Earthworks

     Archaeology and Anthropology got their start in America largely due to a curiosity concerning the mysterious earthworks of the eastern side of North America. There were 1000s of these mounds ranging from New England out to Ohio and Illinois and south as far as Mississippi and down into northern Florida. They intrigued aspiring archaeologist/antiquarians such as our fourth president, Thomas Jefferson.

A mound in eastern Tennessee

http://bigfootresearchuk.com/bigfootresearchworld/who-were-the-red-haired-giants-of-early-north-america

     It wasn't until the late 1800s when a Division of Mound Exploration was created that we would begin to expound on our knowledge of the mounds. Prior to this organization's founding people had many different theories about who built these mounds. Some of the theories included: vanished or lost race that lived on the continent, a much earlier civilization that made contact with the Americas before Columbus (such as Atlantis or a near east nation), Mexican cultures that moved into the northern continent, or possibly the early ancestors of the Native Americans that had always made America their home. The last one, which would turn out to be correct, was largely dismissed as current knowledge of the native people's suggested them incapable of such works. Even the Book of Mormon (1830) mentions that at one point North America was populated by "a civilized culture" and makes reference to the Lost Ten Tribes. They believed that Jewish people from Mesopotamia (Jaredites and Israelites) settled in America but their civilizations were destroyed in 385AD.

Cyrus Thomas (July 27th, 1825-June 26th, 1910)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyrus_Thomas

     Enter Cyrus Thomas a biologist from Illinois who was the first to head the Division of Mound Exploration. He created a team of scientists who would be some of the first recognized American archaeologists to investigate the mounds and try to discover once and for all the identity of their creators. There was no way an exhaustive study could be made of the 1000+ mounds spread all across eastern North America so they created a study of a representative sample of the four distinct types of mounds. The mound types were animal effigy (mounds in the shapes of animals), cone-shaped, flat top and geometric design.

     A report completed in 1894 for the Bureau of Ethnology documented the results including drawings, maps, and an extensive amount of recovered artifact data. The biggest conclusion was that these works were most definitely created by the ancestors of present day Native Americans. The impact of this was to prove that Native Americans were not as "savage" or unintelligent as many scientists had previously implied. It would take ingenuity on par with many other civilized societies to create such works. They also concluded that these mounds had multiple uses. The most important uses found in the study were to be burial sites for important members of the tribe, to elevate temples and buildings of importance and to designate and note sacred locations on the landscape.

An artistic representation of Monk's Mound

http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi2549.htm

     One mound that was really of importance to Thomas was the Cahokia (Monk's) Mound. It was the largest earthen work found in North America. "The dimensions of the base are: from north to south 1,080 feet; from east to west 710 feet. The area of the base is about 16 acres" (Thomas 1907). Many scientists were in awe of the sheer magnitude of the structure. Even though it was widely agreed that these structures were made by the ancestors of Native Americans the new question became how? Native Americans never had beasts of burden and their technology level didn't call for any ways to help in the creation of these mounds.

An archaeological site map of Cahokia

http://scodpub.wordpress.com/2010/10/11/cahokia-north-americas-largest-woodhenge-temple-mound/

     Gerard Fowke would help to establish ideas of the amount of time needed to build the mound in Cahokia. His efforts would prove to be some of the first in Applied (or Experimental) Archaeology. This would be the act of trying to recreate artifacts or structures using only the tools known to have been available at the time they were originally made. "As the contents of Cahokia's mound are equal to 420 times those of Mr. Fowke's assumed tumulus, it would require the hundred persons, laboring in the same way, to work every day for forty-eight years to construct the great tumulus" (Thomas 1907). This vast amount of time made early archaeologists assume that it was not a structure created all at once but instead a structure that was built in stages. Artifact evidence found within the context in different strata help to support this theory.

     The mound builder society is still extensively researched today and it is widely unknown to say which Native American tribes are derived from that society. "Part of the Mound Builders may have gone south (Cherokee?) and part of them may have gone west (Mandan?) while part may have remained in New England (Iroquois?)" (Allison 1927).

References

Allison, Vernon C. 1927. The Mound Builders: Whence and When. American Anthropologist. 29: 670-689.

Marks, David. 1831. Mormons, Mastodons and Mound-Builders. The Spalding Research Project. http://solomonspalding.com/SRP/saga2/sagawt0b.htm. Accessed May 13th, 2013.

Smithsonian, National Museum of Natural History. 2011. The Moundbuilders of North America. Podcast from 19th Century Anthropology Collections. Dur. 5:12. Accessed May 13th, 2013.

Thomas, Cyrus 19907. Cahokia or Monk's Mound. American Anthropologist. 7: 362-365.

Places to Visit:

Cahokia: http://www.cahokiamounds.org/visit/