THE PROBLEM OF THE OHIO MOUNDS. 37 



torn from their neighbors on one side or the other, or that they had, to 

 some extent at least, introduced it among them. Beyond question it 

 indicates that the mound-building era had not closed previous to the 

 discovery of the continent by Europeans.^ 



' Since the above was in type oue of the assistants of the Ethnological Bureau dis- 

 covered in a small mound in east Tennessee a stone with letters of the Cherokee 

 alphabet rudely carved upon it. It was not an intrusive burial, hence it is evident 

 tliat the mound must have been built since 1820, or that Guess was not the author of 

 the Cherokee alphabet. 



