ANCIENT SOCIETY IN TENNESSEE 
THE MOUND BUILDERS WERE INDIANS 
1 ' 
By G. P. THRUSTON 
Magazine of American History for May, 1888 
A Paper read before the Tennessee Historical Society, at Nashville, December 19,1887 
PUBLISHED BY ORDER OF THE SOCIETY ANCIENT SOCIETY IN TENNESSEE 
THE MOUND BUILDERS WERE INDIANS 
The ancient stone-grave cemeteries of Middle Tennessee are most inter- 
esting memorials of aboriginal life in America. They are peculiar to this 
section. The dead were placed in rude tombs or cists made of flat stones 
carefully laid. Sometimes they were laid in three or four tiers, forming 
burial mounds that contain more than a hundred graves. The remains 
and memorials placed within them were thus sealed up and preserved. 
One of these aboriginal cemeteries, about five miles from Nashville, upon 
the waters of Brown's Creek, has recently been explored, in fact pillaged, 
and devastated by relic hunters and collectors. Notwithstanding its 
rough usage, it has yielded many rare and valuable specimens-some four 
or five hundred perfect pieces of ancient pottery, a number of them unique 
in form, and of such fine finish that they may be said to be almost glazed, 
cooking vessels, water jars, hanging vessels, drinking cups, ornamented 
and plain sets of ware, apparently for rich and poor and for the little chil- 
dren, basins, plates, and indeed an ample store for a well-supplied aborig- 
inal cuisine; also pipes, implements, and an infinite variety of articles illus- 
trating the domestic life of the ancient inhabitants of Tennessee. 
Among the treasures found are a number of articles indicating some 
commercial development, a pipe made of "red pipestone," or catlinite, 
found only in Dakota Territory, more than a thousand miles distant, 
native copper from the shores of Lake Superior, ornamented sea shells 
from the Gulf and South Atlantic coasts, mica from North Carolina, exqui- 
site polished implements of cannel coal, pearls from the southern rivers, 
implements of polished hematite from distant iron mines, and of steatite and 
quartz from the Allegheny range ; also a large number of images or idols, 
some of them doubtless types of the very features and lineaments of the 
prehistoric race buried in these graves-evidently the ancient Indian aris- 
tocracy of this section. 
No specimens of the kind of superior workmanship, or more distinctly 
outlining features and expression have been found, so far as I am informed, 
within the limits of the United States. In a child's grave in this ancient 
cemetery was also found a remarkable figure in clay nine inches long, 
intended to represent a little child or papoose tied to its hanging board, 
after the historical Indian style-a veritable little flathead. ANCIENT SOCIETY IN TENNESSEE 
375 
Favorite implements of war or the chase were found beside the hunter, 
with vessels of provisions probably intended to supply him on his journey 
to the land of the Great Spirit. Toys and unique little rattles of clay were 
found beside the children, placed there, doubtless, by the hands of the 
ever-loving mother. No state in the Union has yielded rarer treasures 
to the archaeologist or searcher among its antiquities than Tennessee. 
The Smithsonian Institution at Washington, and the Peabody Museum 
at Cambridge, Massachusetts, our two largest depositories of American 
antiquities, probably contain a greater number of specimens from Ten- 
nessee than from any other section. Other private and public collections 
have also been greatly enriched by contributions from Tennessee. A 
vast ancient population occupied the fertile valley of the Cumberland, 
and left monuments and memorials of exceeding interest. 
It is within the bounds of the truth to state that after more than a 
century of occupation by the whites, the burial grounds of its aboriginal 
inhabitants, within a radius of fifty miles from Nashville, contained the 
remains of a greater number of dead than the aggregate of the present 
cemeteries of the whites. 
The ancient cemetery on Brown's Creek referred to numbered not less 
than two or three thousand graves. Professor F. W. Putnam, of the Pea- 
body Museum, and his assistants have explored more than six thousand, 
the majority of them in this immediate section. Dr. Joseph Jones, a most 
intelligent investigator, examined a large number in some fifteen different 
cemeteries. Dr. Troost, the learned geologist of Tennessee, stated that 
"the ancient burial grounds on the banks of the Cumberland River oppo- 
site Nashville extended in 1844 more than a mile along the river," and 
there are still remaining, scattered here and there, within the central 
counties of Tennessee, hundreds of acres of unexplored aboriginal stone 
graves and burial mounds. They may be found along almost every water 
course and in most of the fertile valleys. Occasionally a large artificial 
mound springs up from the green sward or in some cultivated field, sur- 
rounded by lines of ancient earthworks, designating the site of a fortified 
town or village once inhabited by the stone-grave race. 
The recent explorations near Nashville have excited renewed interest 
in the subject of archaeology in Tennessee and elsewhere, and it is my 
purpose to consider briefly some of the questions suggested by these dis- 
coveries. 
There are a number of popular errors regarding the mounds and works 
of this ancient race, notions and ideas unnecessarily mysterious and 
exaggerated. Their characteristics and importance are often magnified,. 376 
ANCIENT SOCIETY IN TENNESSEE 
misunderstood, and wrongly interpreted. Ancient remains are generally 
overestimated by their discoverers-usually unlearned pioneers of inves- 
tigation. 
More patient and systematic research, a vast accumulation of valua- 
ble material, and a thorough analysis of facts and theories by competent 
authority, have finally unraveled nearly all the secrets of these works and 
graves, until their origin and the mysteries of their construction and of 
ancient domestic life in Tennessee-and indeed elsewhere in the Missis- 
sippi valley-represented by them, are nearly as well known as the life 
and history of the modern Indians. 
The conclusions reached (often unwillingly) as the result of these 
investigations in all departments of research, historic, ethnologic, and 
traditional, may be briefly stated as follows : 
ist.-The progress made by these ancient tribes in the direction of 
civilization or semi-civilization has been overestimated. The stone-grave 
race and the builders of the ancient mounds and earthworks in Tennessee 
and probably in the Mississippi valley were Indians, North American 
Indians, probably the ancestors of the southern red or copper-colored 
Indians found by the whites in this general section, a race formerly living 
under conditions of life somewhat different from that of the more nomadic 
hunting tribes of Indians, but not differing from them in the essential 
characteristics of the Indian race. 
2d.-The interesting collections of mounds, earthworks, and stone 
graves found in Tennessee and Southern Kentucky are simply the remains 
of ancient fortified towns, villages, and settlements, once inhabited by 
tribes of Indians more devoted to agriculture and more stationary in 
their habits than the hunting tribes generally known to the whites. 
3d.-No single implement or article of manufacture or earthwork or 
defensive work has been found among their remains indicating intelli- 
gence or advancement in civilization beyond that of other Indians having 
intercourse with the whites within the historic period. 
4th.-The accumulation of dense population in favored localities, and 
progress made toward civilization, were probably the results of periods of 
repose and peace that enabled these tribes to collect in more permanent 
habitations, and to pursue for a time more peaceful modes of life than 
some of their neighbors and successors. 
5th.-These periods of peace and advancement were probably suc- 
ceeded by years of wars, invasions, migrations, or changes which arrested 
the limited development in the arts of peace and civilization, and left the 
native tribes in the status in which they were found by the whites. ANCIENT SOCIETY IN TENNESSEE 
377 
These propositions I am satisfied can be successfully maintained, and 
will afford the most reasonable solution of archaeological problems long in 
controversy. 
If we could have been given a glimpse of the fair valley of the Cumber- 
land in 1492. the date of America's discovery, there can scarcely be a doubt 
but that we would have found many of these ancient settlements full of 
busy life, and we could have learned the story of the mounds and graves 
from some of their own builders ; but nearly three centuries elapsed before 
the pioneers of civilization reached the confines of Tennessee. It is true 
that, about fifty years after Columbus came, De Soto and his army (A.D. 
1540) brushed along its southern border, rudely startling the native inhab- 
itants; but they passed on across the great river and probably never came 
within the actual bounds of Tennessee. A hundred and thirty-two years 
then elapsed. In this long interval no European stepped within our 
limits so far as we know. In 1673 Marquette came in his shallow bark, 
floating down upon the broad waters of the Mississippi, its first white 
explorer. 
A few years later came that intrepid French discoverer La Salle, but 
he only looked upon the swamps and forests of the river margin. Nearly 
a century was yet to elapse before the hardy pioneers of Virginia and 
Carolina scaled the mountains and claimed a home in the valley of the 
Watauga, or Daniel Boone started on the " Wilderness trail " for the far 
West. 
In all these intervening years Tennessee, infolded in her ancient for- 
ests and mountain barriers - in her insulation remote from ocean, lake and 
gulf-was as unknown to the outer world as Central Africa. 
France claimed her territory by right of discovery as part of Louisiana 
and Illinois. Spain called her Florida and set up her right. England 
assumed sovereignty over her as part of Virginia and Carolina, but none 
of them took possession. 
Even her Indian claimants had to fight for their title. Vincennes in 
Indiana, Kaskaskia in Illinois, and New Orleans were founded. Texas and 
Missouri were colonized. Santa F6 in New Mexico, a thousand miles and 
more to the west, had become an old Spanish town ; yet Tennessee was 
still without name or description, save that it was marked on the New 
World maps as "the unexplored land of the Ancient Shawnees." 
These facts are stated to show how little history can tell us directly of 
Ancient Tennessee or of the stone-grave race, yet for nearly four hundred 
years, Spanish, French, and English travelers have published chronicles 
and manuscripts relating to the natives of the South Atlantic and Mexican 378 
ANCIENT SOCIETY IN TENNESSEE 
Gulf coasts, neighbors and allies of the tribes of the interior country, now- 
known as Tennessee, and presumably akin to them in race and manner of 
life. Ponce de Leon came to Florida in 1512. De Ayllon, another Span- 
iard, visited the coast of South Carolina in 1520, and again in 1524. An 
Italian discoverer, Verrazano, visited the coast of North Carolina in 1524. 
He reports that he found the natives primitive in their habits, uncivilized, 
and numbering a large population. Narvaez, who vainly attempted in 1 528 
to conquer the country then called Florida (embracing Tennessee), found 
there populous towns, well fortified, and surrounded by extensive fields of 
corn and maize. Volumes of narrative and manuscript have also been left 
us by the chroniclers of De Soto's expedition. 
About 1540 Cartierand Roberval, French pioneers of discovery, vis- 
ited Canada, then claimed by Spain as their Florida of the North. The 
French Huguenots came under Ribaut, and attempted to plant a colony 
on the Carolina coast in 1562, nearly fifty years prior to the Virginia set- 
tlement at Jamestown. 
Ribaut's published Journal describes in detail the character and habits 
of the natives on the coast and in the interior;-describes their villages, 
their agricultural habits, and their cultivated fields. Champlain and oth- 
ers gave faithful accounts of the Native Americans of the North. La 
Salle describes the natives of Arkansas and Texas as he found them in 
1673. Other early French and Spanish writers describe with much partic- 
ularity the habits, dress, and manners of the ancient tribes living on the 
Gulf coast. 
From these journals and manuscripts sometimes buried for centuries in 
the great libraries of Europe, we have reasonably faithful information as 
to the history, traditions, and mode of life of the ancient inhabitants of 
the territory adjacent to and surrounding Tennessee. 
The testimony of all, added to that of the Virginia and Puritan colo- 
nists, unite in establishing the fact, that all these native Americans, called 
by Columbus Indians, were alike in their main characteristics, a distinct 
race, peculiar to itself, without any well-defined or clearly traceable Old- 
World affinities or connections. 
The swarthy red or copper or olive complexion, the dark eyes, the 
coarse, straight black hair, the high cheek-bones, were common to all, from 
the St. Lawrence River to Texas. Their half-nakedness, their simple and 
primitive habits, the drudgery of the women, the generally aquiline nose, 
the absence or scantiness of beards, their love of smoking, of gay colors, 
painted faces, feathers, plumes, feasts, dances, were noted by all these 
writers, and clearly indicated the remarkable unity of the race-recalling ANCIENT SOCIETY IN TENNESSEE 
379 
the remark of Ulloa, the early Spanish governor of Louisiana-that " if 
we have seen one American, we have seen all, their color and make-up are 
so nearly alike." 
Their chiefs and principal men were found with similar characteristics 
-haughty, taciturn, self-willed, impatient of reproof, faithful friends, and 
implacable enemies. 
These early records, however, show no traces of an advanced civiliza- 
tion or of a superior race. They indicate that the southern tribes were 
generally gathered in villages, and were milder and more friendly in man- 
ner, and more devoted to agriculture than the tribes of the North and 
Northwest. A careful reading of the interesting though often unreliable 
Chronicles left us by De Soto's followers will, I think, give the best key to 
an understanding of town and village life in ancient Georgia, Alabama, 
Tennessee and Arkansas. (The antiquities and earthworks of these states 
are of the same general character.) 
The principal towns of the natives were found to be well fortified and 
are described as " walled towns." They were surrounded by palisades 
formed by the trunks of trees, plastered with clay and straw, and sur- 
mounted at intervals with towers. They had protected openings or gate- 
ways. They sometimes contained a population of several thousand inhab- 
itants. One town is mentioned containing six hundred houses. 
Some of the houses described were large enough to lodge a thousand 
or fifteen hundred people-great family or communal dwellings. 
The house of the cacique, or chief of the settlement or tribe, was often 
built upon an artificial mound or raised foundation of earth. Sometimes 
the houses of his retainers or family were erected upon the same elevation. 
The so-called temples, or altars of worship, were also built upon raised 
foundations or mounds. A mound or temple is described as the place of 
burial of a chieftain. The common houses or huts were built of poles or 
rude timber, were plastered with clay and straw, and thatched with bark 
and cane. A number of towns were environed by artificial ditches filled 
with water. The three original historic accounts of De Soto's expedition 
unite in confirming the characteristics of ancient town and village life in 
the territory through which his army passed.* 
* La Vega says: " The natives constructed artificial mounds of earth, the top of each being 
capable of containing from ten to twenty houses. Here resides the Cacique, his family and attend- 
ants. At the foot of this hill was a square according to the size of the village, around which were 
the houses of the leaders and most distinguished inhabitants. The rest of the people erected their 
wigwams as near to the dwelling of their chief as possible " " Conquest of Florida," Irving, pages 
129, 317, 241. According to La Vega, these mounds were about eighteen to twenty-five feet 
high. " Prehistoric Times," Lubbock, page 273. 380 
ANCIENT SOCIETY IN TENNESSEE 
A careful consideration of these features with a map in hand, showing 
the present appearance and condition of any one of the many groups of 
ancient earthworks in Middle Tennessee-a group on the Harpeth River, 
or the works near Lebanon, Tennessee, or in Sumner County, Tennessee- 
will readily indicate the striking similarity of these remains to the ancient 
fortified towns described, and, indeed, will be conclusive of the fact that 
these earthworks are simply the remains of towns and villages, similar to 
those through which De Soto and his army passed in 1540-41, and then 
found active with busy life. 
The long lines of earth that outlined the old walls with their well-se- 
GROUND PLAN OF FORTIFIED VILLAGE IN SUMNER COUNTY. 
lected openings and projections, the ditches, the raised foundation mound, 
or pyramid of the chief's house-perhaps the mound that supported the 
rude temple or altar of worship-the rows of graves or burial mounds of 
the ancient cemetery will still be found. Sometimes the outlines of the 
low circular platforms upon which the common houses or wigwams were 
placed may be seen, as in the Lebanon group. 
" The cacique's house stood near the shore upon a very high mound made by hand for 
strength."-"Gentlemen of Elvas." Historical Col. of La., Part II. page 123 ; see also Idem- 
Biedina, page 105. For description of fortified villages and walled towns, see "Gentlemen of 
Elvas." Historical Col. La., Part IL, pages 157, 158, 173 ; also La Vega, "Conquest of Florida," 
Irving, pages 261, 262. ANCIENT SOCIETY IN TENNESSEE 
381 
A ground plan of the group of mounds on the Rutherford farm in 
Sumner County, near Saundersville, Tennessee, as they now appear, will 
give a tolerably correct idea of one of these ancient fortified villages.* 
This work incloses about fourteen acres. The earth-lines and smaller 
mounds in the cultivated field are nearly obliterated, but in the woodland 
they are well preserved. The mound of the chief, or the mound of obser- 
vation near the centre, nearly twenty-six feet high, has still its flat top 
platform, its sharp outlines and steep sides. It is about 318 feet in cir- 
cumference and is entirely artificial, having been constructed of earth exca- 
vated near its base. The small elevations are burial mounds, with stone 
graves radiating from the centre. The next in size are probably house 
or wigwam mounds. They are circular in form, averaging about thirty 
feet in diameter, with the remains of burned clay or ancient fire hearths in 
the centre. At irregular intervals along the earth-lines in the woodland, 
angles of earth project about ten feet beyond the general line, indicating 
the location of towers or rude bastions in the stockade or wall line. Some 
of them were doubtless protected openings or gateways. In the burial 
mounds have been found many fine implements and vessels of pottery. 
The ancient earthworks near Lebanon, Tennessee, are of the same 
general character, f 
This is a good type of an ancient fortified or walled settlement. It 
contains about ten acres of land. The usual great mound is near the 
centre (A). A large number of the smaller elevations were found to be 
the remains of lodges or wigwams. When the earth was cleared away, 
hard, circular floors were disclosed with burned clay or ancient hearths in 
the centre, indicating that these habitations were similar in form to the 
circular lodges of many tribes of modern Indians, arranged for fires in the 
centre, and doubtless they had openings in the roof to let out the smoke. 
The fact that these houses or wigwams were irregularly scattered within 
the inclosures also establishes the primitive character of the settlement ; 
yet beneath the floors of these rude structures, and within the adjacent 
burial mounds, were found some of the finest specimens of pottery and 
ancient art yet discovered among the mounds, indicating that these villag- 
ers of the stone-grave race had reached a stage of development probably 
equal to that of any of the aboriginal inhabitants of the Mississippi valley. 
No pottery or pipes or implements have been found, within the more 
elaborate earthworks of the Ohio valley, in finish or workmanship superior 
* Surveyed by W. H. Edwards, Esq., and drawn by the writer. 
f Map reduced from Prof. F W. Putnam's plan in the nth Annual Report Peabody 
Museum, page 338. 382 
ANCIENT SOCIETY IN TENNESSEE 
to those taken from the graves and tumuli in Tennessee. The pottery 
found in Ohio is usually of ruder character than Southern pottery. 
It requires little effort of the imagination to picture Ancient Society 
in one of these settlements in Tennessee, to crown the long, lowlines of 
earth again with their strong palisades, to place the rude house of the 
chief upon its high pyramid overlooking the village and the far country, 
THE LEBANON GROUP. 
to repeople the council house, the family dwellings, humble and spacious 
hives of busy life, to replace the altar of the sun worshipers in its rude 
temple, to see the near-by burial mounds consecrated by the bones of their 
heroes, the gay colors of the warriors, the trappings of the hunters, the 
toiling of the women, the basket and cloth makers, the yelping throng of 
half-naked children and dogs, the medicine man with his herbs and 
kettles, the dealer in implements and vessels of stone, clay and shell, the ANCIENT SOCIETY IN TENNESSEE 
383 
trader, perhaps from a far country, with his wares and strings of shell 
money, the pipe maker, the flint chipper, the fisherman, all necessary 
features of ancient town and village life in the South as described by early 
writers in their account of the Southern Indians. 
Now, picture this town swept by the desolation of war or rudely pil- 
laged by the marauding soldiery of De Soto-picture it after the lapse of 
three centuries I 
Fire and decay have consumed its strong palisades, its great houses, 
and all that was left of wood. The raised foundations and pyramids of 
earth with their steep sides may have become commonplace hillocks. 
The dense forest has again spread over the scene. Giant trees are 
covering its graves and ditches. Time and probably the plowshare of 
the pioneer have almost obliterated the lines of the crumbled wall. 
You thus have the true story of ancient society in Tennessee and of 
the monuments and remains of the stone-grave race. 
The young oaks that sprung up on the mounds that De Soto left des- 
olate and unoccupied in 1541 would now be three hundred and forty- 
seven years old-old enough indeed to be lords of the forest. Most of 
the earthworks in Tennessee and the Mississippi valley doubtless date 
from a period anterior to the time of De Soto-probably centuries ante- 
rior. The testimony of his followers is given, however, to show their 
objects and uses, and to solve at least some of the apparent mysteries of 
their construction. 
The accounts left us by the historian of the Narvaez expedition into 
Florida in 1564 confirm these views. 
We learn from Dumont s memoirs also, that near the mouth of the 
Yazoo River in Mississippi were the villages of the Offogoulas and other 
Southern Indians built upon mounds artificially made.* 
Dumont also says the cabin of the chief of the Natchez Indians " was 
on an elevated mound." La Petit, a missionary among the Natchez 
Indians, mentions that "the residence of the great chief or 'brother of 
the Sun,' as he was called, was erected upon a mound of earth carried for 
that purpose." Du Pratz, the early historian of Louisiana, states that the 
house of the Great Sun of the Natchez stood upon a mound " about eight 
feet high, and twenty feet over on the surface," and that the temple of the 
priest was on a mound about the same height. + 
It is a matter of comparatively recent history that when the French 
and Choctaws defeated the Natchez Indians in Mississippi in 1730, the 
latter established themselves upon the Black River, where they erected 
* Hist. Collection La., Part 5, page 43. f Quoted by Dr. D. G. Brinton. 384 
ANCIENT SOCIETY IN TENNESSEE 
mounds and embankments for defense. These defenses covered an area 
of four hundred acres, and could still be seen as late as 1851.* 
The pyramids of earth raised by the Choctaws over their dead when 
collected together, as described by Bertram, who traveled among these 
Indians in 1777, are in the form of some of our Southern burial mounds, J 
James Adair, who lived among the Southern Indians forty years, and 
published his history of them in 1775, generally confirms these views. 
A large mound of earth was erected by the Osage Indians on the 
Osage River, in Missouri, during the present century, in honor of one of 
their dead chiefs. £ 
The earthworks of Western New York, long regarded as the unques- 
tioned remains of an ancient race of mound builders, were, after careful 
exploration, declared to be the remains of the stockade forts of the Iro- 
quois Indians, or their western neighbors, and of no great antiquity. § 
They are often exact counterparts of our fortified works in Tennessee. 
One of these stockade forts of the Iroquois is minutely described by 
Champlain, who attacked it in 1610. A familiar old print of this remark- 
able structure is given in the Documentary History of New York. || 
The lines of stockades, the ditches, the great houses inside, all recall 
some of the descriptions in the chronicles of De Soto, and show a marked 
similarity to our Tennessee remains. 
The Iroquois nearly three centuries ago had acquired a knowledge of 
military defense that the armies of the North and South had to learn during 
the late war by costly experience. La Salle tells us they built a rude fort 
of earth and timbers every night they encamped near the enemy. 
Cartier found the site of modern Montreal occupied by a strongly fort- 
ified Indian town in 1535. On approaching it, nothing could be seen but 
its high palisades. They were made of the trunks of trees set in triple 
rows. Transverse braces formed galleries between them to assist the 
defenders. Lewis and Clark describe the forts built by the Mandans and 
other Indians of the Northwest in 1805, with raised stockades, ditches 
and fortified gateways. Captain John Smith, the founder and historian of 
the first Virginia colony, writes that the Indians of Virginia had " paliza- 
dood towns." 
Bienville of Louisiana in 1735 attacked a Chickasaw village protected 
by a strong fort. He was repulsed, with heavy loss. The palisade wall was 
six feet thick, arranged with loopholes, covered with heavy timbers.* 
* Pickett's Alabama, Vol. I., page 166. 
f Bertram's Travels, pages 514, 515. 
J Ab. Mon. N. Y., Squier, page 107. 
§ Ibid., page 83. 
|| Vol. 3, page 15. 
If Hist. Memoirs La., Part 5, page no. ANCIENT SOCIETY IN TENNESSEE 
385 
The plan of the " Battle of the Horse Shoe," where the Creeks, protected 
by breastworks, fought General Andrew Jackson in 1814, indicates that 
these Indians possessed considerable knowledge of military defensive 
works. The original sketch drawn by the General is appended to his inter- 
esting report of the battle, made to Governor Blount of Tennessee.* 
General Jackson states in his Report that " Nature furnishes few situa- 
tions so eligible for defense, and barbarians never rendered one more 
secure by art. Across the neck of land which leads into it from the 
north, they had erected a breastwork of great compactness and strength, 
THE BATTLE OF HORSESHOE. 
from five to eight feet high, and prepared with double rows of portholes 
very artfully arranged. The figure of this wall manifested no less skill in 
the projectors of it than its construction. An army could not approach it 
without being exposed to a double and cross fire from the enemy who lay 
in security behind it." Surely no prehistoric defensive work could receive 
a higher compliment from higher military authority! 
These instances have been selected to show the knowledge of military 
defensive works possessed by the modern Indians. This knowledge was 
not inferior to that of the so-called mound builders. That the works of the 
* Traced by the writer from the original report in the possession of the Tennessee Historical 
Society at Nashville. 386 
ANCIENT SOCIETY IN TENNESSEE 
latter surpassed in magnitude all modern native earthworks does not neces- 
sarily indicate a higher order of intelligence, nor is there any deep mystery 
in their larger proportions. 
There is, indeed, a striking similarity in all these native works of 
defense, whether ancient or modern. I have visited a number of the great 
mounds of the Ohio valley. They are remarkable structures-monuments 
of labor and patience. 
Imagine a thousand Indians-women and children-men, also-with 
stone fort. 
Contents,54 A.3R.I3P. 
baskets of willow and skins, bearing on heads and shoulders the alluvial 
soil from the river side, to raise a mighty memorial to some great warrior, 
or to build a strong defensive work as a protection against a dreaded 
enemy, or a towering home for an honored chief, and it will not be diffi- 
cult to account for most of these large earthworks. 
I have seen the busy throng of a hundred or more Italian women and 
boys with baskets removing the earth that covered ancient Pompeii. The 
ashes of Vesuvius, nearly nineteen centuries old, buried the city twenty 
feet deep ; yet about one-half of the entire city has been uncovered and 
laid bare to the eyes of the travelers. Less than a tithe of this vast labor ANCIENT SOCIETY IN TENNESSEE 
387 
of removal would have erected the largest purely artificial mound in the 
Mississippi Valley. 
The highest of the great mounds of America, at Cahokia, Illinois, is 
but one-fifth of the height of the solid stone pyramid of Gizeh on the banks 
of the Nile ; and how insignificant does the largest system of native Ameri- 
can earthworks appear, when compared with a work of antiquity like the 
Chinese Wall, built long prior to the Christian era! 
There is an interesting ancient work near Manchester, Tennessee, 
called the " Stone Fort." It differs from the other aboriginal defensive 
works in Tennessee, in its partial construction of stone, yet upon examina- 
tion we find there is no masonry in it, no wall of stone. Large stones 
from the adjacent river were used with the earth in building in. Its position 
is well selected for defense, but it shows no greater skill in engineering than 
other Indian earthworks. It is similar in construction to a number of works 
in the Ohio valley.* 
INDIAN AGRICULTURE 
The large population necessary to have enabled the ancient tribes of 
our great river valleys to construct these works, has been given as a reason 
why they should not be attributed to the ancestors of the red Indians. It 
is argued that such population could only have been supported by a race 
devoted mainly to agriculture. It seems to have been presumed that the 
modern Indians knew little or nothing of the cultivation of land as a 
means of living, yet we find upon investigation that all the historic tribes 
were more or less devoted to agricultural pursuits. The Southern Indians, 
the Iroquois, the Ohio and Illinois tribes cultivated immense fields of 
maize or corn, especially during periods of repose and freedom from wars. 
The Choctaws, in their ancient home east of the Mississippi River, were 
called "a nation of farmers." 
Adair mentions a maize field of the Catawbas of South Carolina " seven 
leagues long," a field that would do credit to the prairie-farms of the 
West. Think of cultivating such a field with the rude wood and stone im- 
plements of the Indians ! 
The Plymouth Fathers were taught the art of planting and raising corn 
by the Indians. Drake tells us that King Philip, the great chief of the 
Pequots, "had a thousand acres of corn at Mount Hope." 
Henry Hudson, who sailed up the Hudson River in 1609, writes that 
he " found dried corn and beans enough in and about one house on the bank 
of the river to load three ships, besides what was growing in the field." 
* Slightly changed from plan in " Antiquities of Tennessee," Jones, p. 100. 388 
ANCIENT SOCIETY IN TENNESSEE 
General Anthony Wayne reported that he never saw such large maize 
fields as the Miami Indians cultivated. 
The granaries and caches of the natives furnished the soldiers and 
horses of De Soto their main supplies.* 
In his expedition against the Cherokees in 1779 General Shelby is said 
to have destroyed more than 20,OCX) bushels of corn. Hawkins tells us 
that to constitute a legal marriage among the Muskogees [Creeks] the man 
"must build a house, make his crop, and gather it in ; then make his hunt 
and bring home the meat ; that when all was put in possession of the wife, 
the ceremony was ended and the woman bound, and not till then." 
What better proof do we need of the ability of the Southern Indian 
to support himself by agriculture than the progress made by the tribes 
removed to the Indian Territory? 
The Creeks, the Cherokees, the Choctaws, the Chickasaws, have not only 
become "a nation of farmers," but are far advanced on the march toward 
civilization. 
Hominy, succotash and mush were evidently included in the regular 
aboriginal menu. 
Those instances of Indian success in agriculture might be multiplied 
indefinitely, t 
They clearly establish the fact that the advanced tribes of historic 
Indians had the ability to support the population necessary to the erection 
of even the greatest mounds. 
MOUNDS OF RECENT DATE 
We have, however, direct testimony that some of these mounds, long 
regarded as the exclusive work of an ancient and more civilized race, have 
been built by modern Indians since the period of European discovery. 
There are a number of instances, well authenticated, where articles 
certainly of modern European manufacture and origin, have been found 
in mounds, undistinguishable in general character from more ancient 
mounds. 
Col. C. C. Jones, in his " Antiquities of the Southern Indians," | reports 
at least one absolutely certain instance where " a portion of a rusty old- 
fashioned sword," evidently of European manufacture, was found in a 
* Hist. Col. La., Part 5, page 203. 
+ This subject is considered at length and with much force by Mr. Lucius Carr in " Mounds 
of Mississippi Valley," page 7. 
J " Antiquities of the Southern Indians," page 131. ANCIENT SOCIETY IN TENNESSEE 
389 
mound with decayed bones of a skeleton alongside of pottery, and a 
stone cell. Atwater, a well-known archaeologist, tells us of his discovery 
in an Ohio mound of articles of silver and iron of modern European 
origin. 
Prof. F. W. Putnam, in the 14th annual publication of the Peabody 
Museum, reports the discovery by Dr. Mack, in Florida, of glass beads and 
ornaments of silver, brass and iron, deeply imbedded and associated with 
pottery and stone implements of native manufacture, all found in a burial 
mound, and furnishing conclusive evidence that the Indians of Florida 
continued to build mounds over their dead after contact with the Euro- 
peans. 
The National Bureau of Ethnology also reports in detail similar dis- 
coveries in a number of mound explorations in Wisconsin, North Carolina, 
Illinois and Arkansas.* 
It has thus become a well-settled fact in American archaeology, that 
modern tribes of Indians have to some extent been builders of mounds 
within the historic period, and that it is not necessary to attribute our 
ancient remains in Tennessee to any other or more civilized race than the 
ancestors of our Southern Indians. 
ART IN ANCIENT TENNESSEE 
Passing from the mounds and earthworks to a consideration of the manu- 
factured articles or antiquities, images, implements, pottery, pipes, tablets 
and pictographs of the ancient inhabitants of Tennessee or the Mississippi 
valley as a test of their civilization or development, we find an interesting 
field of inquiry. 
The result may be summed up under two heads: 
First. Nothing has been found in mound or grave or elsewhere in Ten- 
nessee or the Mississippi valley, showing an advanced state of civilization 
or semi-civilization. No article has been found requiring in its manu- 
facture skill or intelligence beyond the capacity of the best representative 
tribes of modern Indians. 
Second. No antiquarian or archaeologist can distinguish the implements, 
pottery, pipes or inscriptions of the mound-building people from the same 
general character of articles manufactured by the more advanced tribes of 
modern Indians within the historic period. 
It seems strange that among the vast stores of material discovered in 
these mounds, graves and ancient habitations, no single article has been 
* Report Bureau Ethnology, 1882-83, page xxxii. 390 
ANCIENT SOCIETY IN TENNESSEE 
found indicating an advanced state of society. Rare and unique forms of 
stone, clay, bone, shell and copper ; mysterious objects whose exact uses we 
cannot always discover, beautiful implements, wrought with infinite labor 
and no little skill have been found in abundance; yet all indicate, or are 
consistent with, the theory of a comparatively rude and primitive state of 
society. 
No prehistoric implement, or article of iron, or evidence of manufac- 
tured iron, has been found, excepting objects made from the unmelted 
ores. Rude articles of native copper hammered into form and an occasional 
ornament of hammered silver have been discovered, but none of melted 
copper or bronze or silver. 
No writing or intelligible inscription indicating a written language 
or decipherable symbol language, no pictograph or tablet or inscription 
approaching the higher grades of hieroglyphic writing, no cloth or fabric 
except of coarse or rude manufacture, no piece of masonry or stone wall, 
or of architecture worthy of the name, or trace of burned brick wall, has 
been found. 
Utensils and objects of well-burned clay are found in Tennessee, Mis- 
souri, Arkansas and elsewhere, of varied, original and even artistic form, 
interesting mementos of ancient life, but they indicate no knowledge of 
the potter's wheel. They are without glaze, and are but comparatively 
rude conceptions, fashioned by the hand. 
The images or idols of stone found are rude, and belong to a low grade 
of sculpture. 
Indeed all the infinite variety of articles and antiquities found within 
the widely extended limits of the Mississippi valley, once occupied by a 
widely spread native population, after centuries of exploration, tell only 
the same story of primitive barbaric life, the life of the town, village, and 
hunting Indian. 
Obsidian from Mexico has been found in our ancient graves and 
mounds. Doubtless some other articles, images or tablets in clay or stone 
are of the same origin. The mound builders have been thus credited with 
the more skilled workmanship of the Mexican or Aztec; still, none of 
these articles indicate an advanced state of society. 
Again, when we come to draw the line separating the implements, 
images or hand-work of these prehistoric peoples from those of the mod- 
ern Indians, we find no certain test by which to classify or distinguish 
them. Neither skill in workmanship nor beauty of form can be relied 
upon as a test. I have in my collection a shelf of ancient pipes from the 
mounds and graves, and one of pipes made by modern Indians. No one ANCIENT SOCIETY IN TENNESSEE 
391 
can tell with entire certainty the antique from the modern, or whether 
one came from an ancient mound or from a modern Indian camp. 
The most exquisite piece of work of the whole number is a pipe of red 
pipestone 1 purchased in Dakota years ago from a chief of the Sioux tribe. 
The large gray stone pipe, once used by the great chief Tecumseh and 
owned by Col. Sam Morgan, of Nashville, does not differ from a num- 
ber of specimens found in the mounds of Tennessee and Georgia. 
Captain John Smith, in his quaint history of Virginia, describes the 
stone pipes, in which Powhatan and his " wild courtiers " smoked their 
tobacco-pipes like our antique western specimens, carved in the form of 
birds and animals, and as Smith says, " heavy enough to beat out one's 
brains." 
Hennepin and Marquette carried large stone pipes or calumets as 
symbols of peace and friendship in their voyages of discovery. Adair 
mentions that the Cherokees made beautiful stone pipes in imitation of 
birds and animals. Lieutenant Timberlake, who traveled among the Chero- 
kees in 1761, reports the same fact. We may thus be assured that it is 
not necessary to ascribe the large or quaint stone pipes found in Ten- 
nessee to any more ancient or civilized race than the modern Shawnee or 
Cherokee Indians. 
Flint implements and arrow-heads similar to our old field and mound 
flints have been made in quantities by the Indians up to a recent period. 
The highly polished discoidal stones, among the most beautiful and sym- 
metrical of the implements, Adair tells us, were used by the modern 
Southern Indians as gaming stones. 
No one who has seen the hand-work of even the degenerate Indians of 
to-day in Canada or the Northwest, has failed to observe that as a race 
they are naturally gifted with taste and dexterity in making useful and 
ornamental articles. 
The ancient people of the Mississippi valley left behind them no 
implements superior to the work of the Iroquois or the Cherokee. 
The finding of terra-cotta and earthenware of good quality in the 
graves and mounds of the Mississippi valley has been regarded as an 
indication of a superior race and of a higher civilization. Yet we find 
many tribes making and using the same general class of pottery within 
the historic period. The historian of De Soto's campaign declares that 
the pottery found in use by the natives of Arkansas and elsewhere equaled 
standard Spanish ware.* 
Le Moyne in 1564 contributes a number of illustrations of the forms of 
* Hist. Col. La. Part 2. p. 201. 392 
ANCIENT SOCIETY IN TENNESSEE 
pottery in use among the Southern Indians. Captain John Smith says, 
"the Indians of Virginia used pottery of clay made by the women." 
Lewis and Clark in 1805 found the Mandans and other natives of the 
Northwest using vessels of clay and stone. 
Marquette, the discoverer of the Mississippi, in his account of his visit 
to the Indians in Arkansas and Mississippi in 1673, writes that " they used 
in cooking large earthen pots, very curiously made, also large baked 
earthen plates, which they used for different purposes." * 
Adair and Lieutenant Timberlake both mention the use and manu- 
facture of pottery by the Cherokees. The former states that when he 
visited them-as late as 1774-they made "earthen pots containing from 
two to ten gallons, large pitchers to carry water, bowls, dishes, platters, 
basins, and a prodigious number of other vessels of such antiquated forms, 
as would be tedious to describe and impossible to name ; " a statement that 
certainly accurately describes the motley assortment of pottery found in 
our Tennessee mounds and graves, f 
The Natchez Indians were so skillful in making their " red-stained pot- 
tery," that Du Pratz, the historian of Louisiana, states that he had them 
make for him a set of plates for his table use. + 
Bertram states that the Indians of Alabama made and used utensils of 
earthenware when he visited them in 1777. § 
The ability of the mound-building tribes to make finely finished stone 
implements and vessels of hand-made earthenware cannot be regarded as 
indicating an advanced state of culture, although there is a wide-spread 
popular impression to the contrary. The most savage races have been 
able to make finely wrought weapons of war and of the chase. This 
resulted from a natural mechanical instinct, rather than from culture. 
Sir John Lubbock, in writing of the skill of certain savage tribes in 
making ornaments and weapons, says, " their appreciation of art is to be 
regarded rather as an ethnological characteristic, than as an indication of 
any particular stage of civilization." || 
The same learned author refers to the art of making pottery as " one 
* Hist. Col. La., Part 2, p. 295. 
f The writer has a large number of these forms in his collection varying in size from delicate 
little vessels an inch in diameter to pots holding twelve gallons. 
| The women make pots of an extraordinary size, jars with a medium-sized opening, bowls, 
two-pint bottles with long necks, pots or jugs for containing bear's oil, which hold as much as forty 
pints, and finally plates and dishes in the French fashion."-Du Pratz, Histoire de la Louisiane. 
Vol. IL, p. 279. 
§ " Bertram's Travels," ed. 1792, p. 511. 
|| " Prehistoric Times," Lubbock, p. 549, ANCIENT SOCIETY IN TENNESSEE 
393 
of the rude arts easily acquired by savages." He says the Hottentots 
and Fuegians, races grading very low in the scale of civilization, made 
and used pottery.* And Birch, in his work on " Ancient Pottery," states 
that " clay is a material so generally diffused, and its plastic nature so 
easily discovered, that the art of working it does not exceed the intelli- 
gence of the rudest savage." f Schoolcraft says the arts of planting corn 
and making pottery came together. J; 
These authorities make it clear that art had made but an humble start 
among the mound-building tribes, and had not advanced beyond the status 
of other savage races, or beyond that of the red Indian of America. 
It may also be stated that, in view of the manufacture and general use 
of pottery among the historic Southern Indians, there is no certain evi- 
dence that our Tennessee grave and mound pottery is of very great an- 
tiquity, or that it all antedates the visit of Marquette in 1673. 
It cannot be of much later date, however, for that is about the latest 
period of permanent Indian occupation. Leather thongs or strings not 
yet decayed were found in a stone grave near Nashville by Dr. Joseph 
Jones. § Professor F. W. Putnam found the fragment of a string in a stone 
grave on Fort Zollicoffer. || In both cases they were attached to copper 
ornaments, and thus probably preserved. 
The writer found in a stone grave in the same ancient cemetery on the 
bank of the Cumberland, a small, well-preserved, carved wooden wheel. A 
thin film of copper covering it had probably partly preserved it. In an 
adjoining stone grave was found a small but perfect specimen of pottery, 
indicating a contemporaneous burial. 
Fragments of wood not entirely decayed are also frequently found in 
the burial mounds of Tennessee. These indications point to the compara- 
tively recent origin of at least some of the graves and tumuli of the Cum- 
berland valley. Haywood, in his "Aboriginal History of Tennessee," 
states that in 1819 a white oak tree growing on the top of the "Stone 
Fort''near Manchester, Tennessee, was cut down, and contained 357 "an- 
nulars " or rings, 
This ancient landmark was therefore but 78 years old when De Soto 
landed on the coast of Florida. An elm tree about four feet in diameter 
is still standing on the earthwork near Lebanon. These trees indicate a 
very considerable age, yet there are familiar old elms at Salem and in the 
suburbs of Boston and elsewhere in New England-elms planted since the 
* " Prehistoric Times," pp. 551, 555. 
t Introduction, p. 1. 
\ Schoolcraft, Part I., p. 61. 
Vol XIX.-No. 5.-27 
§ " Antiquities in Tennessee," p. 45. 
|| nth An. Report Peabody Museum, p. 307. 
TT Ab. Hist. Tenn., p. 170. 394 
ANCIENT SOCIETY IN TENNESSEE 
advent of the Europeans-that fully equal in size the Lebanon elm, or the 
largest trees I have observed growing upon the ancient works. 
THE CRANIA OF THE STONE-GRAVE RACE. 
In the effort to discover the race or tribal affinities of our stone-grave 
builders ethnologists have made a careful study of physical structure, and 
especially of the crania found in the graves, but without any very definite 
or satisfactory results. They have not been able to trace radical or definite 
characteristics separating them from the modern Indians, or, indeed, any 
well-defined forms to distinguish them from the ancient Mexicans, or 
Pueblo builders of the far West. 
The Smithsonian Institution has published the results of Dr. Joseph 
Jones' faithful explorations and studies in this department.* 
The Peabody Museum has also published the very intelligent observa- 
tions of its assistant curator, Mr. Lucian Carr, upon some sixty-seven 
crania carefully taken from the stone graves and mounds of Middle Ten- 
nessee. Careful measurements are given, comparisons made, results classi- 
fied, but they do not indicate a distinct race or an advanced development. 
Long skulls and short (the high and low grades) have been found side 
by side in the same mound. Skulls, in their types and capacity almost as 
widely apart as the Negro and Caucasian, have been found in adjoining 
graves, indicating a very ancient admixture of tribes or races-an admixture 
so remote, in fact, that the science of craniology has not been able to dispel 
the confusion, or trace its origin, or the lines of descent that have united 
in forming the sharply defined Indian race of the Mississippi valley. 
Mr. Carr states that the crania from the stone graves of Tennessee, as 
a rule, indicate a higher order of intelligence than the ancient Peruvian, 
the native Australian, or the Hottentot; but he concludes with the obser- 
vation that it would be a vain effort to try to conjure up the vision of an 
extinct civilization by the study of these crania. 
A large number of clay images found in our stone graves and idols of 
stone from the mounds and ancient village sites have been examined with 
a desire to trace race characteristics in their faces or features, but they 
afford very unsatisfactory results. The types are so varied, and the native 
art so crude, that they must be generally regarded as accidental forms. I 
have, however, in my collection, at least one excellent specimen of as pure 
and well-defined a modern Indian type as the face and features of Sitting 
Bull or Black Hawk. 
* " Antiquities of Tennessee," Jones, p. no. ANCIENT SOCIETY IN TENNESSEE 
395 
A genuine red Indian was undoubtedly in the mind of the native artist 
or sat as the model for this unique image in clay. A few of the images 
also are so marked and individual in their expression that they seem to 
have been efforts at portraiture. The little clay papoose on its hanging 
board is certainly a modern red Indian type of the flat-head tribe. Thus, 
when the whole field is worked over, the conclusion must be reached 
that it has been a mistake to regard the mound builders as a distinct and 
advanced race. They were evidently the ancestors of the modern Indians, 
nothing more. This is the simplest solution of the problem as to their 
nationality. Any other theory regarding them must be mainly mere con- 
jecture. 
Col. C. C. Jones, eminent authority on this subject, writing of the 
earthworks of Georgia, which approximate in size the largest tumuli of the 
Ohio valley, states: " We do not concur in the opinion so often expressed, 
that the mound builders were a race distinct from, and superior in art, 
government, and religion to, the Southern Indians of the fifteenth and 
sixteenth centuries." * 
The late Lewis H. Morgan, a most original and learned ethnologist, in 
an article upon the houses of the aborigines of America, states: "It will 
be assumed that the tribes who constructed the earthworks of the Ohio 
valley were Indians. No other supposition is tenable. The implements 
and utensils found in the mounds indicate very plainly that they had 
attained to the middle status of barbarism. . . . They fairly belonged 
to the class of sedentary village Indians, though not in all respects of an 
equal grade of culture and development." t 
Major J. W. Powell, the Director of the National Bureau of Ethnology, 
has also given an opinion to the same effect. " With regard to the mounds 
so widely scattered between the two oceans," he states, "it may be said 
that mound-building tribes were known in the early history of discovery 
of this continent, and that vestiges of art discovered do not excel in any 
respect the arts of the Indian tribes known to history." 
Major Powell also quotes approvingly the opinion of W. H. Holmes, of 
the National Museum, relative to the pottery found in the mounds, that 
"there is no feature in it that cannot reasonably be attributed to the more 
advanced historic tribes of the valley where it is found." J 
And in an interesting article upon "Animal Carvings from the Mounds 
of the Mississippi Valley," Mr. H. W. Henshaw, of the National Museum, 
* " Antiquities of Southern Indians," Jones, p. 135. 
f Contributions to North Am. Ethnology, Vol. IV., pp. 198, 199 
| Report Bureau of Ethnology, No. 4, p. lix. 396 
ANCIENT SOCIETY IN TENNESSEE 
reaches the conclusion that " No hard or fast line can be drawn between 
the art of the Indian and of the mound builder."* 
Similar views upon this general subject are also held by Professor 
Putnam and Mr. Carr of the Peabody Museum,! and by Dr. Joseph Jones. 
Dr. D. G. Brinton, noted authority in this department of research, not 
only holds the same opinion, but specially designates the ancestors of the 
Chatta-Muskogee tribes as probably the original mound-building stock or 
family. This stock embraced the Choctaws, Chickasaws, the Natchez, and 
other allied tribes of Southern Indians. There is considerable evidence in 
support of Dr. Brinton's views. Within the historic period these tribes 
formed a nation of mound builders. The widely spread traditions of the 
Northern Indians also indicated that this ancient race was driven south- 
ward from the Ohio and upper Mississippi valleys. 
Many causes led the early settlers and writers to underrate the natural 
abilities and capacity of the Indian race. The tribes that wasted their 
numbers and strength in the vain effort to stay the mighty march of the 
western pioneers became more savage in this very frontier warfare. Re- 
venge and despair, the occasional violation of treaties, the destruction of 
their towns and crops, often led them to abandon the pursuit of agricul- 
ture. Contact with the whites upon the frontier also sowed the seeds of 
discord and degeneration. 
Thus, to the eyes and imagination of our pioneer settlers, the modern 
Indian appeared chiefly in his savage character-the type of a wild race of 
hunters and warriors. He could give to the whites only uncertain tradi- 
tions as to these strangely formed earthworks. He knew little or nothing 
of their history. He knew nothing of the uses of many of the stone 
implements and antique images. He shook his head mysteriously, and 
claimed they belonged to a strange and unknown race. 
The French trading explorers had come with their convenient wares of 
iron, brass and copper, and the rude pottery of the natives soon disap- 
peared from sight and was forgotten. Arrow points and implements of 
iron supplanted those of flint. 
Our Tennessee images and vessels of clay were fortunately preserved 
in the stone graves of our ancient cemeteries; the rest were generally lost 
and destroyed. Thus, many writers were led to draw a broad distinction 
between the race of mound builders and the modern Indians, and to mag- 
nify the works and intelligence of the former in contrast with the uncivil- 
* Report Bureau of Ethnology, No. 2, p. 165. 
f See summary of authorities cited by Lucian Carr. Mounds of Mississippi Valley. Memoirs 
of Ky. Geological Survey, Vol. 2, 1883. ANCIENT SOCIETY IN TENNESSEE 
397 
ized condition of the latter. Modern investigation has broken down 
these theories, and greatly lessened this contrast. The deeper the subject 
is probed, the more closely they are found to be related, until we are 
forced to the conclusion that there is no other theory so simple and 
rational as that which assigns the mound builders a place in history as the 
ancestors of the advanced tribes of modern Southern Indians. 
The systems of earthworks and tumuli in Tennessee and the States 
adjacent must be regarded as clearly presenting most of the characteristic 
features of the mound builder's structures. They offer a fair test of the 
question at issue. No higher grades or forms of pottery, or more elabo- 
rately wrought implements, or articles showing more commercial develop- 
ment have been found elsewhere in the Mississippi valley.* 
Prof. Putnam with his archaeological spade has recently penetrated the 
inmost recesses of elaborate mounds and ancient cemeteries in Ohio, and 
Wm. McAdams and A. J. Conant have explored hundreds of graves in 
Illinois and Missouri without discovering anything superior to the arts of 
the primitive tribes who built the earthworks in Tennessee. 
There are features common to all the works of the mound-building 
tribes. The differences are not sufficiently radical to make it necessary to 
attribute them to different races. There are also many traces of kinship 
connecting these tribes with the ancient pyramid builders of Mexico and 
the Pueblo builders of the far West. 
Doubtless some offshoot of the ancient Mongol race or races, who built 
up the first semblance of civilization upon the banks of the Gila and Colo- 
rado, then found their way to the valley of Mexico-doubtless some off- 
shoot finally pushed across the wide plains to the eastward and colo- 
nized the Mississippi valley. Waves of immigration may have followed. 
The date was too remote for chronology. Centuries of time, migrations, 
changes, wars, extinctions, absorption must have succeeded. 
The nomadic tribes of the plains, the more sedentary or village Indians 
of the South, their industrious kindred of the Ohio valley, were probably 
each the progeny of this ancient race, under different conditions or stages 
of development. 
The special influences that caused certain branches of the family stock 
to adopt the semi-agricultural state, and others the hunter state, may 
readily be imagined ; nor is it difficult to account for their military or 
defensive works, simple or elaborate, wherever they exist. 
The particular development, religious or social rites, the semblance of 
* Characteristic tumuli exist in all sections of Tennessee, sometimes rising to the height of 60 
or 70 feet, but I have specially considered only those that have come under my observation. 398 
ANCIENT SOCIETY IN TENNESSEE 
culture, that led to the construction of the so-called effigy or figure mounds 
of Wisconsin and Ohio, and the groups of exact forms, circles, squares, the 
systems of terraced pyramids of the Ohio valley and of the South, offer 
some minor problems more difficult of solution, yet these enigmas are 
being unraveled. The effigy work seems a natural outgrowth of the 
religious rites and superstitions of the Indian race, and Mr. Lewis H. 
Morgan in an elaborate treatise has offered a most reasonable explanation 
of the peculiar features of the Ohio structures. 
Consider the influence of a century of peace upon tribes of Indians like 
the Natchez, the Shawnees or the Iroquois. Peace and agriculture in a 
fertile territory would naturally have enabled them to produce all the 
spurs of development represented by these remains. Consider the effect 
of a succeeding century of wars, invasions, pestilence, famine, and we have 
the key to the apparent decadence of the North American Indians. 
These vicissitudes have marked the pathway of the most civilized na- 
tions. 
Conquest and progress followed by degeneration and decay is the les- 
son of history. There is no mystery in the disappearance of some of the 
mound-building aborigines. Scores of tribes have become extinct during 
the last three centuries. An Indian trail is now almost unknown even on 
the plains of the far West. 
The Mandans of the Northwest, a modern tribe, lived in dwellings very 
similar in character to those of our stone-grave race. Catlin describes one 
of their villages, in the bend of a river, protected by a solid stockade and 
ditch. It resembled in other respects one of our ancient fortified villages 
in Tennessee. 
They burned in kilns an excellent variety of pottery. They played the 
game of " Chungke " with discoidal stones like the Southern Indians a 
century and more ago. They were once a strong tribe, yet under the 
unrelenting persecutions of the Sioux tribes they have become nearly 
extinct.* Here doubtless is an epitome of the life and fate of some of the 
mound-building tribes. There has been a great deal of sentimental rub- 
bish written on this subject about " vanished races of high culture akin to 
the Aztecs and the Incas." It is better to face the simple truth even at 
the expense of sentiment. 
I have personally assisted in exploring many mounds and stone graves. 
I have also carefully examined a large number of collections and Museums 
of American Archaeology. The result is disappointing to any one search- 
ing for evidences of ancient civilization among the remains of the Missis- 
*" Mound Builders." Force, p. 76. ANCIENT SOCIETY IN TENNESSEE 
399 
sippi valley. He will find only the remains of ancient barbarism. There 
has been no exception. 
I have also had the pleasure of witnessing excavations, made under 
official authority, in the ruins of the ancient cities of Southern Italy-in- 
deed have been permitted to assist in them. I have seen a number of 
articles lifted into daylight from their original bed in the ashes and cinders 
of Pompeii-an Etruscan vase, a kitchen ladle of copper inlaid with silver, 
a lock and key and other humbler antiques, but all showing the high state 
of civilization that existed in ancient Italy. I could not help thinking of 
the contrast between the antiquities of Europe and America, a contrast 
scarcely less striking, though the explorer prosecutes his labors among the 
most noted remains of Central America or Mexico. 
History and tradition tell us that the ancient tribe of Natchez Indians 
probably occupied the fertile valleys of the Cumberland and Tennessee 
rivers at the dawn of European discovery. The Creek confederacy was 
subsequently founded upon the ruins of the Natchez. Later the Shawnees 
from the far Sewanee, or Shawnee River of Florida and from the Savannah 
in Georgia became the conquerors of the land now called Tennessee. An 
ancient Shawnee village was built upon the present site of Nashville. 
They were a fine type of the native American-Hie tribe later of Logan 
and Tecumseh. 
For a century or more they held sway. Their domain extended from 
the Ohio to the Tennessee River, but these fair possessions were the con- 
stant envy of their neighbors. They were never at peace. No wonder 
their ancient homes upon the Cumberland were fortified like the walled 
towns of feudal Europe! Each settlement probably had its castle of secur- 
ity. The Iroquois on the north pressed them, through years of unre- 
lenting hate. The Chickasaws and Choctaws preyed upon them from the 
south ; the Cherokees from the southeast. 
The Shawnees were finally overwhelmed and scattered. They fled 
beyond the Ohio. Their towns and villages were desolated and left in 
ashes. 
They occasionally stole back to their ruined homes in the land of their 
fathers. The Iroquois, their ancient enemies, sometimes hunted the 
Cherokees even to the banks of the Tennessee, yet no claimant dared to 
build a permanent home in all this fair territory, and for sixty years or 
more prior to its first settlement by the whites Tennessee was an unin- 
habited wilderness. The trees grew still larger upon its mounds and 
earthworks, and its maize fields again became a forest. President Har- 
rison, an eminent antiquarian in his day, tells us in a paper relating to the 400 
ANCIENT SOCIETY IN TENNESSEE 
history of the Indians that even " the beautiful Ohio rolled its amber 
tide until it paid tribute to the Father of Waters, through an unbroken 
solitude for nearly a century." 
What an Eldorado was buried in this deep wilderness 1 An Eldorado 
not of gold, but of nature's better riches ! No wonder that its pioneer 
discoverers called it the Garden of Eden, and the Land of Promise be- 
yond the Mountains! No wonder that the Cherokees from the mountains 
on the east looked down along the bright silver ribbon of the Tennessee 
upon the immigrants' floating barge, and tried to stay its coming, or 
lay in ambush along the narrow " Wilderness Trail " ! 
Here we take leave of " Ancient Tennessee." We have come out of 
prehistoric shadows into the light of history. What a mighty change has 
been wrought by a century of civilization ! 
4. (P