Indigenous Religion and Monuments of the Land: Ancient Earthworks/Rockworks; Rings and Mounds in Canada

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Indigenous Religion and Monuments of the Land: Ancient Earthworks/Rockworks; Rings and Mounds in Canada:

*Rings, such as medicine wheels

*Mounds, such as burial mounds, temple mounds, platform (like elite housing or ritual ceremonies) mounds, and effigy mounds

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Laurel complex

“The Laurel complex or Laurel tradition is an archaeological culture which was present in what is now southern Quebec, southern and northwestern Ontario, east-central Manitoba in Canada, and northern Michigan, northwestern Wisconsin and northern Minnesota in the United States. They were the first pottery using people of Ontario north of the Trent–Severn Waterway. The complex is named after the former unincorporated community of Laurel, Minnesota. It was first defined by Lloyd Wilford in 1941.” ref

Hopewell Interaction Sphere

“The Hopewell Exchange system began in the Ohio and Illinois River Valleys about 300 BCE. The culture is referred to more as a system of interaction among a variety of societies than as a single society or culture. Hopewell trading networks were quite extensive, with obsidian from the Yellowstone area, copper from Lake Superior, and shells from the Gulf Coast. The construction of ceremonial mounds was an important feature of the Laurel complex, as it was for the Point Peninsula complex and other Hopewell cultures. Sites were usually located at rapids or falls where sturgeon come to spawn, and ceremonies may have coincided with this yearly event. The mounds and the artifacts contained within them indicate contact with the Adena and Hopewell of the Ohio River valley. It is unknown if the contact was direct or indirect.” ref

Kay-Nah-Chi-Wah-Nung

“The first mound-builders in what is now the Kay-Nah-Chi-Wah-Nung National Historic Site of Canada, Laurel culture (c.2300 – 900 years ago) who lived “in villages and built large round burial mounds along the edge of the river, as monuments to their dead.” These mounds remain visible today. Kay-Nah-Chi-Wah-Nung is considered to be one of the “most significant centers of early habitation and ceremonial burial in Canada,” is located on the north side Rainy River in Northwestern Ontario, Canada. It became part of a continent-wide trading network because of its strategic location at the center of major North American waterways.” ref

Blackduck tradition

“The later Blackduck tradition has been framed as a successor culture in the region, with the archaeologist K. C. A. Dawson positioning the Blackduck as a new, unrelated population which spread northward through northern Minnesota, southern Manitoba, and northwestern Ontario c. CE 500 to CE 900. Blackduck ceramics were notably better-constructed than Woodland period predecessors, with thinner walls and larger size. It was noted by Dawson that at the Wabinosh River site north of Lake Superior, late Laurel ceramics display some traits of the Blackduck and Selkirk traditions. Dawson associates the Laurel with an Archaic period residual population, with an influx of Blackduck people as the climate in the north became milder; he associates the Blackduck with the Ojibwe.” ref

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Saugeen complex

“The Saugeen complex was a First Nations culture located around the southeast shores of Lake Huron and the Bruce Peninsula, around the London area, and possibly as far east as the Grand River. They were active in the period 200 BCE to 500 CE. Archeological evidence suggests that Saugeen complex people of the Bruce Peninsula may have evolved into the Odawa people (Ottawa). In mid-20th century archaeology, the Middle Woodland period in Ontario was conceived of as being divided geographically into three regional complexes: the Couture in the far southwest, the Point Peninsula in south-central and eastern Ontario, and the Saugeen in much of the rest of southwestern Ontario.” ref

“David Marvyn Stothers, who originally conceptualized the Princess Point complex as an archeological culture, argued in a 1973 article that it and the Saugeen were unrelated. However, with continued discoveries and understanding of the period, the idea of distinct, separate complexes has been eroded, especially with the discovery of greater local variability in material culture. Therefore, scholars such as Neal Ferris and Michael Spence have proposed abandonment of the framework altogether, or relegation of the terms to purely geographic use, with their replacement by more localized complexes.” ref

“The Hopewell Exchange system began in the Ohio and Illinois River valleys about 200 BCE. The culture is referred to more as a system of interaction among a variety of societies than as a single society or culture. Hopewell trading networks were quite extensive, and their valued commodities included obsidian from the Yellowstone area, copper from Lake Superior, and shells from the Gulf Coast. The Hopewell tradition was not a single culture or society, but a widely dispersed set of related populations. They were connected by a network of trade routes. known as the Hopewell Exchange System. At its greatest extent, the Hopewell exchange system ran from the Southeastern United States into the southeastern Canadian shores of Lake Ontario. Within this area, societies participated in a high degree of exchange with the highest amount of activity along waterways, the easiest transportation routes.” ref

“The burial customs of the Saugeen people were similar to those of the nearby Point Peninsula complex. The evidence from excavations suggests a band size of about 50 individuals. No indications of status differences have been found in excavations, but no mounds in the Saugeen complex have been excavated. The main distinction between the Saugeen complex and the nearby Point Peninsula complex peoples seems to be that Saugeen ceramics were cruder in construction and decoration.” ref

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Point Peninsula complex

“The Point Peninsula complex was an indigenous culture located in Ontario and New York from 600 BCE to 700 CE (during the Middle Woodland period). Point Peninsula ceramics were first introduced into Canada around 600 BCE then spread south into parts of New England around 200 BCE. Some time between 300 BCE and 1 CE, Point Peninsula pottery first appeared in Maine, and “over the entire Maritime Peninsula.” Little evidence exists to show that it was derived from the earlier, thicker pottery, known as Vinette I, Adena Thick, etc… Point Peninsula pottery represented a new kind of technology in North America and has also been called Vinette II. Compared to existing ceramics that were thicker and less decorated, this new pottery has been characterized by “superior modeling of the clay with vessels being thinner, better fired and containing finer grit temper.” Where this new pottery technology originated is not known for sure. The origin of this pottery is “somewhat of a problem.” The people are thought to have been influenced by the Hopewell traditions of the Ohio River valley. This influence seems to have ended about 250 CE, after which they no longer practiced burial ceremonialism.” ref

“The Hopewell exchange system began in the Ohio and Illinois River valleys about 300 BCE. The culture is referred to more as a system of interaction among a variety of societies than as a single society or culture. Hopewell trading networks were quite extensive, with obsidian from the Yellowstone area, copper from Lake Superior, and shells from the Gulf Coast. In some areas Point Peninsula people buried some of their dead in mortuary mounds. Interred with the dead were exotic grave goods, including copper and silver pan pipes, marine shell gorgets, and exotic cherts. The exotic goods among the burials may provide evidence for inherited status differentiation among Point Peninsula groups. Pan pipes, which have been found in burial mounds from Florida to Minnesota, considered to be a diagnostic trait within the Hopewell inventory, appear suddenly in North America around 200 BCE, then disappear as do certain other Hopewell traits, around 400 CE. Found mostly in the United States, nine pan pipes curiously appear in the LeVesconte mound, a Point Peninsula site located in Campbellford, Ontario.” ref

“Though the Hopewell interaction sphere generally is confined to the United States, much of the silver found in mound artifacts, such as pan pipes, actually comes from Cobalt, Ontario, far up the Ottawa River. The Point Peninsula people of the Middle Woodland period lived by hunting and gathering, supplemented by agriculture. Around 900 CE, Point Peninsula artifacts in New York were replaced by Owasco culture artifacts. However, a 2011 paper by archaeologist John P. Hart argues there was no definable Owasco culture. Archaeologists believe these indicated the presence of Clemson Island peoples’ spreading northward and intermingling with the Point Peninsula complex through the years of 1300. The Serpent Mounds Park at Rice Lake was occupied during the prehistoric Middle Woodland period. The burial mound was shaped like a giant snake.” ref

“The Owasco peoples practiced different pottery techniques and were more sedentary agriculturalists than the Point Peninsula people. They cultivated a variety of types of maize, squash, and eventually beans, and lived in larger villages of several hundred to a thousand people. Warfare was prevalent, as is shown by archeology. The people built fortified villages, but many still died violently. Gradually, smaller bands and tribes formed into larger groups. The Owasco are thought to have eventually developed into the several Iroquoian-speaking nations of Pennsylvania and New York. The Haudenosaunee, or Iroquois Confederacy, likely formed in an effort to avoid the continual warfare of years past. Some important sites are the Rice Lake/Lower Trent River area, including the Serpent Mounds Park, Cameron’s Point, and LeVescounte Mounds in Prince Edward County.” ref

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Hopewell

“The Hopewell tradition, also called the Hopewell culture and Hopewellian exchange, describes a network of precontact Native American cultures that flourished in settlements along rivers in the northeastern and midwestern Eastern Woodlands from 100 BCE to 500 CE, in the Middle Woodland period. The Hopewell tradition was not a single culture or society but a widely dispersed set of populations connected by a common network of trade routes. At its greatest extent, the Hopewell exchange system ran from the northern shores of Lake Ontario south to the Crystal River Indian Mounds in modern-day Florida. Within this area, societies exchanged goods and ideas, with the highest amount of activity along waterways, which were the main transportation routes. Peoples within the Hopewell exchange system received materials from all over the territory of what now comprises the mainland United States. Most of the items traded were exotic materials; they were delivered to peoples living in the major trading and manufacturing areas.” ref

“These people converted raw materials into products and exported them through local and regional exchange networks. Hopewell communities traded finished goods, such as steatite platform pipes, far and wide; they have been found among grave goods in many burials outside the Midwest. Although the origins of the Hopewell are still under discussion, the Hopewell culture can also be considered a cultural climax. Hopewell populations originated in western New York and moved south into Ohio, where they built upon the local Adena mortuary tradition. Or, Hopewell was said to have originated in western Illinois and spread by diffusion… to southern Ohio. Similarly, the Havana Hopewell tradition was thought to have spread up the Illinois River and into southwestern Michigan, spawning Goodall Hopewell.” ref

“American archaeologist Warren K. Moorehead popularized the term Hopewell after his 1891 and 1892 explorations of the Hopewell Mound Group in Ross County, Ohio. The mound group was named after Mordecai Hopewell, whose family then owned the property where the earthworks are sited. What any of the various peoples now classified as Hopewellian called themselves is unknown; indeed, what language families they spoke is unknown. Archaeologists applied the term “Hopewell” to a broad range of cultures. Many of the Hopewell communities were temporary settlements of one to three households near rivers. They practiced a mixture of hunting, gathering, and horticulture.” ref

“The Hopewell inherited from their Adena forebears an incipient social stratification. This increased social stability and reinforced sedentism, specialized use of resources, and probably population growth. Hopewell societies cremated most of their deceased and reserved burial for only the most important people. In some sites, hunters apparently were given a higher status in the community: their graves were more elaborate and contained more status goods. The Hopewellian peoples had leaders, but they did not command the kind of centralized power to order armies of slaves or soldiers. These cultures likely accorded certain families a special place of privilege.” ref

“Some scholars suggest that these societies were marked by the emergence of “big-men“, leaders whose influence depended on their skill at persuasion in important matters such as trade and religion. They also perhaps augmented their influence by cultivating reciprocal obligations with other important community members. The emergence of “big-men” was a step toward the development of these societies into highly structured and stratified chiefdoms. The Hopewell settlements were linked by extensive and complex trading routes; these operated also as communication networks, and were a means to bring people together for important ceremonies.” ref

“Today, the best-surviving features of the Hopewell tradition era are earthwork mounds. Researchers have speculated about their purposes, and debate continues. Great geometric earthworks are one of the most impressive Native American monuments throughout American prehistory, and were built by cultures following the Hopewell. Eastern Woodlands mounds typically have various geometric shapes and rise to impressive heights. Some of the gigantic sculpted earthworks, described as effigy mounds, were constructed in the shape of animals, birds, or writhing serpents.” ref

“Several scientists, including Bradley T. Lepper, hypothesize that the Octagon, in the Newark Earthworks at Newark, Ohio, was a lunar observatory. He believes that it is oriented to the 18.6-year cycle of minimum and maximum lunar risings and settings on the local horizon. The Octagon covers more than 50 acres, the size of 100 football pitches. John Eddy completed an unpublished survey in 1978, and proposed a lunar major alignment for the Octagon. Ray Hively and Robert Horn of Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana, were the first researchers to analyze numerous lunar sightlines at the Newark Earthworks (1982) and the High Banks Works (1984) in Chillicothe, Ohio.” ref

“Christopher Turner noted that the Fairground Circle in Newark, Ohio aligns to the sunrise on May 4, i.e. that it marks the May cross-quarter sunrise. In 1983, Turner demonstrated that the Hopeton earthworks encode various sunrise and moonrise patterns, including the winter and summer solstices, the equinoxes, the cross-quarter days, the lunar maximum events, and the lunar minimum events, due to their precise straight and parallel lines. William F. Romain has written a book on the subject of “astronomers, geometers, and magicians” at the earthworks. Many of the mounds also contain various types of human burials, some containing precious grave goods such as ornaments of copper, mica and obsidian imported from hundreds of miles away. Stone and ceramics were also fashioned into intricate shapes.” ref

“The Hopewell created some of the finest craftwork and artwork of the Americas. Most of their works had some religious significance, and their graves were filled with necklaces, ornate carvings made from bone or wood, decorated ceremonial pottery, ear plugs, and pendants. Some graves were lined with woven mats, mica (a mineral consisting of thin glassy sheets), or stones. The Hopewell produced artwork in a greater variety and with more exotic materials than their predecessors the Adena. Grizzly bear teeth, fresh water pearls, sea shells, sharks’ teeth, copper, and small quantities of silver were crafted as elegant pieces. The Hopewell artisans were expert carvers of pipestone, and many of the mortuary mounds are full of exquisitely carved statues and pipes.” ref

“Excavation of the Mound of Pipes at Mound City found more than 200 stone smoking pipes; these depicted animals and birds in well-realized three-dimensional form. More than 130 such artifacts were excavated from the Tremper site in Scioto County. Some artwork was made from carved human bones. A rare mask found at Mound City was created using a human skull as a face plate. Hopewell artists created both abstract and realistic portrayals of the human form. One tubular pipe is so accurate in form that the model was identified by researchers as an achondroplastic (chondrodystropic) dwarf. Many other figurines are highly detailed in dress, ornamentation, and hairstyles. An example of the abstract human forms is the “Mica Hand” from the Hopewell Site in Ross County, Ohio. Delicately cut from a piece of mica 11 x 6 in, the hand carving was likely worn or carried for public viewing. They also made beaded work. In addition to the noted Ohio Hopewell, a number of other Middle Woodland period cultures are known to have been involved in the Hopewell tradition and participated in the Hopewell exchange network.” ref

“The Laurel complex was a Native American culture in what is now southern Quebec, southern and northwestern Ontario, and east-central Manitoba in Canada; and northern Michigan, northwestern Wisconsin, and northern Minnesota in the United States. They were the first pottery-using people of Ontario north of the Trent-Severn Waterway. The complex is named after the former unincorporated community of Laurel, Minnesota. And the Point Peninsula complex was a Native American culture located in present-day Ontario, Canada and New York, United States, during the Middle Woodland period. It is thought to have been influenced by the Hopewell traditions of the Ohio River valley. This influence seems to have ended about 250 CE, after which burial ceremonialism was no longer practiced. Also, the Saugeen complex was a Native American culture located around the southeast shores of Lake Huron and the Bruce Peninsula, around the London, Ontario area, and possibly as far east as the Grand River in Canada. Some evidence exists that the Saugeen complex people of the Bruce Peninsula may have evolved into the historic Odawa people, also known as the Ottawa.” ref

Mounds in Canada

“Petroform Site: In Manitoba, a large, nine-acre site exists in the Whiteshell Provincial Park that may be North America’s largest, intact petroform site. It includes human-made boulder outlines, effigies, large carved boulders, stone circles, medicine wheels, and rock art. Medicine wheels and petroforms are also found in Manitoba’s Turtle Mountain Provincial Park.” ref

“Ancient Burial Mounds: In both northern Minnesota and northwestern Ontario, there’s the vast network of ancient burial mounds dating back 2000 years, along the Rainy River west of International Falls (all now registered historic sites in both countries). On the Minnesota side of the river is the Grand Mound, the largest burial mound in the upper U.S. Midwest at 325 feet around and 25 feet high, and the McKinstry Mounds (aka Pelland Mounds). Just across the river on the Canadian north side are the 20-25 sacred Manitou Mounds at the Kay-Nay-Chi-Wah-Nung National Historic Site.” ref

Linear Mounds National Historic Site

“Linear Mounds was designated as a national historic site of Canada in 1973 because the site contains some of the most spectacular and best-preserved examples of mortuary mounds belonging to the Devil’s Lake-Sourisford Burial Complex. Located near the Souris River in southern Manitoba, the Linear Mounds burial site is a sophisticated construction consisting of three mounds spread out over a large area of land. These burial mounds, dating from approximately 900 to about 1400 CE, are complex constructions of soil, bone, and other materials. The excellent state of preservation of these mounds has yielded a wealth of information concerning life in the Great Plains at this time, revealing, by the nature of the goods in the burial mounds, that the peoples of this area were part of a continent-wide trading network.” ref 

Kay-Nah-Chi-Wah-Nung Mounds

“The Kay-Nah-Chi-Wah-Nung Historical Centre, or Manitou Mounds, is Canada’s premier concentration of ancient burial mounds. Manitou Mounds National Historic Site, as it was once called, is a vast network of 30 village sites and 15 ancient burial mounds constructed from approximately 5000 years ago during the Archaic Period, to 360 years ago it is one of the “most significant centers of early habitation and ceremonial burial in Canada.” It is located on a river stretch known as Long Sault Rapids on the north side of Rainy River, approximately 54 kilometres (34 mi) east of Fort Frances, in the Rainy River District of Northwestern Ontario, Canada off highway 11. It was designated as a National Historic Site of Canada in 1969.” ref

“The name Kay-Nah-Chi-Wah-Nung, is Ojibway and it means “place of the long rapids”. Kay-Nah-Chi-Wah-Nung is also known as Manitou Mounds National Historic Site of Canada, GENWAAJIWANAANG, Rainy River Burial Mounds, and Armstrong Mounds. The larger network of mounds extends from Quetico in the east through Rainy River and Lake of the Woods into south-eastern Manitoba. There are approximately 20 archaeological sites. The burial mounds are as tall as 40 feet (12 m). The national historic site of Canada consists of a “500 metres (1,600 ft)-wide strip of lowland stretching 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) along the north bank of the Rainy River in the isolated area midway between Rainy Lake and Lake of the Woods.” ref

“Its strategic location at the centre of major North American waterways, created a vibrant continent-wide trading network. Having direct contact with European fur traders and explorers of the 17th century, Aboriginal people continued to live in the area throughout the period of the fur trade and settlement eras. Kay-Nah-Chi-Wah-Nung permitted easy access to, and interaction with, people from other areas of the continent. It came to be known as a gathering place where people would trade, share, celebrate, and mourn. The Ojibway and their ancestors used the prominent sets of rapids along the Rainy River to fish. Because the rapids never froze, fish were in abundance during every season, thus supporting larger populations. — Parks Canada 2013″ ref

“The south-facing hills overlooking the Rainy River served as an ideal location for growing, harvesting and sharing medicinal plants. Specimens were brought by many First Nations peoples when they came there to trade. The site is considered sacred to the Ojibwa, on whose traditional land it is located: This site has deep cultural and spiritual significance to the Ojibway people as a living link in the continuum of past, present and future. Its location at the centre of a major network of North American waterways also means it has significance to First Nations peoples on other parts of the continent. The heritage value of Kay-Nah-Chi-Wah-Nung National Historic Site of Canada resides in its historical associations with past and present cultures as symbolized by its strong sense of place, the location and natural features of the site, the presence of its ancient burial mounds and habitation sites, and the site’s function as a living link between those who visited, occupied or used it in the past and the lives of the Ojibway people of today. — NHSC Commemorative Integrity Statement 1998″ ref

“The Rainy River, a relatively wide, straight, and peaceful river (with the exception of the fluvial terraces at Long Sault Rapids), was a major North American waterway. With waterways the most important means of transportation, it served as a superhighway for a vibrant continent-wide trading network for thousands of years. Archaeological artifacts and sites dated at approximately 5,000 years ago, provides evidence that the first residents of the area were nomadic hunters, fishers, and gatherers known as Archaic people. They inhabited many parts of North America and traded extensively over large areas. First Nations consider these traditional lands to have been theirs for time immemorial.” ref

“Kay-Nah-Chi-Wah-Nung has the largest concentration of earthwork burial mounds in Canada. The mounds were built on river terraces along the north side of the Long Sault Rapids on Rainy River. The first mound-builders at the site were the Laurel culture (c.2300 – 900 years ago). They lived “in villages and built large round burial mounds along the edge of the river, as monuments to their dead.” Their mounds remain visible today. The Blackduck culture (c.1200 to 400 years ago) also built mounds along the Rainy River. The Blackduck mounds were low and linear.” ref

Interpretive center and museum

“Opened in 1987, the interpretive center showcases 10,000 years of aboriginal history. There is also a reconstructed village and tepee camp. In 1995, Parks Canada provided funds to improve the park, including the construction of the Kay-Nah-Chi-Wah-Nung Historical Centre and traditional Roundhouse for visitors and the local First Nations communities. Along with a conservation lab and collection storage, the center is also used as a meeting place for Elders. It is an educational resource for teaching Ojibway culture, continuing its role as a gathering place that began thousands of years ago.” ref

“According to the Ontario Museum Association, Inhabited continually for over 5,000 years, this national historic site interprets the pre-history and history of the Ojibway people of the Rainy River. Focusing mainly on the huge burial mounds, this site has an interpretive centre and guided tours. Members of the Rainy River First Nations interpret the site along the 3 km-long trail. Opportunities to learn about Ojibway stories and dance, to participate in a rendezvous, an archaeological dig, or an 1800s living village, are also offered. — Ontario Museum Association 2009″ ref

“The museum with a futuristic design is surrounded by wilderness with resident bear and deer. The Ojibway people of the Rainy River First Nation are the present day guardians of Kay-Nah-Chi-Wan-Nung and have built a world-class historical centre on the beautiful 90-hectare site. The centre has five galleries, a conservation lab with more than 10,000 artifacts in storage, a gift shop (specializing in beautiful Ojibway arts and crafts), a first-class restaurant that serves traditional Ojibway cuisine, and is the gateway to the Manitou Mounds. — Mather Department of Natural Resources Minnesota 2008″ ref

“Treaty 3: With the signing of Treaty no. 3 in 1873 to 1916, this site area was homesteaded by the Rainy Lake First Nations. Evidence of cabins and farm buildings have been found from that time on the site.” ref

MYSTERIOUS ANCIENT MOUNDS IN PRINCE EDWARD COUNTY

“Endless sand dunes, the limitless horizon of the water, and a fascinating history have always made it a wonderful spot for adventure. The ancient burial mounds studied by Thomas Wallbridge in 1860. Acquiring a copy of Wallbridge’s 1860 archeological report on his findings of odd stone “mounds” in “The Canadian Journal Of Industry, Science and Art- 1860″, Wallbridge notes that before the native Iroquois that once roamed the region, there were “traces of a more ancient race”. Wallbridge noted that 100 mounds existed in Prince Edward County, and they occurred in groups of two on the shores of water. Upon excavating one of the mounds Wallbridge discovered a limestone box made up of flat stones, where skeletons were found sitting in an upright position with folded arms.” ref

“The mounds are mostly comprised of stone, metamorphic granite that is not typically found in that area. This means the builders would have had to carry the stones from afar to construct these unexplained mounds. Wallbridge concludes his report by saying “Whatever be the origin of these remains, it is clear that the Massassaga Indians were not the builders of the works which they are entombed, since this tribe, it is well known, buried their dead in wrapped birch bark, and laid them at full length a few inches beneath the surface of the soil,” Wallbridge is perplexed at the whole series of mounds, and insists “the skeletons found in the sitting posture belong to some other and far earlier race.” ref

“Now we must remember that archaeology was still a rather new field of study at the time of Wallbridge, so proper knowledge of former occupation and Indigenous history was naively unknown. But what is most interesting is a more recent study of the mounds that throw a new light on an old mystery. A more recent study of the mounds was done by a fellow by the name of Beauchamp in 1905 and reversed what was thought earlier about the ancient mounds being for burial purposes and was inclined to believe that the burials Wallbridge found were “intrusive” (dug into it later, not the original) and of no “high antiquity.” ref

“An article from 2001 in Ontario Archeology (number 72, 2001) by David A. Robertson suggests that studies have “failed to reach a consensus as to their function.” It was observed that the mounds comprised of “burnt rocks” which indicated they were under the influence of fire and heat. Robertson then details similarities of the PEC mounds to burned rock middens in Texas and in Ireland where they are known as fulachata fiadh (“outdoor” or “wild cooking places”). Similar features can be found in ancient mounds in the Orkneys, and regions of Atlantic Europe. These mounds would almost always be found near marshy areas where a hole dug into the ground would quickly fill with water. These stone enclosures were filled with water and heated stones thrown in to create a pool of boiling water in which meat was cooked, or used for bathing, washing and dyeing of cloth, and leather working. The ancient Irish mounds date from Early Bronze Age (2,300-1,700 BCE) with the majority dating to the second millennium BCE with various explanations as to their use ranging from cooking ovens to wool production.” ref

“Robertson outlines the lack of study of the Prince Edward County mounds, and states:

“It is clear that the Quinte and Perch Lake burnt stone mounds bear close similarities with sites found in Texas and Atlantic Europe and undoubtedly elsewhere: namely the massive quantities of shattered, burnt rock enclosing a small area, the presence of hearths, deposits of ash and charcoal-rich soil, and a general dearth of associated artifacts. Some other parallels with the burnt mounds of Ireland and Britain are even more striking, although these must remain only subjective impressions until further research is devoted..” ref

“Both mound structures are situated in marshy areas, and both have slab-stoned chambers in the center. Robertson also mentions that these ancient mounds could have been used as food processing centers for boiling fats and preserving foods. Mapping out where the mounds may be located, I indeed came across some of the unusual mounds and recorded my findings. They are situated in close proximity to the shore of Lake Ontario, facing east in groups of two with a huge marshy area surrounding the area. The mounds are about 20-ft in diameter and are about 8ft in height. The pair of mounds, with their center points connected with a line, aligned with the rising sun in the east.” ref

“If I were to speculate, these mounds were used for a ceremonial purpose, either for a fire ceremony or a celestial event. Other theories for their use include indigenous sweat lodges, houses, and the commonly accepted burial rituals. Only one thing is certain: no one seems to know exactly what these ancient stone mounds were made for, and until we look into it further, their real purpose and the confirmed identity of their builders may never be known.” ref 

“Prince Edward County (PEC) is a county in southern Ontario, Canada. Its coastline on Lake Ontario’s northeastern shore is known for Sandbanks Provincial Park, sand beaches, and limestone cliffs. Settled by indigenous peoples, the county has significant archeological sites. These include the LeVescounte Mounds of the Point Peninsula complex people, built about 2000 years ago.” ref

Mound Culture in North America – in Edmonton, Alberta too?

“Government officials worked to eradicate evidence of pre-contact North American peoples in the late 1800s but they could not erase all their structures, in particular the thousands of man-made mounds that can still be seen today. According to one source, John Wesley Powell, the leader of the first trip down the Grand Canyon – and one-armed to boot – and the Director of the Bureau of Ethnology (U.S.) to 1894, directed archeologists, etc. across the U.S. to send him any evidence they had of pre-Contact peoples. More than 100,000 figurines, sketches of rock drawings, etc. were sent to him and promptly destroyed because as he said there was no culture in the U.S. before Contact with Europe so the evidence could not be true. (This accusation is supported in Henriette Mertz’s book The Mystic Symbol, Mark of the Michigan Mound Builders, p. 203.) But many of the more than 30,000 mounds left behind by these peoples in the Mississippi valley, southern Canada, and the west coast survived these efforts.” ref

“An interesting, although now mostly-erased, mound complex left by this culture was at Marietta, Ohio, where I happen to have spent some of my youth. My paper route was across the street from the town cemetery that had been built around a 10-metre-high mound on a bluff in town. Nearby was the Sacra Via Street ([Sacred Way] Street), named thusly because it is built on a paved road alredy bjuilt before the arrival of the first White pioneers. it is hypothesized that the road had no material purpose, as Natives in the Americas did not have wheeled transport (prior to Contact), so such an established road must have been constructed for a ceremonial procession. One local amateur archaeologist/ anthropologist has worked out a scheme whereby the procession ascended to the mound on the bluff then returned to the (Muskingum) river, crossing and after convulations through various mound constructions ascended the hills across the river from Marietta (in present-day West Virginia). No mounds have yet been found in Alberta although they have been found as nearby as Saskatchewan where Moose Mountain has one of the best-known Prairie ones.” ref

“Pilot Mound, Manitoba is named after one in that area. A Quebecois-born interpreter, Jean L’Heureux, who lived in central Alberta in the 1860s and 1870s, observed that the mound civilization of the Mississippian river valley could have extended as far as Alberta (see “Jean L’Heureux: A Life of Adventure”, Alberta History, Autumn, 2012). The book Canada’s Stonehenge by Gordon R. Freeman discusses possibility of a version of Stonehenge in central Alberta. The recent discovery of what some think is a pyramid in the Balkans, hidden inside what had been assumed to be a mountain, leads me at least to wonder if perhaps Edmonton’s Mount Pleasant or Rabbit Hill or Huntington Hills (south of 51 Avenue west of 104th Street) could be man-made features – mounds.” ref

Manitoba History: The Manitoba Mound Builders: The Making of an Archaeological Myth, 1857-1900

“The first recorded excavation of a Native American mound in Manitoba was undertaken in 1857 by Henry Youle Hind. Hind had left his teaching position at the University of Toronto to serve as a geologist in the Canadian government’s expedition to appraise the territory in the northwest. In the process of exploring potential transportation routes and determining the suitability of land for cultivation, Hind examined a conical mound on the bank of the Souris River. His brief account of the excavation he undertook marks the beginning of what eventually became a nineteenth century fascination with the identity of the mysterious creators of Manitoba’s ancient mounds:

Our half-breeds said it was an old Mandan village; the Indians of that tribe having formerly hunted and lived in this part of the Great Prairies. We endeavoured to make an opening into one of the mounds and penetrated six feet without finding anything to indicate that the mounds were the remains of Mandan lodges.” ref 

“The mound Hind described in his journal is part of a group of approximately seventy such mounds in the Melita region, and one of over one hundred mounds scattered throughout what is now southern Manitoba. The majority of these mounds have been assigned by modern scholars to two Late Woodland Period archaeological complexes. These complexes, the Blackduck and the Devil’s Lake-Sourisford, flourished in Manitoba between 900 and 1,400 CE. Many of Manitoba’s mounds contain burials, some appear to be animal effigies, still others have no known purpose. Archaeologists point to the remains of small ceremonial fires on the mounds’ burial surfaces, and to the inclusion of foreign materials such as copper and conch shell to support the theory that these ancient earthworks had a ritual meaning for the Aboriginal cultures that constructed them. They speculate that the cooperative labor which mound building entailed provided important ceremonial opportunities to cement relationships between different Native groups in the region.” ref

“Modern scholars agree that Manitoba’s mounds are the product of ancient North American Aboriginal societies. This opinion was not held by their nineteenth-century counterparts. The European Canadian ‘discoverers’ of Manitoba’s mounds interpreted their findings by turning to an existing body of American theory about comparable structures in the United States. American mound scholarship had been stimulated by a series of ancient earthworks located in the Ohio and Mississippi river valleys. These structures were remarkable for both their great size and their amazing degree of geometric symmetry. While modern archaeologists attribute these earthworks to the ancient Adena, Hopewell, and Mississippian Aboriginal cultures, their imposing and complex nature led earlier European Americans to reject any connection between the mounds’ creators and the ‘savage Indians’ they had encountered during their westward expansion across the continent. Instead, Americans manufactured a mythical Mound Builder race to resolve the mystery.” ref

“The foundation of the Mound Builder myth rested on the adoption of existing historical, classical, and biblical sources to explain evidence associated with America’s pre-contact past. While a few eighteenth and nineteenth-century American scholars used precursors of modern ethnographical and archaeological methods to argue that the mounds had been built by Native Americans, the majority of early mound enthusiasts preferred to engage in armchair speculation. Their application of European classical scholarship to America’s earthworks produced a variety of bizarre theories. The Mound Builders were presented by various mound enthusiasts as either giants, or white men, or Israelites, or Danes, or Toltecs, or at least in one instance, giant white Jewish Toltec Vikings.” ref

“Although the American Mound Builder myth had made its first appearance in the late eighteenth century, it was not fully endorsed by the American scientific community until 1848. In that year, the recently created Smithsonian Institute published E. G. Squire’s and E. H. Davis’ Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley. This publication connected the Mound Builder race with ‘advanced’ pre-conquest civilizations in Peru and Mexico. By 1892, the Smithsonian Institute had revised its initial opinion. A subsequent systematic examination of ancient American mounds resulted in the 1890-1891 Report on the Mound Explorations of the Bureau of Ethnology. This report finally established the builders of the Ohio and Mississippi mounds as the ancestors of America’s contemporary Native peoples.” ref

“The inconclusive nature of the mound excavation undertaken by Henry Youle Hind in 1857 left the door open for further speculation about the creators of Canada’s ancient mounds. It was not, however, until a decade later that the idea of a distinct Mound Builder race was advanced to explain the artificial mounds found in what was then Rupert’s Land. Donald Gunn was responsible for initiating this first step towards a Manitoba Mound Builder myth.” ref

“As an early citizen of the Red River Settlement, Gunn was both a political and intellectual leader within his community. He had been instrumental in agitating against the Hudson’s Bay Company’s monopoly and had been appointed to teach in the Settlement’s parish school. Gunn also regularly contributed meteorological observations and specimens of prairie flora and fauna to the Smithsonian Institute. It was probably through this connection that Gunn had become acquainted with American Mound Builder theories. He may even have had a copy of Squire’s and Davis’ Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley in his extensive collection of natural history books. Certainly, he was aware of the Smithsonian’s interest in ancient earthworks. Consequently, when a burial mound was accidentally discovered near the Red River Settlement in 1867, he excavated it and sent its contents along with a brief report to the Institute.” ref

“Although Gunn referred to the creators of the burial mounds as a red skinned people, he did not believe that the mounds’ builders were related to the area’s current Native populations:

[The] race who reared [the mounds] and whose remains they cover have passed away, or become absorbed in a race of red men; barbarous, possessing less energy and industry; for certainly the present race of red men are in every respect incapable of undergoing the labor necessary to accumulate such heaps of earth.” ref

“Gunn’s separation of the region’s pre-contact peoples into two categories reflected a growing Victorian distinction between ‘static’ Aboriginal societies and ‘progressive’ European civilization. Eighteenth-century cultural evolutionists had classified humanity using an ascending scale of cultural development that began with ‘savagery,’ progressed through ‘barbarism’ and reached its peak in western ‘civilization.’ Eighteenth-century thinkers believed that all peoples would eventually progress to the level of ‘civilized’ societies. Their nineteenth-century counterparts no longer necessarily assumed that everyone was capable of evolving this far. While it is unclear whether Gunn consciously adhered to either of these forms of evolutionism, it is clear that he believed that the Mound Builder race was located higher on this ascending scale of civilization than the area’s Aboriginal peoples.” ref

“Despite Gunn’s interest, further study of the Manitoba Mound Builders was delayed until the Manitoba Historical and Scientific Society was created in 1879. By this time Winnipeg had grown from a fur trading outpost into the capital of a new Canadian province. The modest city was now capable of supporting a small, elite cultural and intellectual community. The Historical and Scientific Society became the focus of this community. Members of the Society were encouraged to prepare and present papers on Manitoba’s political and natural history. The Society also supported the archaeological interests of its members. At least four ancient mounds were excavated under its direction, its museum housed the artifacts that were uncovered, and its meetings and transactions provided a forum in which findings could be presented. The result was a proliferation of literature relating to Manitoba mounds during the 1880s.” ref

“John Christian Schultz was the most prominent member of this group of enthusiasts. His interest in ancient mounds had been stimulated by discussions with Donald Gunn. However, he is best remembered for his political, rather than archaeological work. In the period prior to Manitoba’s entry into confederation, Schultz used his position as editor of The Nor’Wester to promote Canadian interests in Red River. During the Red River uprising, he escaped to Upper Canada, where he was instrumental in generating a military response against the Métis. After the creation of the province of Manitoba, Schultz remained politically active. He eventually ended his career as Manitoba’s Lieutenant Governor.” ref

“Like Gunn, Schultz assumed that a scale of civilization existed. North American Aboriginal peoples were near the bottom of this scale; Europeans of British descent were at the top. Schultz’s study of Manitoba’s mounds sought to determine the Mound Builders’ position in relation to these two extremes. His involvement in the excavation of two burial mounds located near St. Andrew’s rapids on the Red river provided the material needed for his study. Its conclusions were published in a local newspaper before being included in the 1881 edition of Canadian Naturalist and Quarterly Journal of Science.” ref

“Schultz felt that the existence of pottery fragments and the absence of weapons in the excavated mounds supported the hypothesis that the Mound Builders had been a peaceful race of agriculturists who culturally resembled European Canadians more than they did local Native peoples. He went one step further by postulating a physiological difference between Mound Builders and Native Americans. To prove his assertion he described a skull found in one of the Red River mounds:

The skull before me is of average Caucasian size, … The forehead, though somewhat narrow, is neither low nor receding, orbits well rounded, supercilliary ridge low, malar bones only moderately developed, zygomatic arches slight, nasal bones prominent, occiput fairly rounded, and in other peculiarities differing from the typical Indian skull of living races.” ref

“Schultz concluded that the Mound Builder cranium was “superior to that of the average Indian of today.” Underlying this conclusion was the assumption that the distance dividing ‘savage Indians’ from ‘civilized’ Mound Builders and Europeans was biological, as well as cultural. Schultz’s fellow Historical and Scientific Society member, Agieus McCharles, also focused on the supposed physical differences separating Mound Builders and local Natives. His perception of an engraved female figure found in one of the mounds resembled Schultz’s impression of the Mound Builder skull:

The nose is straight, the eyes are large and prominent, the mouth finely cut, and the hair made into a long tapering cone. There is not the slightest resemblancee [sic] between this and the squaw’s face of the present day.” ref

“Although little information is available about McCharles’ non-archaeological interests, his role as chairman of the Historical and Scientific Society’s Archaeology Committee suggests that he came from the same British-Ontarian background as other Society members. His interpretation of the Manitoba mounds’ origins certainly corresponds to those of his fellow enthusiasts. However, his 1887 survey of the Society’s mound excavations contained one interesting innovation. McCharles felt that none of the mounds in Manitoba were particularly remarkable in their construction or design. To explain this deficiency he suggested that Manitoba’s mounds represented outlying colonies of populous settlements in the Ohio and Mississippi river valleys. The Manitoba Mound Builders were presented by him as a struggling colony trying to survive on a distant frontier. The situation he imagined these mythical people to have experienced paralleled that of nineteenth century English Canadian settlers in the same region.” ref

“McCharles’ theories may seem absurd to a modern audience, however, they pale in comparison to George Bryce’s fantastic assertions. The Reverend George Bryce was a prominent nineteenth century Manitoba citizen. He was both the pastor of Winnipeg’s Knox Presbyterian Church and the head of Manitoba College. He was also a tireless promoter of English settlement in western Canada. The book he published in 1882, Manitoba: Its Infancy, Growth, and Present Condition, was a self-proclaimed advertisement for the new province. A chapter devoted to Manitoba’s pre-contact history merely served as an additional weapon in Bryce’s arsenal of Manitoba boosterism.” ref

“Bryce based this chapter, as well as a number of articles about the same subject published in British, American, and Canadian journals, on the evidence he uncovered when excavating a number of mounds in the Red, Rainy, and Souris rivers regions. Like his fellow Historical and Scientific Society mound scholars, Bryce believed that the existence of pottery in these mounds proved that their creators had been agriculturalists. Unlike his fellow scholars, he also asserted that the presence of copper tools and ornaments proved the builders’ knowledge of metallurgy, while the very lack of grave goods confirmed that they possessed “a higher faith than that of the savage of today, who thinks he is but transferred to another hunting ground in the sky.” ref

“Bryce’s optimistic evaluation of the Mound Builder civilization led him to conclude in Manitoba: Its Infancy, Growth, and Present Condition that the Mound Builders had been Europeans:

The tumulus may thus speak of a race now extinct; if this be so, perhaps of a people unconnected with the present Indian population of the continent; perhaps of a people of greater civilization that the present race, who had found their way from the seed-bed of the nations of Europe—its north-west coast.” ref

“Bryce had adopted a popular American Mound Builder theory that identified the Mound Builders as a band of Welshmen. These Welshmen had been exiled from their homeland in the twelfth century and had supposedly sailed from there to North America where they had settled and prospered. Bryce expanded upon this theory by suggesting that a race of ‘half-savages’ had been produced by the gradual interbreeding of Welsh settlers with Native peoples. The Mandans of North Dakota were presented as the resulting racial product. Their pale complexions and sedentary lifestyle constituted the proof of their Caucasian ancestors.” ref

“Two years later, Bryce revised his initial hypothesis. His new theory replaced the Welsh exiles with a band of pale skinned Toltecs. Although these new Mound Builders were viewed by Bryce as physiologically and culturally inferior to Europeans, he still saw them as superior to local native populations. According to Bryce, these Toltecs had migrated from their home in Mexico, northward across the continent. They reached the Red river area during the eleventh century. Sometime during the fifteenth century their civilization had been destroyed by Manitoba’s present Native peoples. Consequently, Bryce felt that it was the duty of European settlers to reestablish civilization in North America by deposing the Natives that wrongfully occupied it:

The white man but arrived upon the scene to succeed the farmer, the metal worker and the potter, who had passed away so disastrously, and to be the avenger of the lost race, in driving before him the savage red man.” ref 

“Bryce’s second version of the Mound Builder myth was popular in late nineteenth and early twentieth century Manitoba. Bryce’s Mound Builder work was published by the Historical and Scientific Society and his interpretation was incorporated into that period’s version of the province’s history. In contrast, the less fanciful approach adopted by Charles N. Bell did not interest Manitobans. His archaeological work found an audience only outside of the province.” ref

“Bell was an anomaly in Manitoba’s nineteenth-century mound scholarship tradition. He had come to the Northwest as a member of the 1870 Wolseley Expedition. After he was discharged, Bell remained in Winnipeg, where he became a prominent businessman. Although he had had little formal education, Bell was interested in natural history. His archaeological thinking was strongly influenced by his cousin, Robert Bell. An employee of the Canadian Geological Survey, Robert Bell introduced Charles Bell to accurate archaeological excavation techniques and to the Smithsonian Institute’s Bureau of Ethnology. The former resulted in an unusual attention to stratigraphy, the latter in a healthy scientific suspicion of his colleagues’ unfounded speculations.” ref

“Bell appears to have been influenced by the Smithsonian’s growing skepticism of a distinct Mound Builder race. By 1887, his excavation of a number of mounds throughout southern Manitoba had led Bell to reject the theories of his fellow Historical and Scientific Society members. Instead, he concluded that the mounds had been constructed by “an uncivilized people who lived on the banks of the Red River and its tributaries before the advent of the present Indian tribes. While the observed customs of local Native peoples had caused Bell to reject them as the builders of the mounds, he was convinced that these structures had been built by another group of Aboriginal people.” ref

“It is important to note that Bell reached this conclusion without contradicting nineteenth century judgements about the Aboriginal peoples of the area. He had not adjusted his views of local Natives and their ancestors, but had rather revised his opinion about the level of civilization the Mound Builder race had obtained. First, Bell questioned the assumption that the creators of the mounds had been agriculturalists. The lack of stone spades and furrowed patches in association with the mounds did not support such a momentous conclusion. Second, he contradicted the wild statements made by Bryce regarding the Mound Builders’ metallurgical skills. His experiments had shown that the copper artifacts found in the mounds were “simply hammered pieces of the native ore.” Finally, Bell declared that there was nothing in the form or finish of the stone tools and pottery fragments obtained from the mounds that was “beyond the skill of the Indians, when they were first encountered by the whites.” ref

“Today, the nineteenth-century enthusiasts who studied Manitoba’s ancient mounds are considered to be merely a footnote in the history of the development of Canadian archaeology. Modern archaeologists, embarrassed by the racist hodgepodge of Victorian cultural and biological evolutionism that underlies Mound Builder theories, have disassociated themselves from the group’s work. But, while the impact of these early scholars on the development of the modern profession of archaeology may be negligible, their work should not be ignored. The creation of a Manitoba version of the Mound Builder myth illuminates the attitudes underpinning the society that produced it. The period during which this myth flourished in Manitoba was also the period in which Winnipeg was transformed from a Métis settlement to a British-Ontarian community. The makers of this myth belonged to this latter group. Consequently, their Mound Builder theories fitted this community’s vision for the region’s present and future development.” ref

“Members of the Manitoba Historical and Scientific Society were already engaged in writing the new province’s history. Their work emphasized the role of Europeans in the region’s past and presented the 1812 arrival of the Selkirk Settlers in Red River as a particularly significant event. This tradition in Manitoban historiography was initiated by Donald Gunn and Charles R. Tuttle in their book, History of Manitoba: From the Earliest Settlement to the Admission of the Province into the Dominion. George Bryce and other Manitoba Historical and Scientific Society members quickly expanded on Gunn’s and Tuttle’s work by portraying the Settlers as heroes and the colony they founded as an idyllic paradise. Even Charles N. Bell wrote a brief essay titled The Selkirk Settlement and the Settlers.” ref

“The tale of the Selkirk Settlers’ initial hardships and their eventual success soon approached the level of myth. The resulting legend served two purposes. First, since the Red River Settlement pre-dated eastern Canada’s interest in the region, the legend reduced the validity of the East’s right to control Manitoba’s future. Second, the ‘founding father’ status which the legend assigned to the Selkirk Settlers allowed the recently arrived British-Ontarian immigrants to establish a cultural claim to an area which they were increasingly coming to dominate politically and economically.” ref

“Not surprisingly, many of the same Historical and Scientific Society members involved in constructing the legend of the Selkirk Settlers were also responsible for creating a Manitoba version of the Mound Builder myth. The Mound Builder myth, like its Selkirk Settler counterpart, supported growing demands for greater western autonomy. It provided the British-Ontarian community in Manitoba with a noble and civilized antiquity upon which its own settlements could be founded. For, if Manitoba had sup-ported a great civilization in the past, it could support a great civilization in the future. The interest this exalted antiquity generated in Ontario was of course an added bonus.” ref

“More importantly, the Manitoba Mound Builder myth provided a ‘scientific’ justification for the British-Ontarian community’s perception, and ultimately their treatment, of Manitoba’s Native peoples. Nineteenth century Manitoba historians had excluded Natives from the province’s short official history by creating a ‘founding father’ legend out of the experiences of the Selkirk Settlers. The Mound Builder myth excluded contemporary Natives from Manitoba’s pre-contact history as well. The period of Native dominance over the Canadian West was reduced by these two myths to a static, historically insignificant interval between a Mound Builder civilization and a European civilization. By excluding Natives from a significant role in Manitoba’s past, the Mound Builder myth also justified their exclusion from a significant role in its creators’ vision of Manitoba’s future.” ref

Effigy Mounds

“An effigy mound is a raised pile of earth built in the shape of a stylized animal, symbol, religious figure, human, or other figure. The Effigy Moundbuilder culture is primarily associated with the years 550–1200 CE during the Late Woodland Period, although radiocarbon dating has placed the origin of certain mounds as far back as 320 BCE. Effigy mounds were constructed in many Native American cultures. Scholars believe they were primarily for religious purposes, although some also fulfilled a burial mound function. The builders of the effigy mounds are usually referred to as the Mound Builders. Over 3200 animal-shaped effigy mounds have been identified by the Wisconsin Historical Society in the upper midwest. Native North American effigy mounds have been compared to the large-scale geoglyphs such as the Nazca Lines of Peru. Effigy mounds are limited to the Northern and Eastern United States, and most likely the French were the first Europeans to see them in their expeditions southward from Canada after 1673. Early surveyors and settlers noticed and mapped many effigy mounds, but farming and other development erased numerous sites despite efforts to preserve them.” ref

“After the “discovery” of effigy mounds, and other mounds all over the country, wild theories began to be developed as to how and by whom they were built. The first theories were the most accurate; people in the late 17th century assumed that the mounds had been built by the Native American people who still lived in the vicinity. These logical assumptions lost popularity as more fantastic theories were developed. The most popular of these theories in the 19th century was that an extinct race of Mound Builder people had built the mounds and then vanished. These theories were generally made to support nationalist sentiment and a romantic European connection to the New World. This theory was laid to rest by archaeologists at the Smithsonian Institution in the 1880s.” ref

“The Ho-Chunk suggest that effigy mounds were used as places of refuge as well as burial. Some archaeologists today believe that the mounds were built by particular clans or groups to honor their representative animal. Some believe that the animal shape is the clan or extended family of the person or person’s buried in the mound. Others believe that the mounds were burial sites for everyday people, while still others believe that the depicted animal might be somehow responsible for transitioning the deceased into the next world. The mounds may also indicate hunting and gathering territories of different groups. Other evidence suggests that effigy mounds were used for all manner of rites and ceremonies, from birth ceremonies to funeral rites.” ref

“Common shapes for effigy mounds include birds, bear, deer, bison, lynx, panther, turtles, and water spirits. These are somewhat arbitrary names given to the mound shapes by archaeologists who were simply looking for words that would help them classify the mounds. These shapes were most likely chosen for their particular religious or spiritual significance. The earliest mounds are ‘conical’; they are essentially bumps of earth – the simplest and arguably the most intuitive kind of burial. Successive conicals likely evolved into linear mounds. Bird mounds likely came next as modifying a linear mound to make a bird mound required only the addition of a head and a tail. From there many different animal forms emerged. These often expressed a kind of abstract elongation.” ref

“In addition to the obvious elongation of tails and the abstracted nature of many of the shapes, colored silts and sand were often used to decorate the mounds. The land was often scraped or raked to move earth from surface soils towards a new mound and in doing so, artful colored sand and silt patterning was sometimes employed as adornment. In terms of positioning, some mounds may have had celestial alignments although with certainty bird mounds were placed in such a way as to suggest that they were flying up or down a hillside, and animal mounds were often placed so as to suggest animals walking along natural landform as well such as a ridge or hillside. It is possible that predominant wind patterns may have been taken into consideration when choosing locations and orientations for bird mounds. In addition bird mounds sometimes appear in different conformations where the wings of the bird may be folded or unfolded to different degrees, suggesting various postures in flying. There are some instances where these different poses may suggest a freeze frame view of a bird flying – wings outstretched, wings partially folded, and wings outstretched again.” ref

“Hochunk ancestors naturally buried their dead next to lakes and rivers, and on hillsides. These locations would later become valued as some of the best places to live by settlers. This is one factor that contributed to high rates of mound destruction. Many mounds were destroyed by people grading earth surrounding their houses or what would become the foundations of houses. In some cases linear mounds were used as foundational fill for new house construction. Looting of mounds by settlers was common and this also contributed to the destruction and defacement of many.” ref

“According to the National Park Service, the area in which effigy mounds are found “extends from Dubuque, Iowa, north into southeast Minnesota, across southern Wisconsin from the Mississippi to Lake Michigan, and along the Wisconsin–Illinois boundary.” The mounds of the Mississippi river regions in Wisconsin and Iowa most commonly feature imagery of the bear and the bird, while the mounds of the Lake Michigan and Winnebago areas most commonly feature water spirits, such as turtle and panther mounds.” ref

“The Effigy Mound Builders buried one, two, or three people in a single mound. These burials were most often done singly – one atop the other in successive years. The effigy mound builders did not include with their dead the wealth of material the Ohio Hopewellians did. This almost complete lack of artifacts accompanying the dead clearly indicates a culture distinct from the Hopewellian, even though mounds with Hopewell-type grave goods have been excavated in the same area, and apparently were constructed at roughly the same time as the effigy mounds. Some have speculated that due to the lack of burial goods, that the effigy mound builders were egalitarian peoples.” ref

“Hundreds of effigy mounds have been lost due to plowing, farming, and other development. Many of the remaining effigy mound sites are parts of national, state, county, or municipal parks. After many archeological excavations in the 1950s and 1960s, archeologists began discussing the wisdom and the ethics behind such excavations. The U.S. National Park Service explains, “when a mound is excavated, its value as a scientific object of study is greatly reduced or destroyed.” All effigy mounds are currently protected under state laws that prohibit disturbance to burial sites or, if on federal or tribal land, the Archaeological Resources Protection Act, the Antiquities Act, and the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act.” ref

Serpent Mounds National Historic Site of Canada

Otonabee-South Monaghan, Ontario

Existing plaque:  Hiawatha First Nation Territory, Keene, Ontario

“Two thousand years ago, Aboriginal people gathered nearby in large settlements in spring and summer to hunt, fish, and collect freshwater mussels. Here, for over three centuries, these people built mounds to bury and revere their dead. These nine mounds and other closely related sites provide an exceptionally complete record of life at that time. The mound shaped like a serpent, the only one of its kind in Canada, is over 60 meters long and almost eight meters wide. Mississauga people of this area are now the proud stewards of these ancient sites.” ref

Description of Historic Place

“Serpent Mounds National Historic Site of Canada is located in an open oak savannah setting on Roach’s Point and East Sugar Island in Rice Lake, Peterborough County, Ontario. A burial site dating from 50 BCE to 300 CE, it is a grouping of six separate burial locations forming a serpentine shape that is approximately 60 metres long and almost 8 metres wide and 1.5 to 1.8 metres high. The site is presented to the public within the grounds of Serpent Mounds Park on the banks of Rice Lake. Official recognition refers to the burial sites and their associated landscapes located on Roach’s Point and East Sugar Island.” ref

Heritage Value

“Serpent Mounds was designated a National Historic Site of Canada in 1982 because: it provides an exceptionally complete record of life for a period of 350 years ending about CE. 300; the burial mound shaped like a serpent is the only one of its kind in Canada. Serpent Mounds incorporates a 4.4-hectare area on Roach’s Point, as well as a 49-hectare area on East Sugar Island. The designated site comprises six distinct areas of archaeological interest, including the Serpent Mounds site, the Alderville site, the Island Centre site, the East Sugar Island site, the Corral site, and an unnamed Site BbG m-22. The Serpent Mounds National Historic Site of Canada is the most completely investigated archaeological site in Canada associated with the Point Peninsula culture and contains information on both the daily and the ritual life of this culture, which dates from 50 BCE to 300 CE. The complex also incorporates evidence of Pickering or Early Ontario Iroquois, Late Iroquoian Huron, and some Archaic cultures. These sites have been systematically investigated in 1897, 1910, 1955, 1960, and 1968.” ref

Character-Defining Elements

“Key elements that contribute to the heritage character of the site include: the integrity of the cultural landscape with its raised mounds in the shape of a serpent; the archaeological resources in their found form, extent and materials; the Serpent Mounds site as a group of nine earthen mounds and a shell midden on Roach’s Point, specifically: Serpent Mound, the largest mound with a winding outline; Mounds A to I respectively (E and F are known as the Serpent and the Egg); five similar mounds on East Sugar Island (these are the Alderville site, the Island Centre site, the East Sugar Island site, Coral site and unnamed site BbGm-22); the integrity and broad range of the Point Peninsula vestiges these sites contain, including: pottery of varying designs and decorative styles, clay pipes of at least four separate designs, lithic assemblages (i.e. projectile points), most commonly of corner-notched and pentagonal forms, including bone and antler artifacts, shells and food refuse remnants in the shell midden, and burial artifacts including combs and jewelry; the integrity of vestiges of other cultures found in these mounds, namely three ossuaries of the early Ontario Iroquois stage and some pottery shards of late Iroquoian origin; the found arrangement of artifacts in these mounds; the spatial relationships between the mounds; the continued association of the artifacts and knowledge gained from investigation with the site; the setting of the Serpent Mounds group on a high point of land along the edge of a grassy and nearly flat-topped drumlin hill that drops away on three sides to Rice Lake some 15 metres below; the natural setting of the other mounds on East Sugar Island; the proximity of all mounds to water.” ref

Serpent Mounds Park

“Serpent Mounds Park is a historical place located near Keene, Ontario, Canada. Serpent Mounds operated as a provincial park, established in 1955 through a lease with the Hiawatha First Nation, of the Michi Saagiig (Mississauga Anishinaabeg). In 1982, while operating as a provincial park the mounds were designated a National Historic Site, including East Sugar Island. From 1995 to 2009, Hiawatha First Nation operated the park privately, offering camping facilities, beach access on Rice Lake, a cultural center, and interpretive walks among the historic serpent and nearby mounds. The park was closed to the public in 2009, due to the decline in the tourism and deteriorating infrastructure.” ref

“Archaeological field work revealed that the construction and early occupation of the serpent mounds area occurred about 2000 years ago during the prehistoric Middle Woodland Period. The first prehistoric peoples to occupy the site were classified by archaeologists as the Point Peninsula complex, based on their artifacts. The people gathered in areas of what are now the jurisdictions of central and southeastern Ontario and southwestern Quebec in Canada, and northern parts of New York state in the United States, to camp, hunt, fish, collect fresh water mussels, and to harvest manoomin back to 58 BCE.” ref

“The nine earthen mounds located on Roach’s Point were disclosed as places to bury the dead and revere the ancestors providing an exceptionally complete record of life for a period of 350 years ending about C.E.. 300; the burial mound shaped like a serpent is the only one of its kind in Canada. Serpent Mounds incorporates a 4.4-hectare area, as well as a 49-hectare area on East Sugar Island. The designated site comprises six distinct areas of archaeological interest, including the Serpent Mounds site, the Alderville site, the Island Centre site, the East Sugar Island site, the Corral site and an unnamed Site.” ref

“The largest mound, known as “the serpent” for its winding outline, is 194 ft (59.1 m) long, 25 ft (7.6 m) wide, 5 to 6 ft (1.5 to 1.8 m) high, and is the only one in Canada. The eight oval/round mounds known as “the serpents eggs” range between 23 and 48 ft (7.0 to 14.6 m) long, 1 to 4.5 ft (0.4 to 1.6 m) high. Significant items found inside the mounds, in addition to human remains, were shell disc beads, fossilized coral, fish bone hook, flint chips, copper foil beads, carved limestone, adze, and numerous types of animal bones.” ref

Serpent Mounds

“The principal mound of this group is the only known example in Canada of a mound of serpentine shape. The earliest archaeological excavation on the site was carried out by David Boyle in 1896. Artifacts and skeletal remains were discovered, but the first comprehensive investigation was not started until 1955. The mounds, somewhat similar to those of the Ohio Valley, appear to have been built while the region was occupied by Indians of the Point Peninsula culture, and are thought to have been religious or ceremonial in nature. Numerous burials have been found in the mounds, which are estimated to have been constructed about the second century CE.” ref 

Serpent Mounds, situated on a bluff overlooking Rice Lake near Peterborough, Ont, is the only known effigy mound in Canada.

“Serpent Mounds, situated on a bluff overlooking Rice Lake near Peterborough, Ont, is the only known effigy mound in Canada. It is a sinuous earthen structure composed of six separate burial locations and measuring about 60 m long, 8 m wide, and 1.5-1.8 m high. Excavation indicated that the mounds forming the effigy were gradually built up between 50 BCE and 300 CE. This would suggest that Serpent Mounds was a sacred place, visited periodically for religious ceremonies. Although pieces of grave furniture were not plentiful, their distribution shows they were restricted largely to individuals of higher status within the community. Those individuals were buried either at the base of the mounds or in shallow, submound pits. The commoners were randomly scattered throughout the mounds’ fill.” ref 

“Serpent mounds are part of a larger class of effigy mounds found mainly in the Midwestern and Eastern US. They are shaped like animals and were built by indigenous communities between about 3000 and 700 years ago, although dating is often uncertain, and at least some mounds, like The Great Serpent Mound of Ohio, represent several construction episodes over about 1000 years (See Herrmann et al 2014). There is a well-known serpent mound in Ontario, Canada, which is approximately 2000 years old. The group of mounds at Effigy Mounds National Monument in Iowa are between 1400 and 800 years old. Finding a serpent mound on Oak Island in Nova Scotia would be very interesting, but definitely not shocking. I am not aware that there are other effigy mounds in the Maritimes, but there is a local tradition of monumental construction, including mounds, known as the Maritime Archaic Tradition, although these tend to be older than the Midwestern effigy mounds.” ref

Augustine Mound National Historic Site of Canada

“Augustine Mound National Historic Site is an archaeological site located within the reserve land of the Metepenagiag Mi’kmaq Nation, New Brunswick, on the north side of the Little Southwest Miramichi River across from the present Mi’kmaq community. It includes a circular ritual site surrounding a slightly elevated burial mound that sits on a low terrace near the junction of the Northwest and Little Southwest Miramichi Rivers. Augustine Mound National Historic Site of Canada is located 700 meters east of the Oxbow National Historic Site of Canada.” ref

“Augustine Mound was designated a National Historic Site of Canada in 1975 because – this site is an exceptional and enduring expression of Mi’kmaw spirituality, exhibiting burial rituals and artifacts directly connected to Adena traditions in eastern North America 2500 years ago. The heritage value of Augustine Mound NHSC lies in its longstanding connection to a distinctive religious phenomenon rarely seen in eastern Canada, and in its longstanding connection with spiritual and community life in Mi’kmaq culture as illustrated by its setting, site, form, and composition, the nature of the archaeological evidence its mound contains, and in its long term role as a sacred site.” ref

“Augustine Mound National Historic Site is a ceremonial burial mound created around 2,500 years ago. It is an eastern manifestation of the Adena burial tradition centered in the Ohio Valley. The site consists of a circular area approximately 30 m. in diameter centered on a low mound, surrounded by a circular ceremonial area. It contains human remains and archaeological artifacts. Originally excavated in 1975-76, only part of the mound remains undisturbed. This is in the form of two perpendicular ridges (balks) in the form of a cross centered on the mound. Oriented to the cardinal directions, each balk is approximately 1 meter wide and 10-11 meters long and rises from ground level to a height of 0.5 meters in the center. The center portion of the mound was disturbed just prior to the archaeological work. The site retains a spiritual significance and ritual place in the life of the Mi’kmaq community.” ref

CHARACTER-DEFINING ELEMENTS

“Key elements contributing to the heritage value of this site include:
– evidence of its association with a significant burial tradition from the Ohio Valley, including materials from that area placed in the burial mound;
– the range of rare, perishable artifacts preserved in the mound which relate to Aboriginal culture 2500 years ago;
– its proximity to Oxbow National Historic Site of Canada;
– its continued use as a ritual site by the Mi’kmaq people;
– the mound’s circular footprint and low, gradually rising profile;
– the presence of a longstanding defined ritual area surrounding the mound;
– the form, extent, and material of the baulk cross;
– the original fabric of the mound’s construction;
– the temporal, spatial, material, functional, and cultural links between evidence removed from the mound and the lowest layers of evidence on the adjacent Oxbow site;
– the continued relationship of artifacts removed during the investigation of the site.” ref

Ancient Mounds Reveal Powerful Presence of History

“To many, there is something surreal and spiritual about being in a sacred place where the past connects with the present. And some of the most dramatic of those historic places are at ancient sacred mounds found in the Northern Wilds of Minnesota and Northwestern Ontario. A chain of mounds runs along the Rainy River on both the Canadian-U.S. shores for 90 miles. They include Ontario’s famous Manitou Mounds, considered to be Canada’s largest pre-European structures.” ref

“Part of that chain are the five mounds at the Grand Mound Historical Site located at the juncture of the Big Fork and Rainy Rivers, about 20 miles west of International Falls. At the center of the site is the Grand Mound, considered to be the largest surviving prehistoric structure in Minnesota and the upper Midwest, dating back to 200 BCE (about the same time the Great Wall of China was completed). Believed to have been built by the Laurel people who predominated in the area until 100 CE, the Grand Mound measures 140 feet long, 100 feet wide, 25 feet high, and has a 200-foot low tail. Though the site has been permanently closed to the public since 2007, it is still preserved, owned, administered, and maintained by the Minnesota Historical Society (MHS operated a visitor center here between 1975 and 2003).” ref

“On the Canadian side of Rainy River about 34 miles west of Fort Frances and International Falls is the Kay-Nah-Chi-Wan-Nung (Ojibway for Place of the Long Rapids), with a history dating back 8,000-9,500 years. The place was already at the center of a vibrant North America-wide trading network, as far back as 5,000-6,000 years. Today, it is best-known for its 23 ancient burial mounds—the largest concentration of mounds in Canada–and village sites built on river terraces edging the Rainy River and Long Sault Rapids. Called the Manitou Mounds, the first ones were built about 2,500 years ago, and the area has now been declared a National Historical Site. The guardians of this rich heritage are the Rainy River First Nations who have built a historical centre on the 90-hectare site that encompasses more than three kilometres of the shoreline.” ref

“Walking among these ancient beehive-shaped mounds (only some are accessible to the public), I could feel the powerful presence of history. The mounds, varying in size, are located in a beautiful setting of river terraces edging the Rainy River, surrounded by prairie oak savannah. The sense of history was particularly strong while standing beside the mound that had inspired W. A. Kenyon to write, “The most spectacular prehistoric native monument in all of Canada is a burial mound on Rainy River. Overlooking the long Sault Rapids, it is about 113 feet in diameter and 24 feet high.” Standing and absorbing the scenery, one could almost hear the sounds of these ancient people as they gathered here and along the Rainy River each summer by the thousands. They fished with spears and hooks for lake sturgeon that could weigh up to 400 pounds and reach 13 feet in length. They planted summer gardens, leaving a rich diversity of plant life in a prairie oak savannah. And they traded, bringing in items like marine shells from Florida, volcanic glass from Mt. St. Helen’s in Washington State, stone from Hudson Bay, obsidian from Wyoming, flint from the Dakotas.” ref

“The mounds here were constructed by digging a shallow pit, placing in the bones (either bundled in birchbark or hides), and covering the remains with earth. The following year, the burial ceremony would be continued until, as more individuals were buried and more earth placed on top, the mounds grew in size to what we see today. Mounds elsewhere have contained grave offerings like shells, copper ornaments, and, in some cases, clay funerary masks. Notable earthworks further south in Minnesota include the six Hopewellian burial mounds featured in Indian Mounds Park, a public park overlooking the Mississippi River in St. Paul. Originally, there were more than 30 mounds, but most were destroyed in the 19th century.” ref

“The first mounds were built 2,200 years ago by people of the Hopewell culture, who had arrived in the upper Midwest from Illinois circa 500 BCE and stayed for about 1,000 years before they disappeared; later the site was used by the Dakota for burials. In case you wondered, the largest man-made earthen mound north of Mexico is Monks Mound at the 2,200-acre Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site on the Mississippi River in southern Illinois. The four-terrace platform mound is 1,000 feet long, 800 feet wide, and was built between 900-1,200 CE using an estimated 22 million cubic feet of earth. In the 1200s, Cahokia was among the world’s largest cities with a population of 100,000.” ref

The Mace and the Spirit Bird: Exploring Images and Referents Within Mississippian Iconography

Mound Builder Cultures

“Many pre-Columbian cultures in North America were collectively termed “Mound Builders,” but the term has no formal meaning. It does not refer to specific people or archaeological culture but refers to the characteristic mound earthworks that indigenous peoples erected for an extended period of more than 5,000 years. The “Mound Builder” cultures span the period of roughly 3500 BCE (the construction of Watson Brake) to the 16th century CE, including the Archaic period (Horr’s Island), Woodland period (Caloosahatchee, Adena, and Hopewell cultures), and Mississippian period. Geographically, the cultures were present in the region of the Great Lakes, the Ohio River Valley, Florida, and the Mississippi River Valley and its tributary waters.” ref

“The first mound building was an early marker of political and social complexity among the cultures in the Eastern United States. Watson Brake in Louisiana, constructed about 3500 BCE during the Middle Archaic period, is the oldest known and dated mound complex in North America. It is one of 11 mound complexes from this period found in the Lower Mississippi Valley. These cultures generally had developed hierarchical societies that had an elite. These commanded hundreds or even thousands of workers to dig up tons of earth with the hand tools available, move the soil long distances, and finally, workers to create the shape with layers of soil as directed by the builders. However, early mounds found in Louisiana preceded such cultures and were products of hunter-gatherer cultures.” ref

“From about 800 CE, the mound-building cultures were dominated by the Mississippian culture, a large archaeological horizon, whose youngest descendants, the Plaquemine culture and the Fort Ancient culture, were still active at the time of European contact in the 16th century. One tribe of the Fort Ancient culture has been identified as the Mosopelea, presumably of southeast Ohio, who spoke an Ohio Valley Siouan language. The bearers of the Plaquemine culture were presumably speakers of the Natchez language isolate. The first written description of these cultures were made by members of Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto‘s expedition, between 1540 and 1542.” ref

“The namesake cultural trait of the Mound Builders was the building of mounds and other earthworks. These burial and ceremonial structures were typically flat-topped pyramids or platform mounds, flat-topped or rounded cones, elongated ridges, and sometimes a variety of other forms. They were generally built as part of complex villages. The early earthworks built in Louisiana around 3500 BCE are the only ones known to have been built by a hunter-gatherer culture, rather than a more settled culture based on agricultural surpluses.” ref

“The best-known flat-topped pyramidal structure is Monks Mound at Cahokia, near present-day Collinsville, Illinois. This community was the center of the Mississippian culture. This mound appears to have been the main ceremonial and residential mound for the religious and political leaders; it is more than 100 feet (30 m) tall and is the largest pre-Columbian earthwork north of Mexico. This site had numerous mounds, some with conical or ridge tops, as well as palisaded stockades protecting the large settlement and elite quarter. At its maximum about 1150 CE, Cahokia was an urban settlement with 20,000–30,000 people. This population was not exceeded by North American European settlements until after 1800.” ref

“Some effigy mounds were constructed in the shapes or outlines of culturally significant animals. The most famous effigy mound, Serpent Mound in southern Ohio, ranges from 1 foot (0.30 m) to just over 3 feet (0.91 m) tall, 20 feet (6.1 m) wide, more than 1,330 feet (410 m) long, and shaped as an undulating serpent. There are other animals like bears in America.” ref

“Between 1540 and 1542, Hernando de Soto, the Spanish conquistador, traversed what became the southeastern United States. There he encountered many different mound-builder peoples who were perhaps descendants of the great Mississippian culture. De Soto observed people living in fortified towns with lofty mounds and plazas and surmised that many of the mounds served as foundations for priestly temples. Near present-day Augusta, Georgia, de Soto encountered a group ruled by a queen, Cofitachequi. She told him that the mounds within her territory served as burial places for nobles.” ref

“The artist Jacques le Moyne, who had accompanied French settlers to northeastern Florida during the 1560s, likewise noted Native American groups using existing mounds and constructing others. He produced a series of watercolor paintings depicting scenes of native life. Although most of his paintings have been lost, some engravings were copied from the originals and published in 1591 by a Flemish company. Among these is a depiction of the burial of an aboriginal Floridian tribal chief, an occasion of great mourning and ceremony. The original caption reads:

Sometimes the deceased king of this province is buried with great solemnity, and his great cup from which he was accustomed to drink is placed on a tumulus with many arrows set about it. — Jacques le Moyne, 1560s” ref

“Maturin Le Petit, a Jesuit priest, met the Natchez people, as did Le Page du Pratz (1758), a French explorer. Both observed them in the area that today is known as Mississippi. The Natchez were devout worshippers of the sun. Having a population of some 4,000, they occupied at least nine villages and were presided over by a paramount chief, known as the Great Sun, who wielded absolute power. Both observers noted the high temple mounds that the Natchez had built so that the Great Sun could commune with God, the sun. His large residence was built atop the highest mound, from “which, every morning, he greeted the rising sun, invoking thanks and blowing tobacco smoke to the four cardinal directions.” ref

Mound Chronology

Archaic era

Main article: Archaic period in the Americas

“Radiocarbon dating has established the age of the earliest Archaic mound complex in southeastern Louisiana. One of the two Monte Sano Site mounds, excavated in 1967 before being destroyed for new construction at Baton Rouge, was dated at 6220 years ago (plus or minus 140 years). Researchers at the time thought that such hunter-gatherer societies were not organizationally capable of this type of construction. It has since been dated as about 6500 years ago, or 4500 BCE, although not all agree.” ref

“Watson Brake is located in the floodplain of the Ouachita River near Monroe in northern Louisiana. Securely dated to about 5,400 years ago (around 3500 BCE), in the Middle Archaic period, it consists of a formation of 11 mounds from 3 feet (0.91 m) to 25 feet (7.6 m) tall, connected by ridges to form an oval nearly 900 feet (270 m) across. In the Americas, the building of complex earthwork mounds started at an early date, well before the pyramids of Egypt were constructed. Watson Brake was being constructed nearly 2,000 years before the better-known Poverty Point, and the building continued for 500 years. Middle Archaic mound construction seems to have ceased about 2800 BCE. Scholars have not ascertained the reason, but it may have been because of changes in river patterns or other environmental factors.” ref

“With the 1990s dating of Watson Brake and similar complexes, scholars established that pre-agricultural, pre-ceramic American societies could organize to accomplish complex construction during extended periods, invalidating scholars’ traditional ideas of Archaic society. Watson Brake was built by a hunter-gatherer society, the people of which occupied this area only on a seasonal basis. Successive generations organized to build the complex mounds over 500 years. Their food consisted mostly of fish and deer, as well as available plants.” ref

“Poverty Point, built about 1500 BCE in what is now Louisiana, is a prominent example of Late Archaic mound-builder construction (around 2500 BCE – 1000 BCE). It is a striking complex of more than 1 square mile (2.6 km²), where six earthwork crescent ridges were built in concentric arrangement, interrupted by radial aisles. Three mounds are also part of the main complex, and evidence of residences extends for about 3 miles (4.8 km) along the bank of Bayou Macon. It is the major site among 100 associated with the Poverty Point culture and is one of the best-known early examples of earthwork monumental architecture. Unlike the localized societies during the Middle Archaic, this culture showed evidence of a wide trading network outside its area, which is one of its distinguishing characteristics.” ref

“Horr’s Island, Florida, now a gated community next to Marco Island, was excavated by Michael Russo in 1980. He found an Archaic Indian village site. Mound A was a burial mound that dated to 3400 BCE, making it the oldest known burial mound in North America.” ref

Woodland period

Mississippian Cultures

“Around 900–1450 CE, the Mississippian culture developed and spread through the Eastern United States, primarily along the river valleys. The largest regional center where the Mississippian culture was first definitely developed is located in Illinois along a tributary of the Mississippi and is referred to as Cahokia. It had several regional variants including the Middle Mississippian culture of Cahokia, the South Appalachian Mississippian variant at Moundville and Etowah, the Plaquemine Mississippian variant in south Louisiana and Mississippi, and the Caddoan Mississippian culture of northwestern Louisiana, eastern Texas, and southwestern Arkansas. Like the mound builders of the Ohio, these peoples built gigantic mounds as burial and ceremonial places.” ref

“Fort Ancient is the name for a Native American culture that flourished from 1000 to 1650 CE among a people who predominantly inhabited land along the Ohio River in areas of modern-day southern Ohio, northern Kentucky, and western West Virginia.” ref

“A continuation of the Coles Creek culture in the lower Mississippi River Valley in western Mississippi and eastern Louisiana. Examples include the Medora site in West Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana; and the Anna and Emerald Mound sites in Mississippi. Sites inhabited by Plaquemine peoples continued to be used as vacant ceremonial centers without large village areas much as their Coles Creek ancestors had done, although their layout began to show influences from Middle Mississippian peoples to the north. The Winterville and Holly Bluff (Lake George) sites in western Mississippi are good examples that exemplify this change of layout, but a continuation of site usage.” ref 

“During the Terminal Coles Creek period (1150 to 1250 CE), contact increased with Mississippian cultures centered upriver near the future St. Louis, Missouri. This resulted in the adaption of new pottery techniques, as well as new ceremonial objects and possibly new social patterns during the Plaquemine period. As more Mississippian cultural influences were absorbed, the Plaquemine area as a distinct culture began to shrink after CE 1350. Eventually, the last enclave of purely Plaquemine culture was the Natchez Bluffs area, while the Yazoo Basin and adjacent areas of Louisiana became a hybrid Plaquemine-Mississippi culture. This division was recorded by Europeans when they first arrived in the area. In the Natchez Bluffs area, the Taensa and Natchez people had held out against Mississippian influence and continued to use the same sites as their ancestors. The Plaquemine culture is considered directly ancestral to these historic period groups encountered by Europeans. Groups who appear to have absorbed more Mississippian influence were identified as those tribes speaking the Tunican, Chitimachan, and Muskogean languages.” ref

Disappearance

“Following the description by Jacques le Moyne in 1560, the mound-building cultures seem to have disappeared within the next century. However, there were also other European accounts, earlier than 1560, that give a first-hand description of the enormous earth-built mounds being constructed by Native Americans. One of them was Garcilaso de la Vega (c.1539–1616), a Spanish chronicler also known as “El Inca” because of his Incan mother. He was the record-keeper of the noted De Soto expedition that landed in present-day Florida on May 31, 1538. Garcilaso gave a first-hand description in his Historia de la Florida (published in 1605, Lisbon, as La Florida del Inca) describing how the Indians had built mounds and how the Native American mound cultures practiced their traditional way of life. De la Vega’s accounts also include vital details about the Native American tribes’ systems of government present in the southeast, tribal territories, and the construction of mounds and temples. A few French expeditions in the 1560s reported staying with Indian societies who had built mounds.” ref

Diseases

“Later explorers to the same regions, only a few decades after mound-building settlements had been reported, found the regions largely depopulated with its residents vanished and the mounds untended. Conflicts with Europeans were dismissed by historians as the major cause of population reduction since few clashes had occurred between the natives and the Europeans in the area during the same period. The most widely accepted explanation today is that new infectious diseases brought from the Old World, such as smallpox and influenza, had decimated most of the Native Americans from the last mound-builder civilization, as they had no immunity to such diseases.” ref

“The Fort Ancient culture of the Ohio River valley is considered a “sister culture” of the Mississippian horizon, or one of the “Mississippianised” cultures adjacent to the main area of the mound building cultures. This culture was also mostly extinct in the 17th century, but remnants may have survived into the first half of the 18th century. While this culture shows strong Mississippian influences, its bearers were most likely ethnolinguistically distinct from the Mississippians, possibly belonging to the Siouan phylum. The only tribal name associated with the Fort Ancient culture in the historical record is the Mosopelea, recorded by Jean-Baptiste-Louis Franquelin in 1684 as inhabiting eight villages north of the Ohio River.” ref

“The Mosopelea is most likely identical to the Ofo (Oufé, Offogoula) recorded in the same area in the 18th century. The Ofo language was formerly classified as Muskogean but is now recognized as an eccentric member of the Western Siouan phylum. The late survival of the Fort Ancient culture is suggested by the remarkable amount of European-made goods in the archaeological record. Such artifacts would have been acquired by trade even before direct European contact. These artifacts include brass and steel items, glassware, and melted down or broken goods reforged into new items. The Fort Ancient peoples are known to have been severely affected by disease in the 17th century (Beaver Wars period). Carbon dating seems to indicate that they were wiped out by successive waves of disease.” ref

Massacre and Revolt

“Because of the disappearance of the cultures by the end of the 17th century, the identification of the bearers of these cultures was an open question in 19th-century ethnography. Modern stratigraphic dating has established that the “Mound builders” have spanned an extended period of more than five millennia so that any ethnolinguistic continuity is unlikely. The spread of the Mississippian culture from the late 1st millennium CE most likely involved cultural assimilation, in archaeological terminology called “Mississippianised” cultures. 19th-century ethnography assumed that the Mound-builders were an ancient prehistoric race with no direct connection to the Southeastern Woodland peoples of the historical period who were encountered by Europeans. A reference to this idea appears in the poem “The Prairies” (1832) by William Cullen Bryant.” ref

“The cultural stage of the Southeastern Woodland natives encountered in the 18th and 19th centuries by British colonists was deemed incompatible with the comparatively advanced stone, metal, and clay artifacts of the archaeological record. The age of the earthworks was also partly over-estimated. Caleb Atwater‘s misunderstanding of stratigraphy caused him to significantly overestimate the age of the earthworks. In his book, Antiquities Discovered in the Western States (1820), Atwater claimed that “Indian remains” were always found right beneath the surface of the earth, while artifacts associated with the Mound Builders were found fairly deep in the ground. Atwater argued that they must be from a different group of people. The discovery of metal artifacts further convinced people that the Mound Builders were not identical to the Southeast Woodland Native Americans of the 18th century.” ref

“It is now thought that the most likely bearers of the Plaquemine culture, a late variant of the Mississippian culture, were ancestral to the related Natchez and Taensa peoples. The Natchez language is a language isolate. The Natchez are known to have historically occupied the Lower Mississippi Valley. They are first mentioned in French sources of around 1700, when they were centered around the Grand Village close to present-day Natchez, Mississippi. In 1729 the Natchez revolted and massacred the French colony of Fort Rosalie. The French retaliated by destroying all the Natchez villages. The remaining Natchez fled in scattered bands to live among the Chickasaw, Creek, and Cherokee people. They traveled with them on the trail of tears when federal Indian removal policies after 1830 forced the Native Americans out of the Southeast and west of the Mississippi River to Indian Territory (admitted in the early 20th century as the state of Oklahoma. The Natchez language became extinct in the 20th century, with the death in 1957 of the last known native speaker, Nancy Raven.” ref