Who were the Moundbuilders? Dana Harwood

Since the discovery of the mounds, there have been many ideas as to who it was that created them. Many men have studied the mounds and made their opinions as to who it was that made the mounds

Joseph Smith  Believed the American Indians were the descendants of the Lamanites The History of the Church records an incident from June 1834 in which he identified, by divine guidance, a skeleton found in an Indian burial mound in Illinois as that of the Lamanite warrior Zelph:

Joseph Smith (continued) “.. the visions of the past being opened to my understanding by the Spirit of the Almighty, I discovered the person whose skeleton was before us was a white Lamanite, a large, thick- set man, and a man of God. His name was Zelph... who was known from the Hill Cumorah, or eastern sea to the Rocky Mountains The LDS Church continues to teach that Native Americans are the direct descendents of Book of Mormon peoples.

Henry Schoolcraft Conducted excavations at the Grave Creek Mound in Ohio  Believed the Native Americans were the descendants of the Moundbuilders  He originally did not think the Native Americans were the Moundbuilders until his work at Grave Creek

Daniel Wilson  In 1862, published Prehistoric Man: Researches into the Origin of Civilization in the Old and New World  Believed that Mexico was the homeland of the Moundbuilders

Caleb Atwater  A Circleville Ohio Postmaster Discovered hundreds of burials with many artifacts in excellent condition  Attributed the mounds to non-Indian Asians who he believed pre-dated the Biblical flood  Believed the modern Native Americans of the area were also Asian by decent but were more recently arrived

Dr. James H. McColloh  Published “Researches in America” in 1817 and “Researches Philosophical and Antiquarian Concerning Aboriginal History of America" in1829  Believed that the Moundbuilders and the Indians were one and the same race and that the modern Native Americans were perfectly capable of having created the mounds in times past

Samuel George Morton  Physical anthropologist  Wrote the book Crania Americana which was published in 1939  Compared measurements of skulls from mounds to skulls of recently deceased Native Americans  Concluded they were from the same race, but said that they were two different families

Samuel George Morton (continued)  The Moundbuilders were “Toltecan”, a higher degree of civilization  The Native Americans were “Barbarous” and not as sophisticated as the Moundbuilders

Ephraim Squier, an Ohio Newspaperman, and Edward H. Davis, a physician  Traveled all over the Ohio River Valley in the 1840’s surveying and mapping the mounds  Published their conclusion in Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley in 1848  They concluded that the Native Americans were not able to create the mounds because they were mere hunters  They believed the Moundbuilders migrated to Mexico

Cyrus Thomas  A minister who became an entomologist and archaeologist  Funded by the United States Congress to study the mounds  Performed fieldwork and hundreds of excavations between Florida and Nebraska for 7 years.  Concluded that without a doubt the Native American were in no way related to the Moundbuilders

Other noted Americans:  Governor DeWitt Clinton of New York believed that Scandinavian Vikings built the mounds in New York  Albert Gallatin, Secretary of Treasury, believed the mounds were built by southward migrating Mexicans. But he also believed that agriculture migrated from Mexico to North America. (???)

Other noted Americans:  General William Henry Harrison supported the lost race theory  Thomas Jefferson did not sit around and make speculations. He went out and invested in archaeological excavations.

Sources 0/eventdate10.htmhttp://itrs.scu.edu/anthroweb/years/1860_7 0/eventdate10.htm gy/archaeology/timeline/history2.htmlhttp:// gy/archaeology/timeline/history2.html ogy.htmhttp://clioseye.sfasu.edu/jefferson/archaeol ogy.htm