Mound Building Cultures - Assignment Example

Running head: Mound Building Cultures Basic cultural features and evolution of the mound builders cultures of eastern and north America Mound Builders, in North American archaeology, is term given to those people who built mounds in the great area from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico and from the Mississippi River to the Appalachian Mts. Most concentrations of mounds are found in the Mississippi and Ohio valleys. The expression "Mound Builders" arose when the source of the monuments was considered mysterious. Most European Americans presumed that the Native Americans were too uncivilized for this accomplishment. Mound builders constructed various styles of earth mounds. These prehistoric mounds had a wide variety of structures and accomplished a range of functions. Many of them served as residential enclosures, burial mounds, individual or collective funerary monuments. Others were used as temple mounds, platforms for religious structures Burial mounds were especially dominant during the Middle Woodland period (c.100 B.C.-A.D. 400), while temple mounds predominated during the Mississippian period (after A.D. 1000) (Morgan 284). The various civilizations that carried out this activity included: The Archaic culture, The Adena and Hopewell cultures (during the woodland period) and The Mississippian cultures According to Price pg33, archaeological investigations indicate the mounds of North America were built over a long period of time by very different types of societies, ranging from mobile hunter-gatherers to sedentary farmers. The indigenous people practicing this trade lived around the great lakes region, the Ohio River region and the Mississippi river region. Their culture dates back from 3000 BC to the 16thCentury this means that earthwork mounds were in existence even before the pyramids were built in Egypt. From archaeological and anthropological studies, it is still unknown whether mound building communities were the indigenous people of the Americans. “It should be known that the Mound Builders were not from a single tribe. Instead, there were many groups living from the Gulf of Mexico to the Ohio River Valley and the Mississippi River (Price 38).” The mounds, half-rounded structures that rose from the earth, could serve several functions. Effigy mounds were semi-animal figured mounds. These might have been sites for worship or for burials. Other mounds looked like flat-topped pyramids and could have been used for religious rituals. Certain types of mounds are still in existence and date back to 2500 BC and there’s strong evidence suggesting the advancement of these cultures to other communities. However these tribes faded, and its hard determine which tribes could currently claim descendancy from different areas where mounds still exist or may have existed. Each group of Mound Builders would have had its own set of spiritual practices and cultural standards, and that these might have varied significantly from the practices of other groups. Mound Builders were not a harmonized people but many different groups of people with advanced culture. The Mississippian culture This culture developed around 700 A.D. It was developed by a population of farmers who practiced agricultural farming planting crops such as corn, beans and squash. They also hunted using bows and arrows the early urban capital of this civilization was a centre called Cahokia which is near present day St Louis. The largest of the Mississippian Mounds was found at this location. The centre is estimated to have had about 40,000 people. Cahokia more than 100 mounds. Some were conical to bury their dead. Some were platform mounds for homes of the chiefs.This population consisted of around twenty thousand people who later spread east, south, and north. In the southeast United States, lived many different mound-builder peoples, descendants of the great Mississippian culture. The mound-building tradition was still existent in the southeast during the mid-sixteenth century. People resided in fortified towns with raised mounds and plazas, many of the mounds served as foundations for priestly temples. Special mounds constructed in this territory served as the burial places for nobles (Morgan 289). In the Mississippian age (after A.D. 1000), maize agriculture spread throughout the East. Populations grew and became increasingly sedentary. Several large ceremonial centers with temple mounds appeared all over the South, especially in the Mississippi Valley. Mississippian societies are thought to have consisted of complex chiefdoms, the most hierarchical form of political organization to emerge in aboriginal North America. The woodland culture The Archaic age was followed by the Woodland period (1000 BC). Some examples were the Adena and Hopewell cultures of Ohio and nearby states. The subsequent Hopewell culture built monuments from Illinois to Ohio and was renowned for its geometric earthworks. This culture flourished from 200 BC–500 AD, majorly in the Illinois and Ohio River valleys. The people at the time built earthen mounds for enclosure, burial, religious rites, and defense. Villages lay along rivers and streams. The inhabitants were agricultural farmers but still relied upon hunting and gathering. They created pottery and also in metalwork. During the Woodland period (500 B.C.-. 1000 A.D), hunting and gathering was merged with a set subsistence farming. Crops grown included domesticated native agricultural plants (sunflower, goosefoot, erect knot weed, and may grass) to bring about increased population densities. The Middle Woodland period (200 B.C.-A.D. 400) saw the construction of complex earthworks from the Great Lakes to the Gulf Coast. Huge dome-shaped mounds appeared throughout the Ohio and Tennessee River valleys, some in the shape of animal figures. Some effigy mounds were created in the shapes or outlines of culturally significant animals. The most famous effigy mound, Serpent Mound in southern Ohio, is 5 feet (1.5 m) tall, 20 feet (6 m) wide, over 1,330 feet (405 m) long, and shaped as an undulating serpent (Morgan 292). In the woodland culture, centered in Ohio and Illinois, earthen geometric enclosures defined areas ranging from 2.5 to 120 acres (1 to 50 hectares), and some mounds reached 65 ft (20 m) in elevation. Mica, ceramic, shell, pipestone, and other goods were traded over a vast area, indicating the growth of a system of broadly shared religious beliefs but not overall political unity. The mound builders included many various tribal groups and chiefdoms, involving a collection of beliefs and unique cultures. The general relationships included sharing their architectural practice of mound construction. This practice, believed to be linked with cosmology that had a cross-cultural appeal and may indicate common cultural antecedents. Archeological Evidence suggests Middle and Late Woodland communities were distinguished by a system of social rank. Particular kin groups were believed to have had high social prestige, differential access to special commodities, and control over positions of political leadership. Mississippian period mound sites mark centers of social and political authority. They are indicators of a way of life more complex than that of the woodland and earlier periods. In contrast to the simple, egalitarian tribal organization of many societies of the woodland period, regional Mississippian populations were characteristically organized into chiefdoms, territorial groups with hereditary and elite leadership classes. Across the southeast, the chiefdom system of political organization came into being as a means of managing increased social complexity caused by steady population growth. In the Late Woodland period (A.D. 400-1000), burial mounds dwindled in frequency, and the elaborate burial goods of the woodland culture largely disappeared. Mound construction was once again in decline by the time the first Europeans came to this region in the 1500s. Shortly thereafter, epidemic diseases introduced by early European explorers devastated native populations across the Southeast, causing catastrophic societal disruption. As a result, by the time sustained contact with European colonists began about 1700 A.D., the long tradition of mound building had nearly ended. Burial mounds were common during the Middle Woodland period (c.100 B.C.-A.D. 400), whereas temple mounds predominated during the Mississippian period (after A.D. 1000). The lost race All through most of the nineteenth century, it was believed that the tens of thousands of earthen mounds that were constructed throughout central United States were engineering feats developed by a mysterious lost race. A race that had been wiped out by the less civilized Indians (Silverberg 389). From the mid-nineteenth century explorations of curious citizens, to contemporary archaeological research in the Illinois River Valley. It is known that there were at least two major mound-building cultures: the Hopewell, which flourished between 300 B.C. and 300 A.D., and the Mississippian, which peaked around 1200 A.D. Silverberg agrees that the fact of their existence is widely in acknowledged nevertheless the only evidence of the existence of this race is the buried artifacts, and skeleton remains of a race of human beings who passed away, possibly hundreds of years before the arrival of the white man on the American continent (295). Scholars had a curiosity to find out more therefore they embarked on an effort to solve the mystery of the ancient people and their works. From the great number and variety of stone implements found across the states questions were being asked and archaeologists were trying to determine which sections were favorite localities of that peculiar race. The only lead they had was a careful, study of the implements and works they have left behind them. Even more puzzling is where this community obtained such skill very early on. The most noted scientists of two continents (Americas and Europe) are still questioning the origin of this population since the existence of these "works of human hands" was first determined. However all the theories on the mound builders still do not shade a light on the darkness as to the origin, mission and final destiny of the Mound builders. Judging by the works they have left behind these people present the impression of being highly civilized yet apart from their rude art of mound building knowledge of the character and lives of the race are few leaving scientist imagining. Many scholars have tried to link the Mound builders with some ancient and far distant race of civilized mankind. Perhaps the best proof to sustain this theory and also to establish the great antiquity of these mysterious earth-works, has been obtained in the mammoth mound at Moundsville. Relative to the age of the mound little is known about it. Even conjecture cannot point to the period when the mammoth mound was erected by a by-gone people. Certainly it is thought by some to be that the mound was erected by a prehistoric race that was very alike to the Egyptians. They were probably ruled by some monarch who had sufficient control to combine vast numbers of them in this huge undertaking. One of the skeletons dug up was surrounded by 650 ivory heads and an ivory ornament about six inches in length, speculatively scholars concluded that this was a ruler since history does not record whose silent tomb this was. (Price 44) Probably the most interesting artifact obtained from a mound in 1838 was a stone engraved in unknown characters that were similar to those used by the Scandinavian priests before the introduction of the Roman alphabet. It has attracted more attention from archaeologist at home and abroad than any other relic of the vanished race found in America. The characters are considered to be of European origin, and if this be true, it verifies that other Europeans visited America before Christopher Columbus. Powell, the antiquarian, concerning the stone and its inscription, says: "Four of the characters correspond to the ancient Greek”. Recognizing the merit of this work, the Smithsonian Institution at Washington, D. C. has continued to research and write publications original relating to this subject. Renowned authorities are as widely at variance regarding their antiquity as they are concerning their origin and purpose. The questions asked by scholars include: were the mound builders the predecessors of the native American Indians or were they related in blood or culture. Were the Indians the builders of these mounds? Were they the descendants of the builders? This doubt is justified by the presence of varied structures attributed to the Mound builders. Famous archaeological work on the ancient monuments of the Mississippi valley makes no distinction in these remains, between the earth-works of western New York which are of purely Indian origin, and those found in southern Ohio. Further studies have found that no relations can be drawn between the two. Some scholars have disagreed on the existence of a mythical population of an unknown civilization that is referred to as the ‘lost race’, this seems far-fetched and defies logic. They assert that the simple explanation would be that the native Indians were infact the mound builders whom the whites met on arrival from Europe. Bibliography "Mound Builders." The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2008. Encyclopedia.com. 13 Nov. 2009 . Morgan W., Prehistoric Architecture in the Eastern United States New York: Norton Inc (1968) Price T, Report on the Mound Explorations of the Bureau of Ethnology Minneapolis: Alberta press (1985); Silverberg R., Mound Builders of Ancient America New York: Avenal Books (1973) Read More