Myths Of The Mound Builders

Scientists have found that the Earth was formed about 4.6 billion years ago by collisions in the giant disc-shaped cloud of material that also formed the Sun. As gravity slowly gathered this gas and dust together into clumps, it became asteroids and small early planets called planetesimals. These objects collided repeatedly and gradually got bigger, building up the planets in the Solar System. Although scientists are very close to answering the question, they still continue to search for the exact answer to how the Earth was created. With all the evidence presented, it is hard to refute from scientific theories. This becomes cumbersome to many religions because in their eyes God has always been the creator of the Earth.

Importantly, the Europeans never met the original Cahokia tribe. As National Geographic states, “by 1350—a span of only three centuries—Cahokia was gone” (Romey par 1). Nevertheless, the French in particular have large amounts in relation to Monks Mound or Mound 38. When the French started colonizing in the 17th Century, they lay their claim to the Mississippi River valley. The French were well aware of the Cahokia Mounds at the time, which isn’t a surprise because the actual area of Cahokia carried all the way to the Mississippi River. The name of Monks Mound comes from, “the French Trappist monks who lived on a nearby mound from 1809-1813, and farmed the terraces of the large mound” (Cahokia Mounds Museum Society par 8). Unfortunately, the relation between the Europeans (including the French) and the Natives who resided in the Cahokia area were seemingly hostile. Spanish explorer Hernando DeSoto was said that, “[he] attempted to plant the flag of Castile and Aragon to show conquest, however in reality, DeSoto was probably captured and burnt alive and then thrown into the Mississippi River by the Cahokia Tribesmen” (Barrows par 56). Like many other tribes that lived in the Americas, ultimately disease was the demise for the Natives. The French brought diseases like smallpox and so a large killing of Natives ensued around the area and drastically lowered the

|1500 CE |Early Woodland Period. Use of pottery and building of earth tombs emerges especially in the Mississippi |

The Enlightened Archaeologist – an article authored by Jeffrey Hantman and Gary Dunham chronicles Thomas Jefferson’s investigation of the Indian burial mound located on the South Fork of the Rivanna River in the 18th century. The site excavated by Jefferson, however, is no longer visible, most likely due to dissipation by inevitable natural occurrences (I.E. excessive rainfall, flooding rivers, etc.) or human activity such as farming. The “Father of American Archaeology” correctly predicts the latter in his book, Notes on the State of Virginia, in which he states, mounds “…put under cultivation are much reduced in their height, and spread in width, by the plough, and will probably disappear in time” (1787). Fortunately for Archaeologists of the late 20th century (1988) an Indian burial mound identical to that of the one Jefferson described in his book was uncovered just 14 miles from the South Fork of the Rivanna River.

Located in present day Collinsville, Illinois is Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site, which was once home to the largest city north of Mexico from 700 to 1400 A.D. Settled by the Mississippian people, today their decline remains a mystery. First visited in 1811 by traveler Henry Brackenridge and considered the “discoverer of Cahokia” only in the sense that he wrote several papers and articles about the findings to the public’s attention. After walking around the mounds, Brackenridge described that the locations of the last inhabitants were clearly visible to him, as were fragments of their tools and utensils. Many extensive archeological excavations and several case study theories have come about through the years as to why this magnificent ancient metropolis faced such demise.

Regarding the Great Serpent mound in Ohio, this evidence suggests that a very complex and highly organized society was in place. The mounds themselves had to be created by following a complex method. It is the largest of its kind and likely required many people to construct. That would also require great organization. Inside these mounds, goods have been found that suggest a trade market. These are all traits of a complex society.

8000- 500 BC was known as the “Archaic period.” During this period, mound building was a very common custom. Many of the mounds were built to elevate the village’s central ritual sites. The “Woodland period” (500 BC- AD 800)

They truly looked below the surface to a deeper point of view to try to solve the real mystery. This reminds me of our English class, and we have done several activities that had to do with finding the true meaning of the text in which we were reading. Finding a deeper meaning of a text or finding the truth about our past by looking beneath the surface is a hard concept. I struggle with finding deeper meanings sometimes. I believe that Sherlock Holmes would be phenomenal with this. In class, we got to watch Sherlock perform his magic, and boy is he excellent! Now, only if Sherlock wasn’t a fictional character, because he would seriously come in handy! To me, the theme of this article could be perseverance for your goal. These archaeologists have one goal at the moment, and that would be to discover more about what actually happened with the Roanoke Settlers. They aren’t going to achieve it if they don’t persevere and truly work hard. Things like this don’t just come easy, there will need to be a lot of thinking

Other historic and archeological facts can be disturbed by this as well so it is a major issue. An example of those who would be blamed for the buildings of the mounds in the eighteenth century would be the Vikings, people from the Lost City of Atlantis, Hindus, or the Lost Tribes of Israel when it actually turned out to be the Adena Native Americans who did this (O’Riley 315).Due to none of the other Native Americans in the area doing this type of work, it was always thought that an outside group had done this. However, in the nineteenth century, it became clear that the Native Americans had done this. An example of a piece that was hard for architects to determine who the piece was made by was the human effigy pipe (O’Riley 315-316). This pipe was dug up out of the mounds before they had realized that the Native Americans had built the mounds and it led architects to believing that one of the other groups had made the piece. They were eventually able to figure out that the Native Americans had made the piece

When you hear of an Advanced Ancient civilization in North America, you usually think of either Mayans, Aztecs, or sometimes the Olmec. But in this paper I won’t be talking about any of those civilizations, we’ll be talking about the Native Americans that lived in the Mississippi Valley, by the Mississippi River. That have their capital not 6 miles outside of St.Louis.

Artifacts serve as a road map of the past, subsequently they offer data and a detailed accounts of important historical elements. Civilizations leave behind different kinds of evidence proving their existence and such evidence lead historians to the Olmec civilization. They suddenly appeared upon the world stage and successfully existed for hundreds of years, moreover this was confirmed with the discovery of ancient artifacts and it was later discovered to be the first civilization in the Americas. The Olmecs have impacted the Americas with their artistic innovations and these innovations can be observed in their architectural structures, writings, and stone monuments.

Throughout history there have been ebbs and flows identified within all facets of human history, and the Native American mound-builders were no different. The mound-building peoples of the Eastern United States (U.S.) along with the Aztec’s, Mayan and the Inca were revolutionary economists, farmers and communal architects. Before the Europeans came in contact with the mound-building tribes in the 1500’s, a thriving nation was had developed into an economic powerhouse and maintain its position of power and commerce for a few hundred years. We would be remiss to not preserve the archeological remnants of the Adena, Hopewellian and later the Mississippians. Each of the many built mounds holds unique facts and details to how the nation thrived and developed over several centuries.

As European civilization spread across America, indigenous populations decreased. Disease and war carried off their victims too. The transition of land between Europeans and Indians was accomplished through treaties, war, and violent rejection. For a while, it seemed that the Indians and their history will disappear altogether. We have to give a credit to the Indians like Thomas Builds-the-Fire who was telling the stories of their tribe without any hesitation and fear. Thomas believed that every real Indian must know the history of their tribe; therefore, he saved the history of Native Americans from vanishing forever by word of

If you leave your car behind and join a ranger-led hike in Southwest Colorado's Mesa Verde National Park, you'll find yourself at a spot where the scrubby pinyon-juniper forest drops off. It falls into a sandstone chasm. It reveals a maze of 800-year-old stone dwellings. They are wedged beneath an overhang in the canyon wall. They're so well preserved that it's easy to imagine you've stepped back in time. And that nothing has changed in this high desert landscape since the Ancestral Puebloans built these chambers. They were built in the 12th century.

The image that I first selected was the Cahokia Mounds. The land covered about 2,000 acres and ranged from 10,000-30,000 people (64). According to the image, the inhabitants live by farming and they had great architectures. They had a well organized community and it looks to follow a certain order. Basically, the community was well kept and organized. The image shows a society that is proper and that everyone in the community has an important part in the community. That each individual has a certain part in the community that keeps it rolling. Overall, the inhabitants had a structure of their society that showed how organized and well put the community was.