American audiences often belittle the achievements of their own indigenous peoples, they are so concerned that North America should have its own history comparable to that of Europe, that they are attracted by these discoveries... Most scholars and the general public place them in a race of mound-builders, presuming that they have been exterminated by savage Indian nomadic tribes or expelled from North America. Thus, speculation about the builders of the mounds provides a kind of chronicle of American prehistory, but attributing the great achievements of the past to a long-lost non-North American Indian, with the result still emphasizing the static, and therefore uncivilized nature of the Indians". This is probably the deep reason for the myth of the "mound builder".
However, in the early 19th century, there were also some sober scholars under the influence of Jefferson's archaeological ideas, through archaeological excavations to try to understand the connotation of mound remains, such as Dr Dr.J.H.Mc. McCulloh on the basis of field archaeology, through the study of some tombs in the Ohio mound, clearly proposed that "mound builders" and Indians belong to the same race in terms of physique, although there are obvious endemic variations in appearance and culture. But the first settlers of the New World were made up of this ethnic group. McCullough argues that there is no need to fabricate a race of mound-builders who came earlier to the site in order to explain the remains of ancient mounds found in North America.
Caleb Atwater
The American Society of Antiquities, founded in Boston in 1812, was one of the first organizations in North America dedicated to archaeological research. The first volume of the Society's journal, published in 1820, contained Caleb Atwater's long essay "Description of the Discovery of Monuments in Ohio and Other Western States." Atwater devoted almost his life to the study of mound remains, and Atwater was the first person in the history of American archaeology to conduct a comprehensive and detailed investigation of the monuments of a specific area (Ohio), and is considered the "most important figure in the speculative period" of North American history.
Atwater divides mound remains into three categories, arguing that they belong to modern Indians, modern Europeans, and "mound-builders". In his opinion, in addition to the crude stone axes and stone knives found in the first type of mounds, that is, stone pestles used to process corn, stone scythes for hunting or some other rudimentary utensils, and people in a barbaric state have no artistic masterpieces of civilized life, such mounds can only be the remains of modern Indians; The second type of mound and the coins, medals, knives, guns and other items contained in them are the remains left by European explorers in the 17~18th centuries; The third category of mounds belongs to the "mound-builders", who are not as civilized as Europeans but much higher than Indians.
For the origin of the mound remains, Atwater adhered to the theory of cultural communication, believing that all human culture occurred from one place and began to spread to the surrounding area. He believes that after the Great Flood, Noah's Ark ran aground along the Armenian mountains, and that Noah's descendants split in two as they passed through Russia: some reached Europe as far west as the British Isles, while others went east into Asia. He believed that cultural similarities existed in different regions over long distances, due to the migration of people and the spread of ideas, such as the rivers of Britain and Russia having common names, ancient Russian pottery similar to pottery in Scottish and Ohio burial mounds, and mounds in different parts of the world to prove that humans had a common ancestor. Atwater conflates the remains of different structures, such as the spire pyramids of Egypt, the flat-topped pyramids of Mexico, the ancient stone burial piers of Europe, the conical piers of Ohio, and the flat-topped piers of the lower Mississippi River, arguing that the common features that exist between them are the result of cultural transmission. Atwater does not recognize the "mound builders" of the Americas as the ancestors of the American Indians, and in response to this statement, divides the first settlers who passed through the Bering Strait to the North American continent into two groups: one is the savage Asian hunters, who became the ancestors of the American Indians; The second is the more civilized farmers and herders from India, China, and Russia, who built a large number of mounds in the Americas. He further speculated that the "mound builders" were mainly Indians, because Indian temples and altars were always located on the banks of rivers, and the same was true in North America; Another piece of evidence is that a clay pot decorated with three-headed "idols" found in Tennessee appears to be a symbol of the three main gods of India. Based on this speculation, Atwater believes that the Indians expanded south along the Mississippi River Valley in North America and eventually migrated to Mexico, while the introduction of mound-building techniques led to the creation of Mexican stone temples.
High-necked clay pot
Round-bellied clay pot
From the above-mentioned way of discussing the remains of the mounds, it is mainly manifested in two aspects: "describe" the characteristics of the remains and "speculate" the nature of the culture. The problem is that his speculation on the nature of culture is not entirely based on the characteristics of the remains, but is premised on the theory of cultural communication, placing too much emphasis on the phenomenon of superficial cultural similarities and lacking a grasp of the internal structural characteristics of the remains. However, despite these assumptions, Atwater's spirit of inquiry throughout his life on the remains of the mound should be respected.
As the colony grew and the area expanded, by the early 19th century, the vast area between the Allegheny Mountains and the Mississippi Valley had grown from a former deserted area to a vibrant village and town. As mounds and their relics continue to be discovered, interest in "mound-builders" has increased, and discussions on the origin of mounds have been further developed, in addition to a large number of amateur archaeological activities in the mound's distribution area.
Samuel G. Morton, a prominent physician in the United States, tried to explore the mystery of the "mound builder" in another research method, that is, through anatomical research to identify the differences in the physical structure of different races, and the determination of racial attributes is mainly based on the analysis of the skull. Most of the nearly a thousand human skulls collected by Morton are extant at the time, and some are from mounds and Indian sites. Morton used measurement techniques to seek evidence that the "mound builders" and Indians were really different races. In fact, the practice of judging the ethnogenetic attributes according to the characteristics of human bones has also been tried before, such as Atwater, through the observation of the skeleton of the Ohio tomb mound, believes that the dead are by no means Indians, those who are shorter and stout are "mound builders", and Indians are taller and thin. However, McCullough, who also based on the analysis of the skeleton of the burial mound, came to the opposite conclusion, that is, the "mound builder" and the Indians should belong to the same race in terms of physical characteristics.
After years of careful observation and measurement, Morton published his research results in his book Skulls of America in 1839. He studied in great detail eight human skulls from ancient mounds, including three found in Peruvian burial mounds, two from Ohio mounds, and three others from mounds in Tennessee, Alabama and Wisconsin. Morton not only made a comparative analysis of the skulls of ancient people in these different regions, but also used the four skulls of the recently deceased Ohio Indians and two skulls of the Kentucky Indians to compare the former. Measurements from data analysis showed little difference in characteristics between the eight "mound builder" skulls and contemporary Indian skulls, leading Morton to assert that Native Americans were of the same race except for the "polar tribes" (Eskimos). Since the "mound builders" and Indians were regarded as a single race, Morton faced the problem of explaining why there was a huge difference between the highly developed civilization of Mexico and the purely nomadic culture of American Indians. Morton then divided the American race into two lineages: the Toltecan and the Barbarous. He believed that Mexican civilization was founded by the Toltecs, that the "mound builders" were probably Toltecs, and that all other American tribes belonged to barbarian races and were obviously very low in intelligence. It can be seen that Morton was still deeply influenced by the general prejudice against Indians at that time. But it is undeniable that Morton proved that the American Indians and their ancestors who built the mound were the same race, and he is therefore called the "father of American physical anthropology".
Every George Squire & Edwin Hamilton Davis
Two other scholars worth noting in the history of mound archaeology are Ephraim George Squier and Edwin Hamilton Davis. Squire is an editor at a newspaper where he lives in the heart of the Ohio mound area, where Davis is a doctor. In 1845~1847, they excavated more than 200 mounds, surveyed more than 100 earthen paddocks, and collected many artifacts. Not only that, but they also surveyed many prehistoric earthwork remains, and carefully mapped the distribution of the remains with detailed content, accurate location and contours.
Published in 1848, Squire and Davis signed Ancient Monumental Architecture in the Mississippi River Valley, which was included in the first volume of the Smithsonian Institution's Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge series, is an important work in the history of American archaeology. The book is not only remarkable for summarizing the knowledge of this particular field at that time, but also provides an extremely valuable research paradigm for later archaeological work. Like the detailed account of the Ohio Mound published the previous year, the book is not only informative in this regard, but also of unparalleled academic value. Although the book is co-signed by the two, the main content is written by Squire. Squire reviews and commentes on previous explorations, even going all the way back to the expeditions of the Spaniard de Soto in the 16th century. He believes that Atwater was the first to attempt a comprehensive explanation of the ancient monumental architecture of the western region. However, given the many errors in Atwater's research, Squire stressed that preconceived notions or theories should be discarded and based on practical material as much as possible. Therefore, Squire divided the earthwork remains into two categories, namely mounds and paddocks, based on existing research. Mounds can be further divided into burial mounds, temple mounds, sacrificial mounds, etc., while paddocks include walls and embankments.
On the question of the function of the paddock, Squire argued that such remains, built on low plains, were unlikely to be for defensive purposes, but were likely to serve as local centers of religious activity. The remains of its kind on the top of the hill undoubtedly belong to defensive installations, some of which have survived to the present day, such as Fort Hill in Highland County, Ohio. He dated a large chestnut tree at the top of Hillborough and believed that the castle was at least 1,000 years old. Squire felt that the way the castle was built reflected a very high level of knowledge and technology, and he believed that the Indians and their ancestors who were in a hunting state at that time could not have had such abilities. Therefore, he still believes that these architectural remains belong to excellent "mound builders" of foreign quality.
Figure (1) The Hartman Mound is a conical mound of the Adina culture in Ohio, measuring 12 meters high and 43 meters in diameter
Figure (2) Winterville platform pier (Yang Nan, 2006)
Figure (3) The Miamisburg Mound is a burial mound of the Adina culture in Ohio, one of the largest conical mounds in North America, measuring 21 meters high and 85 meters in diameter
Since the 18th century, there has been a clear understanding of regional differences in mound remains in North America, such as the conical mounds (burial mounds) in the Ohio Valley in the northern region and the large flat-roofed mounds (temple mounds) in the Mississippi Valley in the south. Squire makes two speculations about who the Southern mounds are: first, the mounds builders in the South and the Ohio mounds in the North may be of the same era, but they are different people; Second, the mounds in the south may also have been built by the Ohioans during their migration south. As for the mound in the Ohio Valley, he thinks it may be the remains of migrants who expanded north from Florida, Mississippi or even Mexico or Peru.
Figurative mounds are mainly found in the northern regions of Wisconsin, Michigan and Minnesota, and such mounds include animal, human, or some more abstract forms. For the first time, Squire made a comprehensive taxonomic investigation of such remains, and redrew them on the basis of previous schematic maps, giving different names according to the planar morphological characteristics of the mounds (such as otters, buffaloes, lizards, turtles, bears, etc.). He couldn't be sure, however, whether the mounds belonged to the remains of the Ohio mound's builders in a remote northern settlement or to an entirely different culture.
▲Serpentine pier
◄Newark earthworks
Despite obvious errors in his long treatise (such as inferences about the properties of mound remains and the builder of the mound), Squire's detailed classification of mounds from a functional point of view, and then a comprehensive analysis of their connotations and cultural attributes, is unprecedented, and undoubtedly of pioneering significance for later archaeological research.
In 1856, Samuel Haven, librarian of the American Society of Antiquities, published a paper entitled "American Archaeology" in volume 8 of the Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge series. Haven reviews and reviews previous explorations and studies of American prehistory. Haven criticized the baseless attempt to position North American mound builders as various alien groups or races, arguing that researchers should have looked for answers based on research on the characteristics of the mound's remains. In his view, the mound builder theory of Patton, Atwater, Squire, and Davis is completely untenable. Through comprehensive observation and in-depth comparison of ancient architectural remains between Ohio and the Mississippi River Valley on the one hand, Mexico and Peru, Haven emphasizes that there are no stone temples (pyramids) prevalent in Central and South America in the distribution area of North American mounds, and that differences in building materials and construction techniques actually reflect significant differences in the degree of cultural development between the two regions. He made it clear that the so-called civilized and superior "mound-builders" in North America were not advanced at all, they had never had an extraordinary civilization, and they belonged to the same race as the Indians. These mysterious mounds were undoubtedly built by the ancestors of modern American Indians. Although discussions remained heated thereafter, Haven's rigorous approach "paved the way for a final solution to this problem."
Pioneers of mound archaeology in North America, from left to right: Haven, Powell, Thomas, Putnam
The bust of the myth of the "mound builder" and the emergence of modern archaeology
Due to the expanding scope of field archaeology and the accumulation of new materials, the continuous progress of classification methods has been promoted, which provides a good basis for empirical research on the nature of ancient remains. By the late 19th century, the study of mound remains had made an unprecedented breakthrough and put an end to the myth of the "mound builder" once and for all. Scholars who have made outstanding contributions to this effort are represented by John Wesley Powell, Cyrus Thomas, and Frederic Ward Putnam.
John Wesley Powell was a well-known American geologist and explorer who conducted surveys in the Rocky Mountains as a professor of geology at Illinois Wesleyan University and led students on an adventure through the Grand Canyon and the turbulent flats of the Colorado River in 1869, which became one of the most important expeditions in American history. For his contributions to geology, he was appointed Director of the United States Geological Survey. Powell has always had a keen interest in the nature of mound remains and is passionate about archaeological research related to them. From his youth, he spent much of his time conducting archaeological investigations and excavations in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Tennessee, and Mississippi. Initially, he was influenced by the popular belief that mounds and other earthworks in North America belonged to ancient groups far more advanced than the Indians. However, as his archaeological excavations unfolded, he became increasingly skeptical. In order to prove the possible intrinsic connection between the remains of ancient mounds and the culture of contemporary Indians, and to rescue and document the disappearing culture of Indians and the different languages of multiple tribes, Powell won funding from Congress and published relevant survey materials and research results through the Smithsonian Institution's Bureau of Ethnology, established in 1879.
The First Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, published in 1881, mainly devoted itself to the language, mythology, burial customs, etc. of contemporary Indians, and although there was less discussion of ancient mound remains, it was of epoch-making significance. In one of the articles, Powell made it clear that it seemed unreasonable to look for the disappeared race of mound-builders, and that the mounds were apparently built by the ancestors of modern Indians. He believed that the large number of mound remains, found in large numbers and widely distributed throughout North America, should belong to the mound builders of many different ethnic groups in prehistoric times, and suggested abandoning the concept of "mound builders" as a single race. In response to the requirements of the United States Congress to strengthen the study of mound remains and its special financial support, Powell, then director of the Bureau of Ethnology, established the Mound Survey Division and hired botanist and geologist Cyrus Thomas as its director, and this move doomed the myth of the "mound builder" to finally collapse.
In fact, Cyrus Thomas believed at the time that the mound-builders were a different race from the Indians, but he recognized that extensive archaeological investigation and excavation would be necessary to support such a hypothesis. Under Thomas's leadership, the Census of Mounds has carried out unprecedented fieldwork in the mound's distribution area for several years, investigating more than 2,000 mound remains and conducting a series of archaeological excavations in Wisconsin, Iowa, Ohio, Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas, Tennessee, West Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, and more. On this basis, Thomas completed the first official archaeological report of the Ethnological Bureau on the remains of the mound. The report occupied more than 100 pages in the Fifth Annual Report of the Ethnological Bureau, published in 1887. Based on the discovery of different types of mounds such as flat-topped "pyramids", figurative mounds, and conical burial mounds, Thomas divided the distribution of mound remains into 8 geographical subdivisions, and tended to the view that the mounds in these areas should belong to different ethnic groups or tribes, although the connection between them is unclear. He pointed out that the custom of building mounds continued into historical periods in some areas, and the oldest mounds may have begun in the 5~6th century, but not earlier. From the available material, he asserted that all mounds belonged to indigenous Indian tribes or to many different cultures of their ancestors, and could not be the remains of "mound-builders" of "vanish" "superior races".
Thomas's Report on the Investigation of Mounds by the Bureau of Ethnology, published in 1894, was published in 1894, and is considered one of the greatest treatises of the 19th century on the remains of mounds. It is actually a collection of field archaeological research, describing and analyzing the remains of thousands of mounds across the country on the basis of cultural divisions, accompanied by schematic maps, statistical tables and artefacts illustrations of various remains. Unfortunately, with the exception of a few mounds that remain in the park, almost all of the mounds Thomas studied have been damaged since then. Therefore, if contemporary archaeologists want to fully understand and study the situation of previous mound remains, Thomas's report is a must-read. In short, Thomas and his archaeological colleagues thoroughly investigated and meticulously studied the speculative era of North American history and are credited with marking "the birth of modern American archaeology."
Bronze medal of the birdman unearthed from the Etois mound
Red cedar mask unearthed from Craig's mound
Adina culture carved stone slabs
▲Hope well culture mica piece snake shape
◄ "Shaman" stone statue of Hopewell culture
Also contributing to the solution to the "mound builder" problem was one important scholar, Frederick Ward Putnam. In 1875, Putnam took over as director of the Peabody Museum at Harvard University, and his research interests shifted from zoology to archaeology and anthropology. Putnam recognized the idea that the mounds were the ancestors of modern Indians, and through his study of artifacts unearthed from Ohio mounds, he emphasized that the relics reflected a complex social life, rich and varied artistic style, and developed more than the nomadic Indians of the 19th century. He believed that the "mound-builders" of the Ohio Valley were not a single ethnic group, but different groups of people who built mounds at different times. This view was soon widely accepted for reasons that were directly related to his due attention to the stratigraphic analysis of the mound excavations in the Ohio Valley region and the corresponding evidence. Although Putnam was unable to draw further sequences of local or regional cultural development, his field archaeology techniques were exemplary at the time. He laid the scientific foundation for many students trained in the investigation, mapping, excavation, sectional drawing, and mapping and documentation of unearthed remains. Not only that, but he also helped establish professional institutions such as the Natural History Field Museum in Chicago, the Department of Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley, and the Department of Anthropology at the American Museum of Natural History, and is known as "the man who professionalized archaeology in the United States."
The discovery and study of mound remains occupies an extremely important place in the history of North American archaeology. As the mystery of the mound builder is completely revealed, it is archaeologically proven that the ancient Indians of North America were the true owners of the mound remains. The exploration process of mound archaeology represents the production process of modern archaeology, and also witnesses the continuous innovation and progress of North American archaeological theories and methods. The remains of the mound, which have undergone thousands of years of development and evolution, fully reflect the development context and basic characteristics of prehistoric culture and its society in North America.
(The author is a professor and doctoral supervisor of the School of History and Culture of Minzu University of China)