Bismarck weekly tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1884-1943, 1890-06-06
FORT ANCIENT,

FohI ANC1LN1.
have all been supplemented by the investi-
cations of Professor Putnam, of Harvard
university, who is now engaged upon a Sc
ries of articles for The Century Magazine.
The fact of the existence of these ruins
seems to have escaped the notice of the
early explorers Of the vast valley. But
when settlement began attention was at
tracted to the details Of the new country,
La Vega and the chronicler of the unfer-
tunate expedition of De Soto make incl
dental illusions to similar monuments in
Florida, but the first mention of those in
the Mississippi valley was made by Carver
in l776, and in 1871 attention was drawn to
them by Capt. Harte, But these were bare
mentions. In 1906 Harris published a long
account of the ruins at Marietta, o. The
most important of all the early accounts is
that by Daniel Drake, NJ. D., Of the mounds
and monuments of Cincinnati and the Mi
ami country. The first descriptive account
giving a general view of the works in the
Mississippi valley was written by Caleb
Atwater, of Columbus, @. 1t was illus
trated with plans from his own surveys,
embracing the famous structures at Mari
eta, Newark, Portsmouth. Circlevile and
Fort Ancient. Early in lSa5 began the ex-
ndedinvestigation under the auspices of
the Smithsonian institution, the results of
which are embraced in the first published
volume of the institutions records. There
have been numerous later Investigations,
all Of less extent and detail, the latest and
most important being THAT of Professor
Putnam.
These proofs of q prehistoric civilization
are found throughout the Mississippi val
ley from the Alleghanies to the Rockies,
and from the lakes to the gulf, and there are
indications that they represent the frontier
life, as it were, of the more advanced civil
ization of Mexico and Central America.
They occur in greatest numbers in Ohio,
Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Missouri,
Arkansas, Kentucky, Tennessee, Louisi-
ana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and
Texas, and are mainly confined to the val
leys of large streams. They consist of in
closures for defense, Enclosures for sacred
purposes, mounds of sacrifice and sepul-
;ture, mounds upon which buildings ap-
,pear;to have stood, graded ways for travel
OF, traffic and places of amusement.
The center Of civilization in Ohio seems
to have been Chillicothe. Ross county, of
which Chillicothe is the seat of justice, con-
tains over one hundred Enclosures and over
five undr mounds, and there are in the
state of Ohio not fewer than fifteen hun
dred Enclosures and ten thousand mounds.
The works are scarcely less numerous in
the valleys Of the Kanawha in West Vir-
ginia, the Kentucky in Kentucky, the
White and Wabash in Indiana, the Tennes-
see and Cumberland and other tributaries
of the Ohio. When it is remembered chat
they exist in great abundance throughout
the valley Of the Mississippi, one is i'm
pressed with the multitude of the people
who wrought them and the years of labor
bestowed upon them.
Lines of embankment varying in height
from five to thirty feet and inclosing areas
from one acre to two hundred acres are
quite common, and some inclose us much
as four hundred acres. A fortified hill in
Highland county, o., has over a mile and
a half of heavy embankment, inclosing
forty acres. The celebrated Fort Ancient,
in Warren county, O., has four miles of
embankment from five to twenty-five feet
in height, inclosing over one hundred acres.
The works at Portsmouth, o., cover over
two hundred acres, Enclosed and defended