REPORT ON THE MOCND EXPLORATIONS OF THE 

 BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY 



By Cyrus Thomas. 



INTRODUCTION. 



Before introducing the report of field work it will not be amiss to call 

 attention to the various kinds of ancient monuments found in the area 

 over which the explorations extended. 



It is somewhat strange that, notwithstanding the large number of 

 works devoted wholly or partly to the antiquities of our country, which 

 have appeared since the publication of the " Ancient Monuments," by 

 Messrs. Squier and Davis, no attempt has been made to rectify their 

 imperfect and faulty classification. Their division of these antiquities 

 into " Constructions of Earth," " Constructions of Stone," and " Minor 

 Vestiges of Art," is sufficient for practical purposes so far as it goes, 

 and the same may be said of the divisiou of the first class into " En- 

 closures" and ''Mounds." But their further classification into "En- 

 closures for Defense," " Sacred and Miscellaneous Enclosures," " Mounds 

 of Sacrifice," "Temple Mounds," etc., is unfortunate, as it is based 

 on su])posed uses instead of real character, and has served to graft 

 into our archeological literature certain conclusions in regard to the 

 uses and purposes of these various works that, in some cases at least, 

 are not Justified by the evidence. For example, there is not a particle of 

 evidence that any iuclosure was formed for religious or "sacred" uses, 

 or that any mound was built for "sacrificial" purposes in any true or 

 legitimate sense of the term. Yet author after author, down to the 

 present time, has adopted this classification without protest. It is only 

 in some very recent works that objections to it begin to appear. 



Failure to correct this faulty classification is doubtless due to the dif- 

 ficulties which lie in the way of satisfactorily grouping the variety of 

 forms presented and to our imperfect knowledge of the uses and 

 objects of these works. Nadaillac, after alluding to the various forms, 

 remarks that " these fiicts will show how very diflacult, not to say im- 

 possible, is any classification,"' • a statement which anyone who 



'Preli. AnuT. Fn-n.Ii Kdii. |i. W-En;;!. Kiln. p. 87. 



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