138 ARCHEOLOGY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



Adams County, Ohio, denoted the twelfth century as the period of its abandonment." 

 (Ibid., p. 130.) 



" The cortical annular layers in the growth of large and mature trees, occupying 

 the walls and interior areas of the abandoned works, tell a tale, of which we must 

 judge from tumuli, and fortified camps and towns. These data indicate parts of 

 the twelfth and thirteenth centuries as the active period of tumult among the 

 Mississippi Valley tribes." (Vol. IV. p. 137.) 



" It is true, that data derived from the monuments of the Mississippi Valley and 

 of Florida, denote the early part of the twelfth century to have been an epoch of 

 great changes and disturbances in that quarter. Of these ancient wars, the tradi- 

 tions of the Iroquois, as recorded by Cusic, and by Ducoigne, both native authori- 

 ties, represent a period of great ancient wars and disturbances in the Mississippi 

 Valley. But a view of Western antiquities denotes that the wars referred to can- 

 not be located further back than about six hundred years." (Vol. V. p. 61.) 1 



It is a theory of Mr. Schoolcraft, that the arrival of the Aztecs in Mexico, about 

 1190 (as indicated by their pictorial scrolls), and the dispersion of the Toltecans, 

 created a general movement in different directions, and that some of the latter 

 pressed northwardly and eastwardly. " It is most reasonable to suppose," he says, 

 " that the ancient population of the Mississippi Valley, and thence, in process of 

 time, of the Atlantic coast and plains south of the great lakes, was thus derived." 

 Hence the knowledge and general use of the maize, or Indian corn, &c. (Vol. I. p. 63.) 



He is disposed to look for the primitive origin of the American race in the re- 

 motest periods of time. 



" It must be recollected as one of the fundamental points in our antiquities, that 

 the Indian tribes are of an age that is very antique — that they have occupied 

 various parts of the continent, not only for centuries, but, probably, for scores of 

 centuries." (Vol. I. p. 62.) " Where such a race may be supposed to have had 

 their origin, history may vainly inquire. It probably broke off from one of the 

 primary stocks of the human race before history had dipped her pen in ink, or 

 lifted her graver on stone. Herodotus is silent ; there is nothing to be learned 

 from Sanconiathus, and the fragmentary ancients. The cuneiform and Nilotic 

 inscriptions, the oldest in the world, are mute. Our Indian stocks seem to be 

 still more ancient. Their languages, their peculiar idiosyncrasy, all that is pecu- 

 liar about them, denote this." (Vol. I. pp. 16, 17.) 



" Considered in every point of view, the Indian race appears to be an old, a very 

 old stock. Nothing that we have in the shape of books, is ancient enough to recall 

 the period of his origin but the sacred oracles. If we appeal to these, a probable 

 prototype may be recognized in that branch of the race which may be called 

 Almogic (from Almodad, son of Joctan), a branch of the Eberites." (Ibid., p. 17.) 



1 Iu his paper on the " Grave Creek Mound," Trans. Am. Ethnol. Soc, Vol. I., Mr. Schoolcraft 

 suggested that the pestilence of the year 1330, which swept from Tartary and China through India into 

 Europe, might have prevailed in America (as did the cholera of 1832, which was also of Eastern origiu), 

 ami have destroyed entire bauds of the Red race. In the same paper, he speaks of being " impressed 

 with the belief that the common trenches, fortifications, and defenced mounds of the Ohio Valley," are 

 of the era of the wars of the ancient Alleghauians with the ancestors of the Iroquois. 



