Western Reserve chronicle. [volume] (Warren, Ohio) 1855-1921, 1872-07-03
AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES.

There is a vague popular idea that
the so-calIed New World is in reality
the Old World in its habitation and
civilization, at least as compared with
any portion of Euroye, and study Of
the work of Squier, and the contribu-
tions to our earlier history will go far
TO make distinct the impression. The
proof that the Indian tribes of North
America, which we have been used
to consider the aboriginal races, were
the successors of a people far above
them in civilization, is full and un-
mistakable. The evidence is patent
TO the miners of Northern Michigan,
to the explorers of the Ohio mounds,
and to the careful observer of the
works vet left, if not intact, at least
upambigous in their teachings, all
through the valley of the Mississippi
and in the wilds of Florida. We can
only point out the salient features OF
this wide field of exploration, and
direct attention to a few of the results
attained. And, first, let it be obser-
we'd that the Indians who inhabited
this country, upon its discovery, ana
so many of whom yet remain In pre-
cisely the same state OF baroarism as
then, neither builded the mounds TO
which reference will be made, nor
have any traditions in regard to them;
they have and had no copper tools;
migratory in their nature, they erec-
ted no Notifications, rude or other
wise. of the same character, and the
remains, or ancient monuments,
which dot the valley of the Mississip-
pi are to be refeared unquestionably
10 a prior and extinct people.
This more civilized race has left a
system of earthworks, designed for
defense, worship and sepulture, in
tricate and extended. The age of
these earthworks is, of course, in q
great degree eonjectural; some idea,
however, of their antiquity is gained
from the articles within them, and
from the fact that upon them trees
now exist having six or seven hun
dred rings Of annual growth, with
others of great size decaying in the
mold beneath them, so that their
abandonment mu>t have been at least
more than a thousand years age, pos
sibiy several thousand years. The
places selected always possess peculiar
adaptation to the purpose designed,
and the approaches are fortified with
great skill. Says Nj. Squier, in
aAptiuuities Of New York and the
West,H they are guarded by double
Overlapping walls, or q series OF them,
having sometimes an accompanying
mound, designed, perhaps, as ''loOk
out,n and corresponding to the bar
biean in the British system of defense,
of the middle age. The banks Of the
Western rivers are unusually steep,
often inaccessible, and these works
are built upon their most difficult
points; successive terraces are fire.
ouently found by the rivers shifting
of its channel. The formation of each
terrace constitutes a sort OF semi
geological era in the history of the
valley aud the fact that none of the
works occur upon the lowest or latest
formed of these, while they are found
Unfortunately upon all others, bears
directly upon the question of their
ANTIQUITY. In the vicinity Of Chilli
cothe, Ohio, is a fortified hill con-
tanning within its walls an area Of 40
acres, and others approach this in ex-
tent. OF these mounds Ohio alone
contains ten thousand, ,besidesas many
or more Enclosures, some of them con-
tanning five or six hundred acres
The mounds are from a small size to
that at Cahokia, in Illinois; which is
nearly one hundred feet IN height,
and half mile in circumference at