The Native Races of the Pacific States
Volume IV, Chapter VIII - Works of the Mound-builders
Hubert H. Bancroft, D. Appleton and Company - 1875

I have quoted extensively from The Native Races of the Pacific States volume IV, chapter VIII, Works of the Mound-builders, Hubert H. Bancroft, D. Appleton and Company 1875. His volumes are very difficult to obtain, being long out of print, and on the whole he tries to be conservative and scientific. He had the help of vast volumes which are at present entirely unobtainable and therefore his studies are extremely valuable.

First his conclusions:

The origin, history and disappearance of the Mound-builders may be learned by an examination of the monuments which they have left.

They were a numerous people, as is sufficiently proved by the magnitude and geographical extent of their works. They were probably one people, that is, composed of tribes living under similar laws, religion, and other institutions. The Mound-builders were an agricultural people. Tribes that live by hunting never build extensive public works, neither would the chase support a sufficiently large population for the erection of such works.

Their civilization as recorded by its material relics consisted of a knowledge of agriculture; considerable skill in the art of fortification; mathematical knowledge displayed in the laying-out of perfect circles, accurate angles, and in the correspondence in size between different works.

All traces of their architecture have disappeared. It has been suggested that were the temples yet standing on their pyramidal foundations, they might compare favorably with those of Central America and Mexico.

The monuments imply a wide spread religious system under a powerful priesthood; private devotion manifests itself on a scale less magnificent. No idols, as such, have been found.

The monuments described are not the work of the Indian tribes found in the country or of any tribes resembling them in institutions. Those tribes had no definite tradition even of past contact with a superior people. Most and the best authorities deem it impossible that the Mound-builders were even the remote ancestors of the Indian tribes. I think that the evidence of a race locally extinct is much stronger here than in any other part of the continent. The most reasonable and best supported by monumental and traditional evidence is the theory that this people were a colony from the southern peoples. They had already started in the path of civilization and were growing as before in power, but at last forced to yield their homes into the possession of savages.

The temple-mounds strongly resemble, in their principal features, the southern pyramids; at least they imply a likeness of religious ideas in the builders. The use of obsidian implements shows a connection, either through origin, war, or commerce, with the Mexican nations. It has been observed that certain groups are marked by a great uniformity of size. They are exact squares, each measuring one thousand and eighty feet side, - a coincidence which couldn’t not possibly be accidental, and which must possess some significance. It certainly establishes the existence of some standard of measurement among the ancient people.

The works discussed here were not built by a migrating people, but by a race that lived long in the land. It seems unlikely that the results attained could have been accomplished in less than four or five centuries. Nothing indicates that the time did not extend to thousands of years. If we suppose the civilization indigenous, of course a much longer period must be assigned to its development than if it was introduced by a migration – or rather a colonization, for civilized and semi-civilized people do not migrate en masse. Moreover a northern origin would imply a longer duration of time than one from the south, where a degree of civilization is known to have existed.

How long a time has elapsed since the Mound-builders abandoned their works? The evidences of an ancient abandonment of the works, or serious decline of the builder’ power, are as follows:

1. The fact that none of them stand on the last-formed terrace of the rivers, most on the oldest terrace, and that those on the second bear in some cases marks of having been invaded by water.
2. The complete disappearance of all wooden structures, which must have been of great solidity.
3. The advanced state of decomposition of human bones in a soil well calculated for their preservation. Skeletons are found in Europe well preserved at a known age of eighteen hundred years.
4. The absence of the Mound-builders from the traditions of modern tribes. Nothing would seem more likely to be preserved in mythic or historic traditions than contact with a superior people, and the mounds would serve to keep the traditions alive.
5. The fact that the monuments were covered in the seventeenth century with primitive forests, uniform with those which covered the other parts of the country. In this latitude the age of a forest tree may be much more accurately determined than in the tropical climates; and trees from four to five hundred years old have been examined in many well authenticated cases over mounds and embankments. Equally large trees in all stages of decomposition were found at their feet on and under the mound, so that the abandonment of the works must be dated back at least twice the actual age of the standing trees.

It is a fact well known to woodsmen that when cultivated land is abandoned the first growth is very unlike the original forest, both in the species and size of the trees, and that several generations would be required to restore the primitive timber. Consequently a thousand years must have passed since some of the works were abandoned. The height of the Mound-builders’ power should not be place at a later date than the fifth or sixth century of our era.

The body of his text:

The mound form is the one most common in American antiquities as in those of nearly the whole world. The ancient works of mounds, embankments and stone erected by the race known as the Mound-builders, extends over a territory bounded on the north by the great lakes; on the east by western New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia in the north. South extending to the Atlantic coast and including Florida, Georgia, and part of South Carolina; on the south by the Gulf of Mexico, including Texas. On the west by an indefinite line extending from the head of Lake Superior through the states of Minnesota, Nebraska, Kansas, and Indian Territory and some one the upper Missouri; according to most writers.

These may be found in great abundance chiefly on the fertile river-terraces of the Mississippi and its tributaries, and classified as follows:

1. Embankments of earth or stone, and ditches forming enclosures, which are subdivided into fortifications, sacred enclosures, or connected with religious rites.
2. Mounds of earth or stone divided into:
   1. Temple mounds of large dimensions, having flat summit platforms and often terraced sides with graded ascents.
   2. Animal-mounds or those resembling in their ground plan the forms of animals, birds, or even human beings.
   3. Conical mounds which are again subdivided according to their contents into alter-mounds or sacrificial mounds, burial mounds and anomalous mounds or undetermined character.

The Mound-builders were of one race, living under one grand system of institutions. The Ohio River and its tributaries would seem to have been the center of the Mound-builders’ power, for here the various forms of enclosures and mounds are most abundant and extensive, and their contents show the highest advancement of art.

In many parts of western New York traces are found of Indian fortified camps, surrounded by rows of holes in the ground, which once supported palisades, (a fence of long wooden poles with sharpened ends used for defense) and in all respects similar to those in use among the Indians of the state in their wars. There are also found low embankments of earth, or small stones, which form enclosures or cut of the approach to the weaker side of some naturally strong position. Such embankments are always on hills, lake or river terraces, or to their high places and are often protected on one or more sides by morasses (a marsh; something that traps, confuses, or impedes) or by streams with steep banks. Their strong natural position, with due regard to the water supply, carefully planned means of exit, and in many instances grades roads to the water, leaves no doubt of their original design as fortifications, places of refuges and of protection against enemies.

The practice of throwing up an embankment at the foot of palisades was a natural one. In nearly all the enclosures remains of the typical Indian caches are found: maize, wood, etc. These circumstances go far to prove that all the New York works, if not built by the Indians, were at least occupied by them after their abandonment of the Mound-builders.

The enclosures vary in extent from three to four acres, the largest being sixteen acres. The embankments are from one to four feet high, generally accompanied by an exterior ditch; the highest being seven or eight feet from the bottom of the ditch to the top of embankment. Many such works in a country so long under cultivation have of course disappeared.

The works of the Mound-builders are almost exclusively confined to the fertile valleys still best fitted to support a dense population. The Mississippi and its tributaries have during the progress of the centuries worn down their valley in three or four successive terraces, which except the lowest. Or latest structures, giving the preference in rearing their grandest cities – for cities there must have been – to the terrace plains near the junction of the larger streams.

The class of mounds called temple-mounds are in the south more numerous in proportion to those of the other classes. The largest mound and the most extensive groups are in the north; while the complicated arrangement of sacred enclosures appears but rarely toward the gulf; although we have seen that the chain is interrupted in the New Mexican country. The total number of mounds in the state of Ohio is estimated by the best authority at ten thousand, while the enclosures were at least fifteen hundred.

Accordingly as they are found on the level plain or on hill tops, enclosures are divided into fortifications and sacred enclosures. Of the design of the first class there can be no doubt, and very little respecting many of the second class.

A fortification at Butler Hill, near Hamilton, Ohio, is shown in the proceeding photograph. The summit of the hill is two hundred and fifty feet above the river; the enclosing wall is of earth and stones, five feet high, thirty-five feet thick at the base and unaccompanied by a ditch.

The photo above shows a work at Fort Hill Ohio, which measures twenty-eight hundred by eighteen hundred feet. The main walls are six feet high and thirty five feet thick, with an exterior ditch. This was a fortified town rather than a fort.

The walls of the enclosure shown in the picture above, on Paint Creek, Ohio, are of stone, thirteen hundred feet in circumference, and have no ditch.

The works at Fort Ancient, on a mesa two hundred and thirty feet above the Miami River, has an embankment four miles long in an irregular line round the circumference, and in some parts eighteen or twenty feet high.

A line of defensive works found in northern Ohio, with which very few regular mounds or sacred enclosures are connected. A single line of embankment may be traced for seventeen miles, and that there are three hundred and six miles of embankment fortifications in the state. They vary in height from three to thirty feet, reckoning from the bottom of the ditch; but this gives only a very imperfect idea of their original dimensions, since in some localities the height has been much more reduced by time than in others, owing to the nature of the material. In hill fortifications the ditch is usually inside the wall, but when the defenses guard the approach to the terrace-point, the ditch is always on the outside.

Other enclsures are classed as sacred, or pertaining in some way to religious rites. That they were in no sense works of defence is evident from their position, almost invariably on the most level spot that could be selected and often over looked by neighboring elevation. Unlike the fortifications they are regular in form, the square and the circle predominating and generally found in conjunction. The angles and curves are usually if not always perfectly accurate, and the regular, or curved, enclosures probably outnumber by many the irregular ones. Enclosed areas of one to fifty acres are common. The groups are of great extent; one at Newark, Ohio, covers and area of nearly four square miles. A remarkable coincidence in dimensions of the square enclosures, five or six of these having been found at long distance from each other, which measured exactly ten hundred and eighty feet square. Circles are, as a rule, smaller than the squares with which they are connected, two hundred to two hundred and fifty feet being a common size. The largest of the enclosures, with an area of some six hundred acres, are those reported in the far west and north-west by early travelers.

The following photo is a group at Liberty, Ohio, typical of a large class in the Scioto Valley. The square is one of those already spoken of a agreeing exactly in dimensions with others at a distance.

Additional dimensions are shown in the photo. The enclosures, both square and round, usually include several mounds. One at Mound City, square with rounded corners, covering thirteen acres, has twenty-four sacrificial mounds with its walls. At Portsmouth, there are four concentric circles, cut by four broad avenues facing, with slight variation, the cardinal points, and having a large terraced and truncated mound in the center. The banks of one enclosure near Newark measure thirty feet in height from the bottom of the ditch.

The following photos are of other enclosures; one at Bourneville, Ohio

One at Hopeton, Ohio located on the third terrace. The walls of the rectangle are of a clayey loam, fifty feet thick and twelve feet high, without a ditch.

The enclosure at Cedar Bank, Ohio seems to partake somewhat of the nature of a fortification. The west side is naturally protected by the river bank, and the other sides are enclosed by a wall and ditch, each forty feet wide and five to six feet high.

The earth-work in Randolph County, Indiana, is explained in the following photo.

The different enclosures of a group are often connected by parallel embankments. Similar embankments protect the roads leading from fortified works to the river bank or other source of water. At Madison, Louisiana, there is a raised way three feet high, seventy-five feet wide, and two thousand seven hundred feet long. Two parallel banks at Piketon, Ohio, are shown in the photo. They are ten hundred and eighty feet long, two hundred and three feet apart at one end, and two hundred and fifteen at the other; the height on the outside being from five to eleven feet, but on the inside twenty-two feet at on end.

In the north, ditches seem never to occur, except with embankments; but in the south, where embankments are rarely if ever found, ditches, or moats, are sometimes employed to enclose other works, especially in Georgia.

Temple-mounds always have level summit platforms, and are supposed to have once supported wooden structures, although no traces of such temple remain. In many cases the sides have on or more terraces. One in Tennessee, four hundred and fifty feet in diameter and fifty feet high, has ten clearly marked terraces, except on the east. The bases assume a variety of forms, square, rectangular, octagonal, round oval, etc., but the curves and angles are always extremely regular. In the north, they are usually within enclosures, but in the south, where they are most numerous, they have no embankments and are often arranged in groups, the smaller about a larger central mound.

In size the temple-mounds vary from a height of five feet and a diameter of forty feet to ninety feet in altitude and a base area of eight acres. Like the embankments, they are made of earth, simply heaped up. The largest mound of this, or in fact of any, class is that at Cahokia, Illinois. Its base measures seven hundred by five hundred feet. The height is ninety feet. On one end above mid-height is a terrace platform from one hundred and sixty and three hundred and fifty feet, and the summit area is two hundred by four hundred and fifty fee, or nearly two acres.

At Marietta, Ohio, are four mounds like that shown in the photo, within a square enclosure. The mound at Seltzerton, Mississippi, forty feet in height, over nearly six acres, and has a summit area of four acres. The base is surrounded with a ditch ten feet deep.

There is a remarkable temple-mound, near Springfield, Missouri, on a hill three hundred feet high. It is of earth and stones, sixty two feet high, five hundred feet in diameter at the base and one hundred and thirty at the summit. A ditch, two hundred feet wide and five feet deep, surrounds the base, and is crossed by a causeway, opposite which a stairway of roughly hewn stones leads up the northern slope.

The group of temple-mounds shown in the photo below is in Washington County, Mississippi. Others similar in many respects to these are found at Madison, Louisiana.

The contents of he mounds should be divided into two great classes; those deposited by the Mound-builders, and those of modern Indian or European origin. The distinction is important, but difficult; and in this difficulty is to be found the origin of many of the extraordinary reports and theories. The Indians have always felt a kind of veneration for the mounds as for something of mysterious origin and purpose, and have used them as burial places. The Indian habit of burying with their dead such articles as were prized by them when living, is well known; as is also the value attached by them to trinkets obtained by purchase or theft from Europeans. Consequently articles of European manufacture, such as must have been obtained long before the country was to any extent occupied by the whites, are often dug from the mounds and found elsewhere. The discovery of silver crosses, gun-barrels, and French dials does not justify the conclusion that the Mound-builders “were Catholics, used fire-arms, or spoke French.” Museums and private collections are full of spurious relics thus obtained.

Times and Seasons: Ancient Ruins – Introductory

Every day adds fresh testimony to the already accumulated evidence on the authenticity of the Book of Mormon. At the time that book was translated, there was very little known about ruined cities and dilapedated buildings. The general presumption was that no people possessing more intelligence than our present race of Indians had ever inhabited this continent; and the accounts given in the Book of Mormon concerning large cities and civilized people having inhabited this land were generally disbelieved and pronounced a humbug. (Mr.) Priests, since then, have thrown some light on this interesting subject. (Mr.) Stephens, in his “Incidents of Travels in Central America” has thrown in a flood of testimony, and from the following statements it is evident that the Book of Mormon does not give a more extensive account of large and populated cities than those discoveries demonstrate to be even now in existence. – ED

Article from the Texas Telegraph, October 11, 1843

We have been informed by a gentleman who has traversed a large portion of the Indian country of Northern Texas, and the country lying between Santa Fe and the Pacific, that there are vestiges of ancient cities and ruined castles or temples on the Rio Puerco, (New Mexico) and on the Colorado of the West.

He says that on one of the branches of the Rio Puerco, a few days’ travel from Santa Fe, there is an immense pile of ruins that appear to belong to an ancient temple. Portions of the walls are still standing, consisting of huge blocks of limestone regularly hewn and laid in cement. The building occupies an extent of more than an acre. It is two or three stories high, has no roof, but contains many rooms, generally of a square form, without windows; and the lower rooms are so dark and gloomy that they resemble caverns rather than the apartments of an edifice built for a human habitation.

Our informant did not give the style of architecture, but he believes it could not be erected by Spaniards or Europeans, as the stones are much worn by the rains, and indicate that the building has stood many hundred years. From his description, we are induced to believe that it resembles the ruins of Palenque or Otulum (Mexico).

He says there are many similar ruins on the Colorado of the West, which empties in the Californian sea. In one of the valleys of the Cordilleras traversed by this river, and about four hundred miles from its mouth, there is a large temple still standing, its walls and spires presenting scarcely any traces of dilapidation; and were it not for the want of a roof, it might still be rendered habitable. Near it, scattered along the declivity of a mountain, are the ruins of what must have been once a large city.

The traces of a large aqueduct, part of which is, however, in the solid rock, are still visible. Neither the Indians residing in the vicinity nor the oldest Spanish settlers of the nearest settlements can give any account of the origin of these buildings. They merely know that they have stood there from the earliest periods to which their traditions extend.

The antiquarian who is desirous to trace the Aztec or the Toltec races in their migrations from the northern regions of America may find in their ancient edifices many subjects of curious speculation.

The Mounds Today:

Innumerable archeological sites have fallen victim to the necessities and conveniences of modern life, as well as the curiosity of looters. The means of protecting sites were quite limited before the last few decades. Appeals could be made to civic pride, but they were rarely effectual. St. Louis, for example, was once proudly referred to as Mound City, but that did not halt the destruction of its mounds. A few lonely voices argued that they ought to be preserved for the betterment of the city’s inhabitants, with one person expressing surprise that, “individual taste and public spirit do not unite to preserve these beautiful eminences in their exact forms, and connect them by an enclosure…that might be the pride of St Louis."

Sadly this was not done – land was too valuable and greed too great – and the mounds had vanished by the mid-nineteenth century. When the biggest of the St. Louis mounds was being leveled, a newspaper reported that “curiosity hunters flock there daily by the hundreds, armed with all sorts of vessels, hoping to secure and carry off some relic of the past ages.”

The Big Mound at St. Louis, once nicknamed Mound City, was flattened in 1869.

The surviving mounds and villages are for the most part located in rural areas, but such setting do not fully protect them. Plowing soon reduces mounds to low domes, obscuring their original shapes and removing the uppermost burials and building remnants. Thomas Jefferson reported that the height of the mound he excavated was already diminished by plowing. Over 200 years later, the situation is that much worse.

The large Robbins mound in Kentucky was dug in 1939 by a WPA crew

Early archaeologists tunneled into mounds, as shown in this 1897 excavation of the Carriage Factory mound in Southern Ohio.

Deep archaeological deposits have been uncovered at several sites in eastern Tennessee, including Icehouse Bottom mound.

Only a small part of the Crigler mound in Kentucky remained standing after excavation.