482 A PROBLEM m AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGY. 



From the time of these very early deposits to the present such refuse 

 piles have been made, and many of the sites were reoccupied, some- 

 times even by a different people. These shell heaps, therefore, can 

 not be regarded as the work of one people. The same may be said in 

 regard to the momids of earth and of stone so widely distributed over 

 the country. Many of these are of great antiquity, while others were 

 made within the historic period and even during the first half of the 

 present centur}'. Some mounds cover large collections of human 

 bones; others are monuments over the graves of noted chiefs; others 

 are in the form of effigies of animals and of man; and, in the South, 

 mounds were in use in earlj^ historic times as the sites of ceremonial 

 or other important buildings. Thus it will be seen that the earth 

 mounds, like the shell mounds, were made by many peoples and at 

 various times. 



There are, however, many groups of earthworks which, although 

 usually classed as mounds, are of an entirely different order of struc- 

 ture and must be considered by themselves. To this class belong the 

 great embankments, often in the form of stjuares, octagons, ovals, 

 and circles, and the foititications and .singular structures on hills and 

 plateaus, which are in marked contrast to the ordinary conical mounds. 

 Such are the Newark, Liberty. Highbank, and Marietta groups of 

 earthworks, the Turner group, the Clark or Hopewell group, and 

 man}' others in Ohio and in the regions generally south and west of 

 these great central settlements; also, the Cahokia Mound opposite St. 

 Louis, the Serpent Mound of Adams County, the great (unbankments 

 known as Fort Ancient, which you are to visit within a few da3's, the 

 truly wonderful work of stone known as Fort Hill in Highland 

 County, and the strange and puzzling walls of stone and cinder near 

 Fosters Station. 



So far as these older earthworks have ])een carefully investigated, 

 the}' have proved to be of very consideral)le antiquity. This is shown 

 by the formation of a foot or more of vegetable humus upon their 

 steep sides, by the forest growth upon them, which is often of pri- 

 meval character, and b}^ the probability that many of these works, 

 covering hundreds of acres, were planned and built upon the river 

 terraces before the growth of the virgin forest. 



If all mounds of shell, earth or stone, fortifications on hills, or 

 places of religious and ceremonial rites, are classed irrespective of 

 their structure, contents, or time of formation, as the work of one 

 people, and that people is designated "the American Indian" or the 

 * 'American race," and considered to be the only people ever inhabit- 

 ing America, North and South, we are simply repeating what was done 

 by Morton in relation to the crania of America — not giving fair 

 consideration to differences while overestimating resemblances. The 

 effort to affirm that all the various peoples of America are of one race 



