HOLMES ANNIVERSARY VOLUME 



acter and purpose have remained until now matters of surmise. The 

 method employed by these early explorers was to sink shafts from 

 the tops of the mounds, and from the limited area of a mound and 

 its base thus exposed, to draw conclusions as to its character as a 

 whole. In this way, Mound No. 8 of the group, from which was 

 taken a great cache of pipes and other objects similar to the Tremper 

 mound cache, was described by them as covering a great sacrificial 

 altar on which had been kindled intense fires, resulting in the breaking 

 of the specimens deposited thereon. 



The conditions found in Mound No. 8 were exactly duplicated in 

 the Tremper mound, but the complete examination of the latter 

 shows that the conclusions drawn from the partial exploration by 

 Squier and Davis are not warranted ; in short, it is strikingly evident 

 that the two mounds in their character and purpose were entirely 

 similar, and that their builders were closely related. So similar 

 indeed are the mounds and their contents that it would not be sur- 

 prising to find, if not already proved, that the builders of the Mound 

 City group migrated southward through the Scioto valley and 

 constructed the Tremper mound and earthwork. Thus are forged 

 several important links in the chain of evidence as to the existence 

 and career of this most advanced of stone-age peoples. We find 

 them extending from Mound City, where their skill as builders and 

 artists has been the wonder and admiration of archeologists, south- 

 ward to the Ohio river, where, at the Tremper mound site, they 

 reached the highest point of their development thus far noted. 



The story of the struggles of this people, as told by the Tremper 

 mound, is certainly one of the highly interesting chapters in the 

 history of primitive culture. No primitive people has shown such 

 skill and perseverance in wresting from nature the raw materials 

 needed for their purpose, nor such versatility in fashioning these 

 materials into finished products. The most striking phase of this, 

 perhaps, is the manner in which, with only the simplest of tools, the 

 stone for their manufacture was quarried from the hills, and the 

 realistic portrayals of bird and animal life sculptured in full relief 

 and finished in minutest detail, were effected. In the record pre- 

 served by the mound we find a vivid picture of the strength and 

 persistence of the forces underlying human development and urging 

 it, against all odds, toward a higher plane. 



Ohio State Archeological and Historical Society 

 Columbus, Ohio 



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