Mound Builders of Ancient America: The Archaeology of a Myth

By Robert Silverberg

Book Overview

Our forebears, finding large, incomprehensible earthworks scattered down the Mississippi Valley, refused to believe they were built by the aborigines who still cluttered up the place and impeded settlement. Mr. Silverberg describes, with gleeful and copious quotation, the nineteenth-century literature of speculation which attributed these monuments to the Phoenicians, stray Vikings, the lost tribes of Israel, refugees from Atlantis, an extinct race of giants, and Welshmen. The book, which is charmingly written, ends with a history of the archeological work which gave the mounds back to the Indians. -- The Atlantic Monthly

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0821408402
• ISBN13: 9780821408407
• Release Date: April 1986
• Publisher: Ohio Univ Pr
• Length: 369 Pages
• Weight: 2.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 10.0" x 7.0"

Customer Reviews

Great Archaeology On The Moundbuilders

This book is good treatment on one the most interesting early cultures found within the United States. Why was this culture so interesting? Well, the were able to build mounds than enabled them to do very advanced things during the equinoxes. The also engaged in very significant trade when the possessed no what of moving goods quickly. The author recounts all of this in very good detail and never leaves you wishing you would die from boredom. I would recommend this book to anyone interesting in a culture that has been obscured within the American mind.

Amazing!

1. The Adena, Hopewell, Caddoan, Oneota sites are pyramids, cones, hillocks, terraced plate-forms, and animal shapes. 2. Prehistoric America had more pyramids than Egypt. 3. The earthworks displayed superior knowledge to hunter tribes of North America. Skill in pottery exceeded Native Indian pottery in sophistication and finish. 4. Cyrus Thomas explored 2,000 Mound Builder mounds in 24 states and collected 40,000 artifacts, in a four-year period of time. 5. The Adena people smoked pipes. 6. The Wilmington Table is 4 by 5 inches used for tattooing. There are 14 tablets in existence. 7. The Hopewell created mounds with mathematical and precise geometries, plazas, and avenues that sometimes extended for miles. The Hopewell practiced mound building in Southern Ohio. Three fourths of the burials were cremated. 8. A 100,000 fresh water pearls were discovered in Hopewell mounds. The pearls came from mussels found in the Ohio River. Questions What is the chronology of Mound Builders, Adena, Hopewell? * Mound People: 3000 BCE to the 16th century * Adena culture: 1000 BC to 200 BC migration from Mexico * Hopewell Indians: 200 BCE to 500 CE What are the Thirteen Adena tablets? * Wilmington Tablet, found at Clinton County, Ohio. Avian creature in mirror negative reflex. * Gaitskill Clay Tablet, found at Montgomery County, Kentucky. Avian figure with join dots in four "world" quarters composition. * Gaitskill Stone Tablet, found at Montgomery County, Kentucky. Tarantula figure with mirror face feature. * Mm6 Wright Tablet, found at Montgomery County, Kentucky. Five separate figures: raptorial bird, serpentine horizontal body, winglike serpentine, serpentine leg and missing wing. * Berlin Tablet, found at Vinton County, Ohio. Bow-tie-shaped thick plate obverse face with incised abstract bird. * Cincinnati Tablet, found at Mound Street, Cincinnati, Ohio. Faces, wing, claws, body and tail. * Kiefer Tablet, found at Miami County, Ohio. It is covered with figures, two claw feet, and complete tail. May represent a bird's tail. * Lakin A Tablet, found at Mason County, West Virginia. Depict six separate figures: human head, heads of raptorial bird, human hands, elaborate leg, tail, arms and claws. * Lakin B Tablet, found at Mason County, West Virginia. Depict 8 distinct units: human face, serpentine figure, raptorial tail, 7 loops. * Low 1 Tablet, found at Wood County, West Virginia. Two human full-front faces and bird forms in mirror image. * Meigs Tablet, found at Meigs County, Ohio. Obverse covered with figures, reverse with eight grooves. Two heads, two wings, two claw feet, two tail portions, and two sided body. * Allen Tablet, found at Miegs County, Ohio. Phallic and Vulva figures in six concentric circles, arranged in two rows of three, explicit of procreation and ancestry. * Waverly-Hurst Tablet, found at Pike County, Ohio. Engraved side depicts five separate raptorial and serpentine figures very much like in the Wright Tablet. Did the Hopewell

The Best Mound Builder Resource

Silverberg reviews the history of the mound builders from the beginning, including all of the debates, controversies and bizarre fantasies that arose around the mounds. Mormans hate this book because it shows how their beliefs were based on fantasies. It sounds like some of their reviewers never read this book. It is sad that so many mounds have been lost and destroyed, they showed that that Indians weren't hapless primitives. Just as sad is the Mormon revisionists holding on to outlandish and unsupportable theories.

The Mound Builders

I grew up in Newark, Ohio, almost "next door" to the great circle mound in what has become Moundbuilders Park. My cousins lived near the Octagon mound, and we played there often even though, due to its status as a private country club golf course, it was located on PRIVATE PROPERTY. Moundbuilders park was the scene of countless family picnics, and a walk around the big mound was always the high point of the day for a little kid. So the mounds were very much a part of my every day life. Yet I knew very little about them, or about the people who created them. Last week I ran across a battered paperback edition of Silverberg's book at a local used bookstore. He has woven together a great story, dealing not only with the people who created the mounds, but also with the ways in which European civilization has attempted to understand and interpret them. I was especially interested in his account of the inherent tension between the fascination and mythology surrounding the mounds in 19th century America and the genocidal policies which were being simultaneously pursued against the American Indian. Silverberg lets the facts speak for themselves without falling into the swamp of political correctness.In describing the efforts of various 19th century American archeologists and anthropologists to explore and explain the mounds, Silverberg also depicts an intellectual style which is as extinct as the Moundbuilders themselves. Dedicated "amateur" scientists, including politicans such as Jefferson and WH Harrison, made meaningful contributions to the effort to explore and understand the mounds and the culture which produced them. What contemporary political figure has the intellectual spirit or temperment to make a similar contribution? (The only thing that comes close, I guess, is Al Gore's invention of the Internet.) Sadly, the advancement of learning has been relegated to the professionals and academics. The Renaissance person is no more -- and we are all diminished.It's beutiful in Ohio in October, and with the "new eyes" provided by Silverberg I'm taking a car trip to explore several of the sites which do remain.