60 BURIAL MOUNDS OF THE NORTHERN SECTIONS. 
The data so far obtained seem to me to indicate the following as the 
most promising lines of research: The possible identity or relation of 
the Tallegwi and the Cherokees; the possibility of this region having 
been the ancient home of the Shawnees or their ancestors (though I 
believe the testimony of the mounds is most decidedly against this and 
the following supposition) ; and the theory that the builders of these 
works were driven southward and were merged into the Chahta-Mus- 
cogee family. 
Be our conclusion on this question what it may, one important result 
of the explorations in this northern section of the United States is the 
conviction that there was during the mound-building age a powerful 
tribe or association of closely allied tribes occupying the valley of the 
Ohio, whose chief seats were in the Kanawha, Scioto, and Little Miami 
Valleys. We might suppose that one strong tribe had occupied succes- 
sively these various points, yet the slight though persistent differences 
in methods and customs indicated by the works seem to favor the other 
view. Moreover, the data furnished by the burial mounds lead to the 
conclusion that all the works of these localities are relatively contempo- 
raneous. Not that those of either section are all of the same age, per- 
haps by some two or three or possibly more centuries, but that those of 
one section, as a whole, are relatively of the same age as those of the 
other sections. Nevertheless a somewhat careful study of all the data 
bearing on this subject leads me to the conclusion that the Cherokees 
are the modern representatives of the Tallegwi, and that most of the typ- 
ical works of Ohio and West Virginia owe their origin to this people. 
In each sect‘on there are some indications that the authors of these 
works followed the custom of erecting burial mounds down to the time 
the Europeans appeared on the continent. These evidences have not 
been given here, as it is not my intention to discuss them in this paper. 
In Ohio there are undoubted evidences of one, if not two, waves of 
population subsequent to the occupancy of that region by the builders of 
the chief works. But these were of comparatively short duration, and 
were evidently Indian hordes pressed westward and southward by the 
Iroquois tribes and the advance of the whites. 
