The National tribune. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1877-1917, 1892-04-21

with them. the state o
sheir primitive arts, and those social phases
through which they had passed.
They have revealed" says the Marquis de
Sadailac, "the everyday life, the food. the
manners the journeys and the migrations Of
prehistoric men" By means of these kitchen
middens, shell-heaps sambaguis, their progress
csn be followed and their gradual Improvement
noted"
Such remains may be regarded as mound:
constructed without design. 1t is evident thai
they were not the work either of isolated
ssvages or OF small nomadic groups wandering
shelterless upon the earth hut of a numerous
people living in social intercourse and dwelling
FOR long periods in single locality"
These relics of the past are not perhaps so old
IS the palaolithic implements described IN a
previous paper, nor are most OF those existing
or this continent coeval with the skeletons DR..
Lund found in the limestone cayerns OF the
Lagos do Sumidouro, in Brazil. or probably
with The pamps man of Amaghino, who rooted
his subterranean house with the back plate OF
she great fossil armadillo.
Still, among those shell heaps, which extend
sll along the Atlantic Coast from Maine TO
Florida, and are found upon the rivers empty
ing into this ocean, many are, without doubt,
very ancient, and many may be contemporaries
Gus with anything in the way of post-glacial
remains yet discovered.
The constructions of the Mound builders
proper. however, are very different from the
aforementioned monuments of an ante-his-
tOric era. The mound itself belongs to every
country in its earlier ages. It might almost be
said that mankind at large had built tumuli,
cairns and burrows for their dead; that they
had everywhere made artificial elevations on
which to place affairs, temples, palaces, snd
eitadels
Nevertheless the earthworks of America
stand by themselves, and nowhere else are they
equaled either in extent, variety of form and
structure, or in adaptation to SO large number
Of uses
American mounds are square, oval, round,
built in the shape of rectangular parsllelo-
grams, and occasionally assume triangular or
polygonsl outlines. From Wisconsin to the
Gulf OF Mexico gigantic representations of ami
mails were formed Of earth-tOtems of ruling
tribes, probably-in which case the absence Of
the human frame is readily accounted for,
since this was seldom or never used for totemic
purposes.
Besides definite geometrical figures there
we're likewise curtains covering the entrances
20 field Notifications, platforms for super
structures Of many kinds, pyramids dedicated
30 similar ends, and long lines Of straight en-
bankment that Morgan sUpposes to have served
Gs supports TO the communal dwellings of an
Client villages
character, they contributed to protect Guilt
waited areas and defend places Of sacrifice or
cenncil grounds, to secure prehistoric towns
from surprise, to guard assemblies of the people
engaged in social business or religious rites,
and were designed to maintain the integrity Of
strategic positions upon an extended scale, and
additionally they formed the invariable ad-
juncts TO all the architecture Of the period that
was intended to be permanent
Farther south, in Central America and Mex
leo, these tumuli, whether constructed of earth
alone or Of earth faced with stone, lost their
varied character and insthis part of the CONT
nent they simply served as foundations fox
buildings, and appeared in the shape OF trun-
Gated pyramids. One purpose to which the
mound was applied namely as place Of
sepulcher, has scarcely been noticed. yet this
was one Of its principal uses, and probably the
ene for which it was originally designed.
sePulchral mounds differed considerably in
their dimensions and in the manner In which