Evening star., 1940-07-20
Of Stors, Men
And Atoms
Notebook Of Science Progress
In Field. Laboratory
And Study
By Thomas r. Henri.

By Thomas r. Henry.
A full Towering civilization, not es-
sentially inferior to that of the Aztec
In Mexico or the Maya in Yucatan, van
ished without trace in North America,
probably few generations before the
first appearance Of Columbus.
This Is the conclusion Of DR.. Frank M.
Settler curator Of anthropology Of the
Smithsonian Institution, from an effort
to reconstruct out Of such scattered
clues as are available the history Of the
Hopewellians, the mound builders Of the
Ohio and Upper Mississippi Valleys.
From the results of more than cen
tury Of research, DR.. Settler explains in
study just published by the institution,
tentative picture now can be drawn
of the ways Of life Of this mysterious
people.
Construction of the large mounds, the
surrounding earthworks and the hun
dreds Of smaller mounds, he says, clearly
required dense population and we'll
co-ordinated society. This population
must have had some stable economic
basis.
Hunting and fishing" he concludes,
mo doubt were Of some importance as
evidenced by barracuda jaws and other
fish remains and by the representation
of birds and animals in realistic cary
ings on pipes. But even though direct
evidence of maize is lacking. the prac-
tice Of extensive horticulture must be
admitted, because it alone could have
supported the large population aggre-
gates in which the Hopewell people OBJ
viously lived.
There must also have been conscrip-
tion Of labor to construct mounds, which
are as large as 80 feet high, $50 feet
wide and more than 200 feet long. We
do not know what division Of labor there
was but the excellence of the art sug-
gests a special craft of sculptures and
modelers. To obtain obsidian from the
Rocky Mountains mica from the South
ern Appalachians. copper from Wiscon-
sin and amphibians and fishes from the
Gulf of Mexico required time for explo-
ration. Since most of the large mounds
were built to cover the bodies of the
dead, accompanied by their personal
adornments and other objects, one can
postulate well-developed ritual asso-
ciated perhaps with remarkable reli-
gious fervor.
"The specific form of government or
ganization cannot be known, but certain
ly some regimentation is indicated by
the great communal works. I incline
to deduce, from the widespread influence
Of these people, that If a select ruling
class existed they dominated a very
large portion of the Mississippi Valley.
Possibly their political organization was
northern extension of the system that
prevailed in Mexico and Yucatan, al
though very few specimens can be
identified with Mexican deities. Copper
head ornaments and colored woven gar
ments decorated with fresh water pearls
and mica suggest insignia of authority.
At least persons with such attire would
be set apart"
This strange civilization, DR.. Settler
believes, resulted from the impact of
two peoples, probably without definite
conquest by either. A survey of the
field shows the same culture, but in a
simpler form, in the lower Mississippi
Valley and around the Gulf Coast, where
it may have been derived from still far
ther south. 1t appears to have moved
northward until it came in contact with
more primitive but apparently vigorous
and progressive people.
Then, perhaps by conquest and per-
haps by absorption, the inventiveness
and energy of the Northern Indians and
the complex social organization and re-
lgious system of the migrants fpm the
south were amalgamated-great to the
improvement of both.
No clue has yet been uncovered, DR..
Settler says, which permits the dating
OF this development more closely than
some time between the beginning of the
Christian era and the coming of CO.
lumbus. There certainly were no mound
builders left when the first white hunt
ers and traders came into the Ohio
Valley, for not single artifact of Eu-
ropean origin ever has been found in the
mounds. In fact, the country then was
inhabited by woodland Indians, who had
no memory of their predecessors, or
even legends concerning them.
Some have suggested, he explains,
that the mound builders may have
turned southwark and became the IA
theirs of the highly organized Gulf State
tribes encountered by the first white ex-
plorers and settlers. This is highly i'm
probable, he says, because all the evi-
dence indicates that the culture spread
was in the opposite direction. No evi-
dence has been found he points out,
which would indicate that any great
catastrophe overlook the people. The
whole civilization seems to have faded"
into extinction. Later Indian tribes of
the Northeast showed only very super
f1cial resemblances to it, such as might
spring naturally from the exigencies of
life in similar environment, rather
than from inheritance or borrowing.
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