Paths of the Mound-Building Indians and Great Game Animals

by Archer Butler Hulbert

Overview

Volume 1 of the series "Historic Highways of America". According to Wikipedia: "Archer Butler Hulbert (26 Jan 1873 – 24 Dec 1933), historical geographer, writer, and professor of American history... He was Vice-Principal of the Putnam Military Academy, Zanesville, Ohio, until 1897. Hulbert then did newspaper work in Korea in 1897 and '98: he was editor of the Korean Independent (Seoul) and edited Far East American newspapers... He was Professor of American History at Marietta College 1904-18. After Marietta College, Hulbert became a lecturer in American History at Clark University from 1918 to 1919. He also was a lecturer at the University of Chicago in 1904 and 1923; and he served as archivist for the Harvard Commission on Western History (1912-16). Hulbert's last position was at Colorado College, from 1920 until his death... Hulbert's interest in trails dated from fishing trips taken during his college, when he noticed Indian trails. This interest led at first to his 16 volumes of Historic Highways of America (1902-05)."

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781455431687
Publisher:	Seltzer Books
Publication date:	12/17/2017
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	1 MB

Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER II DISTRIBUTION OF MOUND-BUILDING INDIANS THE mounds of these first Americans of which we know are found between Oregon and the Wyoming valley, in Pennsylvania, and Onondaga county in New York; they extend from Manitoba in Canada to the Gulf of Mexico. The great seat of empire was in the drainage area of the Mississippi river; on this river and its tributaries were the heaviest mound-building populations. Few mounds are found east of the Alleghany mountains. In the Catalogue of Prehistoric Works East of the Rocky Mountains, issued by the Bureau of Ethnology of the Smithsonian Institution,5 the geographical extent and density of the mounds in central North America is brought out state by state with striking suggestiveness. While the layman is 6 Bulletin, 1891. warned that these maps '' present some features which are calculated to mislead," and that the maps indicate '' to some extent the more thoroughly explored areas rather than the true proportion of the ancient works in the different sections," still some conclusions have already been reached which future exploitation will never weaken. It is not expected that future investigation will change the verdict that the heaviest mound-building population found its seat near the Mississippi and Ohio rivers. '' There is little doubt,'' writes Dr. Thomas, "that when Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia have been thoroughly explored many localities will be added to those indicated . . . but it is not likely that the number will be found to equal those in the area drained by the Ohio and its affluents or in the immediate valley of the Mississippi."6 This fact, that the heaviest populations of the mound-building Indians seem to havebeen near the Mississippi and Ohio is, ofcourse, shown by the archaeological maps. ...