86 BURIAL MOUNDS OF THE NORTIIERN SECTIONS. 
more civilized races or peoples, as the Aztecs, Toltecs, Pueblo tribes, or 
some lost race of which we possess no historical mention? I say in 
part, as it has loug been conceded, that some of these works are to be 
attributed to the Indians. 
If it can be shown that some of the mounds and other works of all 
the different types and classes found in the Mississippi Valley and Gulf 
States were built by Indians, or even that they were built by people in 
the same stage of culture and art and having the same customs and 
habits as the Indians of this region in the fifteenth and sixteenth centu- 
ries, we shall be justified in concluding that the rest are the work of the 
same race and of the same tribes, or those closely allied in habits, cus- 
toms.art,and culture. That here and there a single mound-building tribe 
may have become extinet or absorbed into other tribes in pre-Columbian 
times, as has been the fate of some since the discovery of the continent, 
does not alter the case, unless it be claimed that such tribes belonged to 
different ‘‘American stocks” and had reached a higher degree of culture 
than those found in this part of the continent at the time of the arrival 
of the Europeans. 
No one believes that we will ever be able to ascertain the history of 
the construction of each mound and earthwork; the utmost to be hoped 
is that we may be able to determine with satisfactory certainty that 
such and such works were built by such and such tribes. 
But one step in the investigation is to reach the general conclusion as 
to whether all classes of these remains in the region designated may 
justly be attributed to the Indians, or whether there are some types 
which must be ascribed to a different race, toa people that had attained 
a higher position in the scale of civilization than the Indians. This it 
is possible to accomplish without being able to determine conclusively 
what tribe erected any particular work. 
Nevertheless the conclusion will be strengthened by every proof that 
the works of certain sections are to be ascribed tocertain tribes or stocks. 
It is for this reason that I propose to discuss somewhat briefly the 
question of the probable authorship of the works in the Appalachian 
district. 
