PREHISTORIC TIMES. 109 



of the present Laplanders. As they must evidently have had some 

 protection from the weather, it is most probable that they lived in 

 tents made of skins. The total absence of metal indicates that they 

 had not yet any weapons except those made of wood, stone, horn, and 

 bone. Their principal food must have consisted of shell-fish, but they 

 were able to catch fish, and often varied their diet by game caught in 

 hunting. It is, perhaps, not uncharitable to conclude that, when their 

 hunters were unusually successful, the whole community gorged itself 

 with food, as is the case with many savage races at the present time. 

 It is evident that marrow was considered a great delicacy, for every 

 single bone which contained any was split open in the manner best 

 adapted to extract the precious morsel. As to the date, however, of 

 this remote savage life, it is as yet impossible to speak with confidence, 

 except to say that it was, in all probability, thousands of years earlier 

 than any historic record. 



Our knowledge of North American archaeology is derived mainly 

 from the reseai'ches of Messrs. Atwater, Squier, Davis, Lapham, and 

 Haven. These remains differ less in kind than in degree from others 

 concerning which history has not been entirely silent. They are more 

 numerous, more concentrated, and in some particulars oil a larger scale 

 of labor, than the works which approach them on their several bor- 

 ders, and with whose various characters they are blended. Their great 

 numbers may be the result of frequent changes of residence by a com- 

 paratively limited population, in accordance with a superstitious trait 

 of the Indian nature, leading to the abandonment of places where any 

 great calamity has been suffered. The contents of the Indian mounds 

 are very various and interesting. They show that the art of pottery 

 had been brought to a considerable degree of perfection. Various 

 ornamental articles abound in the tumuli, such as beads, shells, neck- 

 laces, bracelets, etc. Earthworks for defence are also numerous, es- 

 pecially in the central parts of the States, and the remains of ancient 

 mud-huts have occasionally been found. 



The so-called "Sacrificial Mounds" are a class of ancient monu- 

 ments altogether peculiar to the New World, and highly illustrative 

 of the rites and customs of the ancient races of the mounds. These 

 remarkable mounds have been very carefully explored. Their most 

 noticeable characteristics are, their almost invariable occurrence withiD 

 enclosures; their regular construction in uniform layers of gravel, 

 earth, and sand, disposed alternately in strata, conformable to the 

 shape of the mound ; and their covering, a symmetrical altar of burnt 

 clay or stone, on which are deposited numerous relics, in all instances 

 exhibiting traces, more or less abundant, of their having been exposed 

 to the action of fire. The so-called "altar" is a basin, or table of 

 burnt clay, carefully moulded into a symmetrical form, but varying 

 much both in shape and size. Some are round, some elliptical, and 

 others squares or parallelograms, while in size they vary from 2 feet to 



