OCR Text |
Show Mound Indians' Culture Enigma WASHINGTON. A full flowering civilization, not essentially inferior to that of the Aztecs in Mexico or the Mayas in Yucatan, vanished without a trace in North America, probably a few generations before the first landing of Columbus. That is the conclusion of Frank Setzler, . head curator of anthropology of the Smithsonian institution. His thesis was constructed from such scattered clues as are available avail-able in the history of the Hopewel-lians, Hopewel-lians, mound builders of the Ohio and Upper Mississippi valleys. ' From the results of more than a century of research, Setzler ex-! ex-! plained in a study published by the ' institution, a tentative picture can be drawn of the ways of life of , this mysterious people. Construction of the large mounds, the surrounding earthworks and the hundreds of smaller mounds, he said, clearly required a dense population popu-lation and a well co-ordinated society. so-ciety. This population must have had some stable economic basis. Extensive Farming Needed. "Hunting and fishing, no doubt, were of some importance as evidenced evi-denced by barracuda jaws and other oth-er fish remains and by the representation represen-tation of birds and animals in realistic real-istic carvings on pipes," Setzler said. "But even though direct evidence evi-dence of maize is lacking, the practice prac-tice of extensive horticulture must be admitted, because it alone could have supported the large population aggregates in which the Hopewell people obviously lived'. "The specific form of government organization cannot be known, but certainly some regimentation is indicated in-dicated by the great communal work. I incline to deduce, from the widespread influence of these people, peo-ple, that if a select ruling class existed, ex-isted, they dominated a very large portion of the Mississippi valley. Possibly their political organization was a northern extension of the system sys-tem that prevailed in Mexico and Yucatan, although very few specimens speci-mens can be identified with Mexican Mexi-can deities. Copper head ornaments and colored woven garments decorated deco-rated the fresh-water pearls and mica suggest insignia of authority. At least persons with such attire would be set apart." Seen as Race Apart. This strange civilization, Setzler believes was result of impact of two peoples, probably without definite conquest by either. A survey of the field shows the same culture, but in a simpler form, in the Lower Mississippi Mis-sissippi valley and around the Gulf coast. It appears to have moved northward until it came ui contact with a more primitive but apparently apparent-ly vigorous and progressive people. Then, perhaps by conquest and perhaps per-haps by absorption, the inventiveness inventive-ness and energy of the Northern In-'Vdians In-'Vdians and the complex social organization organi-zation and religious system of the migrants from the South were amalgamated amal-gamated greatly to the improvement improve-ment of both. No clue has been uncovered, Setzler Setz-ler said, which permits the dating of this development more closely than sometime between the beginning begin-ning of the Christian era and the coming of Columbus. There certainly cer-tainly were no Hopewellians left when the first white hunters and traders came into the Ohio valley, for not a single artifact of European origin ever has been found in the mounds. In fact, the country was then inhabited by woodland Indians who had no memory of their predecessors, prede-cessors, or even legends concerning them. |