ley 
NATURE 
[SEPTEMBER 7, 1899 
of great antiquity, and we know that they are formed of the 
refuse gathered on the sites of the early peoples. From the 
time of these very early deposits to the present such refuse piles 
have been made, and many of the sites were reoccupied, some- 
times even by a different people. These shell-heaps therefore 
cannot be regarded as the work of one people. The same may 
be said in regard to the mounds of earth and of stone so widely 
distributed over the country. Many of these are of great 
antiquity, while others were made within the historic period and 
even during the first half of the present century. Some mounds 
cover large collections of human bones, others are monuments 
over the graves of noted chiefs; others are in the form of 
effigies of animals and of man; and, in the south, mounds 
were in use in early historic times as the sites of ceremonial or 
other important buildings. Thus it will be seen that the earth- 
mounds, like the shell-mounds, were made by many peoples 
and at various times. 
There are, however, many groups of earth-works which, al- 
though usually classed as mounds, are of an entirely different 
order of structure and must be considered by themselves. To 
this class belong the great embankments, often in the form of 
squares, octagons, ovals and circles, and the fortifications and 
singular structures on hills and plateaus which are in marked 
contrast to the ordinary conical mounds. Such are the Newark, 
Liberty, Highbank and Marietta groups of earth-works, the 
Turner group, the Clark or Hopewell group, and many others in 
Ohio and in the regions generally south and west of these great 
central settlements ; also the Cahokia Mound opposite St Louis, 
the Serpent Mound of Adams County, the great embankments 
known as Fort Ancient, which you are to visit within a few 
days, the truly wonderful work of stone known as Fort Hill in 
Highland County, and the strange and puzzling walls of stone 
and cinder near Foster’s station. 
So far as these older earth-works have been carefully in- 
vestigated they have proved to be of very considerable antiquity. 
This is shown by the formation of a foot or more of vegetable 
humus upon their steep sides ; by the forest growth upon them, 
which is often of primeval character ; and by the probability 
that many of these works, covering hundreds of acres, were 
planned and built upon the river terraces before the growth of 
the virgin forest. 
If all mounds of shell, earth or stone, fortifications on hills, 
or places of religious and ceremonial rites, are classed, irre- 
spective of their structure, contents, or time of formation, as 
the work of one people, and that people is designated ‘the 
American Indian” or the ‘‘ American Race,” and considered 
to be the only people ever inhabiting America, North and 
South, we are simply repeating what was done by Morton in 
relation to the crania of America—not giving fair consideration 
to differences while over-estimating resemblances. The effort 
to affirm that all the various peoples of America are of one race 
has this very year come up anew in the proposition to provide 
“a name which shall be brief and expressive,” and at the same 
time shall fasten upon us the theory of unity—notwithstanding 
the facts show diversity—of race. 
Let us now return to the builders of the older earth-works, 
and consider the possibility of their having been an offshoot of 
the ancient Mexicans. Of the crania from the most ancient 
earth-works we as yet know so little that we can only say that 
their affinities are with the Toltecan type ; but of the character of 
the art, and particularly the symbolism expressing the religious 
thought of the people, we can find the meaning only by turning 
to ancient Mexico. What northern or eastern Indian ever made 
or can understand the meaning of such sculptures or such incised 
designs as have been found in several of the ancient ceremonial 
mounds connected with the great earth-works? What Indian 
tribe has ever made similar carved designs on human and other 
bones, or such singular figures, cut out of copper and mica, as 
were found in the Turner and Hopewell-groups ? or such sym- 
bolic animal forms, elaborately carved in stone, and such perfect 
terra-cotta figures of men and women as were found on the 
sacrificial altars of the Turner group? What meaning can be 
given to the Cincinnati Tablet, or to the designs on copper plates 
and shell discs from some of the southern and western burial 
and ceremonial mounds? I think we shall search in vain for 
the meaning of these many objects in the north or east, or for 
much that resembles them in the burial-places of those regions. 
On the other hand, most of these become intelligible when we 
compare the designs and symbols with those of the ancient 
Mexican and Central American peoples. The Cincinnati 
NO. 1558, VOL. 60] 
Tablet, which has been under discussion for over half a century, 
can be interpreted and its dual serpent characters understood 
by comparing it with the great double image known in Mexico 
as the Goddess of Death and the God of War; the elaborately 
complicated designs on copper plates, on shell discs, on human 
bones, and on the wing bones of the eagle, can in many instances 
be interpreted by comparison with Mexican carvings and with 
Mexican modes of symbolic expression of sacred objects and 
religious ideas. The symbolic animals carved on bone or in 
stone, and the perfection of the terra-cotta figures, point to the 
same source for the origin of the art. 
In connection with the art of the builders, let us consider the 
earth structures themselves. The great mound at Cahokia, with 
its several platforms, is only a reduction of its prototype at 
Chalula. The fortified hills have their counterparts in Mexico. 
The serpent effigy is the symbolic serpent of Mexico and Central 
America. The practice of cremation and the existence of 
altars for ceremonial sacrifices strongly suggest ancient Mexican 
rites. We must also recall that.we have a connecting link in 
the ancient pueblos of our own south-west, and that there is 
some evidence that in our Southern States, in comparatively 
recent times, there were a few remnants of this old people. It 
seems to me, therefore, that we must regard the culture of the 
builders of the ancient earth-works as one and the same with 
that of ancient Mexico, although modified by environment. 
Our northern and eastern tribes came in contact with this 
people when they pushed their way southward and westward, 
and many arts and customs were doubtless adopted by the in- 
vaders as shown by customs still lingering among some of our 
Indian tribes. It is this absorption and admixture of the peoples 
that has in the course of thousands of years brought all our 
American peoples into a certain conformity. This does not, 
however, prove a unity of race. i 
It is convenient to group the living tribes by their languages. 
The existence of more than a hundred and fifty different lan- 
guages in America, however, does not prove a common origin, 
but rather a diversity of origin as well as a great antiquity of 
man in America. 
That man was on the American continent in quaternary 
times, and possibly still earlier, seems to me as certain as that 
he was on the Old World during the same period. The Cala- 
veras skull, that bone of contention, is not the only evidence of 
his early occupation of the Pacific coast. On the Atlantic side, 
the recent extensive explorations of the glacial and immediately 
following deposits at Trenton, are confirmatory of the occupation 
of the Delaware valley during the closing centuries of the glacial 
period, and possibly also of the inter-glacial time. The dis- 
coveries in Ohio, in Florida, and in various parts of Central and 
South America, all go to prove man’s antiquity in America, 
Admitting the great antiquity of one or more of the early groups 
of man on the continent, and that he spread widely over it 
while in the pakeolithic and early neolithic stages of culture, I 
cannot see any reason for doubting that there were also later ac- 
cessions during neolithic times, and even when social institutions 
were well advanced. While these culture epochs mark certain 
phases in the development ofa people, they cannot be considered 
as marking special periods of time. In America we certainly 
do not find that correlation with the Old World periods which 
“we are so wont to take for granted. 
We have now reached the epoch of careful and thorough 
exploration and of conscientious arrangement of collections in our 
scientific museums, ' It is no longer considered sacrilegious to 
exhibit skulls, skeletons and mummies in connection with the 
works of the same peoples. Museums devoted primarily to the 
education of the public in the esthetic arts are clearing their 
cases of heterogeneous collections of ethnological and 
archeological objects. Museums of natural history are being 
arranged to show the history and distribution of animal and 
vegetable life and the structure of the earth itself. Anthropo- 
logical museums should be similarly arranged, and, with cer- 
tain gaps which every curator hopes to fill, they should show 
the life and history of man. To this end, the conscientious 
curator will avoid the expression of special theories, and will 
endeavour to present the true status of each tribe or group of 
man in the past and in the present, so far as the material at 
his command permits, A strictly geographical arrangement is 
therefore the primary principle which should govern the exhi- 
bition of anthropological collections. A special exhibit may be 
made in order to illustrate certain methods by which man in 
different regions has attained similar results, either by contact 
4&5 babes 
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