THOMAS] MOUND-BUILDERS AND INDIANS. 661 



lar areas. But tlie rbauge iu this ca.se is so radical that it would scorn 

 we ought to find some remains of their earlier and ruder efforts; and 

 if we accept tlie generally received opinion of the migration of the 

 Nahuas from the Northwest, .so strongly and, as I believe, successfully 

 argued by numerous authors on linguistic, traditional, and other 

 grounds, we should find some examples of their earlier efforts. Atten- 

 tion is called to an article by Becker, which seems to have been gener- 

 ally overlooked.' 



Though hundreds of groups of mounds, marking the sites of ancient 

 villages, are to be seen scattered over the Mississippi valley and Gulf 

 states, yet in none of all the.se is there a single house remaining. The 

 Inference is, therefore, irresistible, that the houses of the mound-build- 

 ers were constructed of perishable materials; that the people who made 

 the mounds were not yet .sufficiently advanced in art to use brick or 

 stone in building; or that they lived a roving, restless life that would 

 not justify the time and trouble necessary to erect such permanent 

 structures. A-S the latter supposition is at variance with the evidence 

 furnished by the magnitude and extent of many groups of these 

 remains, we are forced to the conclusion that the former is the true 

 explanation of the fact observed. One chief objection to the Indian 

 origin of these works is, as already stated, that their builders mu.st 

 have been sedentary, depending largely upon agriculture for subsistence. 

 It is evident, therefore, that they had dwellings of some kind, and as 

 remains of neither stone nor brick structures are found, which could 

 have been used for this purpo.se, they must have been con.structcd of 

 perishable materials, such as was supplied in abundance by the forests 

 of the region in which they dwelt. 



It is apparent, therefore, that in this one respect, at least, the dwell- 

 ings of the mound-builders were similar to those of the Indians. But 

 this is not all that can be said in reference to the houses of the former, 

 for there still remain indications of their form and character, although 

 no complete examples are left for inspection. In various places, espe- 

 cially in Tennessee, Illinois, and southeast Missouri, the .sites of thou- 

 sands of them are yet distinctly marked by little circular depressions 

 with rings of earth around them. These remains give the shape and 

 size of one class of dwellings common in the regions named. E}xcava- 

 tions in the center usually bring to light the ashes and hearth that 

 mark the place where the tire was built, and occasionally unearth frag- 

 ments of the vessels used in cooking, the bones of animals on whose 

 flesh the inmates fed, and other articles pertaining to domestic use. 



The form and size of these rings and the relics found in them would 

 seem to be sufficient to justify the inference that they are the remains of 

 the houses of the authors of the ancient works with which they are 

 connected; and such was the conclusion reached by Prof. Putnam, who 



' Cong. Intern. AratTic-anisteH, Luxembourg, 1877, pp. 325-350. 



