TRAILING THE MOUND BUILDERS OF THE 

 MISSISSIPPI VALLEY 



By WINSLOW M. WALKER 

 Associate Anthropologist, Bureau of American Ethnology 



The mound-building Indians of the Mississippi Valley formed the 

 subject of my investigations during the fall of 1932. Starting at 

 Aztalan, Wis., accompanied by my father, Edwin F. Walker, also an 

 archeologist, I traced their work down past the Cahokia group in 

 Illinois and through the great valley almost to its mouth, conducting 

 extensive excavations in Louisiana. After finishing this work, we 

 again took to the road and visited notable mound sites near Natchez, 

 Miss., Moundville, Ala., and Etowah, (ia., making in all a tour of 

 nearly 4,000 miles. 



An important stop was made in Arkansas, where two weeks was 

 spent, under the guidance of Senator John Quarles of Helena, in 

 ascertaining that all Quapaw village sites visited by the early French 

 explorers had been claimed by " Ole Man River." So we cannot say 

 definitely whether these Indians ever were mound builders. But Col. 

 John R. Fordyce, of Hot Springs, has four Spanish halberds found 

 near mounds in Arkansas, which fact corroborates statements in the 

 De Soto narratives that in 1541 Indians were still building mounds. 



Excavations on the great mound at Jonesville, La., began where the 

 steam shovels left off after removing the dirt almost to street level 

 in order to build a nearby bridge approach. Obviously we could not 

 expect to find much in such a remnant of a mound formerly 80 feet 

 high, perhaps the highest in the South ; but we were intrigued by the 

 mystery of those extensive layers of cane which appeared in irregular 

 lines and patches over the scraped surface. Truckloads of this cane 

 had been removed in cutting down the mound. Nowhere else, so far 

 as known, has such a feature ever been found in an Indian mound. 



We began carefully to lay bare the cane at the southern end of the 

 block and to follow it down to its starting point, it consisted of pieces 

 of swamp cane, trimmed and split, laid side by side, and crossed at 

 right angles by other layers, but not interwoven ; the whole as beau- 

 tifully done as veneered woodwork. These great sheets of cane evi- 

 dently were not used as a floor, for while we sometimes found them 

 laid horizontally, more often they were sloping, again nearly vertical, 



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