Great Falls tribune. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1921-current, 1922-05-29
FIND REMAINS
Of EARLY RACE
Of AMERICANS
Indians Who Left No
Record Preceded Ones
Whites Found.
By WILLIAM n. FRANCIS

Special Correspondent Of The Great Falls Tribune.
Copyright. 1922. By The Great Falls Tribune.
st. Louis, May 2S.-The 80 or more
earthen mounds scattered over a SOC
acre tract in the Cahokia district in
Madison and st. Claire counties in Hi.
nois, a short distance across the Mis-
slssippi from st. Louis. have begun to
yield up to science their story of a
North American people who lived and
vanished in the vague mists, long ago.
The record is a fascinating one of
the trade. art and agriculture of the
men who inhabited the Mississippi val
ley prior to the supremacy of the In
dams who greeted the discoverer De-
Soto and later Jesuit explorers. Hints
of the story have been obtained before
IN explorations of mounds in Ohio and
Illinois and in almost forgotten at
tempts to fathom the mystery of the
Cahokia mounds. But now a compre-
lstIcs. Generally speaking, the skulls
of the mound builders is beginning to
get results that will be written into
history.
Professor Warren X. Moorehead.
Massachusetts archaeOlogist. is in
charge OF the exhibition. which is be-
ing financed by the University of Hi
nois and watched with interest by the
0''A / I'LL otlltI SIleu-
tific organizations. He made a prelim-
mary investigation last fall, digging
through one mound to determine that
It was composed of strata of various
kinds of earth arranged by human
hands He has just completed some
spring excavations which have revealed
wonder of the culture of this forgot
ten race.
Ten Years Yet to Ola
The diggers will return this fall and
again in other seasons. for it will take
10 years probably to reveal the epic
of a people who brought couch shells
from the sea, obsidian from the Vel
lowstone. mica from the Alleghanies.
copper from the Great Lakes and flint
from Missouri. Burning from weeks
of work just completed, DIR. Moore
head unearthed three cemeteries. 81
skeletons. % funeral jars and urns,
countless small art objects and imple-
ments of war and most important. an
altar. Six mounds were penetrated.
The mound has a diameter of about
16O feet and was about "a high. its
sides being about three inches thick.
1t was filled with ashes-the nature of
which has not been determined.
A similar altar was found during the
preliminary works last fall and others
have been unearthed in other mounds
in other sections of the county. 1t is
the theory of DR.. MOorehead that the
mound builders used these affairs in
connection with ceremonial rites. They
were inserted as this one was, in a
large platform of fire-baked clay. evil
IDENTIFY a dance floor, and when their
ceremonial usefulness was ended they
MORO rnvorpG u-itb a1rth-honno thn
mounds.
Try to Determine Age
One of the skeletons has been turned
over to Washington university here to
be examined in an effort to determins
the age, sex and physical character
spot the broken cooking pots still
which have been found show that the
mound builders were a powerful race
physically and with large brain cavities,
but with the protruding lower jaw usu-
ally associated with animal cunning and
cruelty. The ashes found in the basin
also will be submitted to an exhaustive
chemical analysis.
DIR. Moorehead declares that pottery
fragments which he has found indicat.
beyond doubt that the women of the
mound builders had developed a GER
annie art higher than that achieved by
any other prehistoric mound builders
north of the cliff dwellers of the south
west. The fragments uncovered in the
mounds were scooped up by the Indian
VOID as they willed their baskets to
carry to the mounds. The largest of
the Cahokia mounds, known as Monks
mound. because of the fact that Trap
pist monks built a monastery on its1
sumit, is larger than the great pyramid
in Egypt. 1t is nearly 1000 feet in
diameter and more than 100 feet high.
1t covers more than 16 acres of ground
and contains more than 1900. 900
yards of dirt. 1t has been esti-
mated that with modern machinery it
require more than two years for
$500 men to build it. And the Indian
women who carried every bit of this
in baskets ''toted' only a peck
or two at a time.
Thinks Under l,00O'Years Old
DIR. Moorehead will not enter into
my discussion of the age of the skele-
-ons and implements he has found. He
has indicated. however. that he does
not believe they are 1000 years old.
Whenever it was-4W years ago.
700, 1,O00-squaws gave dinner parties
hen. just as they do nowadays. A
days ago five white men, digging
ltdI ,hbphId tiVNh, III the NittIltN Vi
,ne Of the mounds uncovered the evil
supporting this assertion.
1t had once been a v~enison dinner.
With it's center-piece a young deer
Silled a day or two bcforc. The cook
ng pot was a big earthenware vessel
With flaring rim, suspended over a
fire with thongs of green hide
iastened to the earthenware ears in
he rim of the pot. All around the
ire. in front of a wigwam, were house
lold utensils.
When the white men uncovered the
spot the broken cooking pots still
there but the hide thongs had
urned to dust. 'The charcoal from the
ire was scattered among the broken
'ots. The bones from the venison stew
we're where they had fallen. But there
we're no human bones. Evidently the
liners had departed hurriedly. The
mound builders had no written ~langu-
ge. and they left no notes behind in