Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1885-02-28
The Mound-Builders

| AT the annual meeting OF the Boston
| Society of Natural History, a highly in
terestiag statement was made by Professor
| +. w. Putnam, Curator of the Peabody
Museum of Harvard University, concern
ing his recent explorations of certain
mounds in the Ohio valley. The subject
was illustrated by drawings hung upon the
wall, and by photographs. These explor-
| ations, in which he was assisted 10y Dr. G.
l.. Metz, of jacksonville, o., we're made
last year, and were restricted to one par
| ticular mound field or tract upon the Dor
ders of the Little Miami river, in Madison
vile, about twenty miles from Cincinnati.
1t is to be regarded as one of the felicities
of the event-for the work and its
results constitute an event in the full
significance of the word-that, being
situated so near to one of the great
cities of the land, it has happened that no
persons impeIled by mere idle curiosity
have hitherto dug into these mounds in Il
random way, and thus practically destroyed
them in respect TO their special value to
! the arch;eoIogist The excavations now
made were conducted on the most approved
methods of science. Nothing worthy Of
notice has escaped observation and record,
and every relic has been carefully pre-
served for scientific purposes. In the brief
discussion which followed the Professor 5
statement, one of the members of the So
ciety declared the results thus reached to
be the most important discovery yet made
! in American archaeology. Several Of
! these mounds were what are called
altar mounds" and in these the valu-
able and instructive relics were found.
These, in number and variety, were sut-
ficient in themselves, if none others had
ever been found, TO give very distinct
it might almost be said comprehensive
idea of the civilization OF the social state
of the ancient mound builders. Among
other things found were articles OF personal
adornment, such as earrings of pearl and
bracelets of metal. The precise advance
of the art of working metal is thus dis
closed The metals had been wrought
by hammering the ore. Molten work
was beyond the skill, or rather the
knowledge OF the artifeer. The metals
were iron, copper, silver and gold. This
is the first time gold has been found in
the mounds. The gold, and in some in
stances the silver was used for plating
an inferior metal, being hammered thin
and clinched at the edges Most signi-
ticant of all, perhaps, was a little statu-
cite, which not only presented the
human form in a shapely-it might also
be said artistic contour, but showed also
the earrings and the drapery of the waist
which we're fashionable in the American
prehistoric times. Some of these relics
must originally have come from the Florida
coast, from Lake Superior and from the
Rocky Mountains, indicating thus either
extensive migration or intercommunica-
ton. The indications are that the crema-
ton of the dead was practiced by these ma
tives, and that an altar mound is signif-
cant of some great saeritieial ceremony,
and that these trinkets and relics, some Of
which pertained to the useful arts, repre-
scented an Offering ON the part of these peo-
pie, equivalent in comparison with our
scale of values, TO hundreds of thousands
of dollars Mechanical News.