Field and Forest 



A MONTHLY JOURNAL 



DEVOTED TO THE NATURAL SCIENCES. 



Vol. III.— JANUARY & FEBRUARY, 1877.— Nos. 7 & 8. 



Archaeological Frauds. 



The great archaeological problem in the western portion of the 

 United States which overshadows all others is that of the mound 

 builders. The efforts made to solve it from time to time, result in 

 accumulating a curious literature. The wonderful earth structures of 

 this race, the vast number of the mounds with strange imitative forms, 

 their lineal directions as if for territorial boundaries, the remarkable 

 and finely wrought implements of stone, bone and copper obtained 

 from the included graves, all provoke the curiosity of the explorer in 

 the highest degree as to the origin, history and language of the 

 builders. The aged forest growths upon these works, the mouldering 

 and pulverulent state of the skeleton, the absence of all European objects 

 and the utter ignorance of the present wild race as to who preceded 

 them in occupying the soil or built these works, forces back the date 

 of the ancient race hundreds and perhaps thousands of years. The 

 character of the various works and relics remaining in them and the 

 conceded populousness which could spare sufficient force for such 

 works and supply subsistence and clothing for all, convince the stu- 

 dent that they had obtained a state of cultivation far higher than any- 

 thing now known among the present existing tribes. It is rarely 

 suggested that they were autocthonic, but the general opinion inclines 

 to their being derived from Tartar or Mongolian races which crossed 

 Behrings Strait from North Eastern Asia, and as an old race, must 

 have brought with them a language sufficiently copious to express all 

 their notions in civil policy, in war, in agriculture, in arts of working 

 in stone or metal, in religion, and in social customs. 



