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Bf|fl ¦. ¦ ¦ Rl;j4H .•,.;':.-M^^ Science Still Working On the Riddle of Where They Came From, Who They Were, Where They Went—And Why Amer- ica's Vanished Mound Builders Made a Place for Everybody mV MHBB ‘hßMpHt ilr*- in Their "Skyscraper

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> .'’ "¦ >‘. ."* contagious infectious V-.'^; '*?*'••s J«' '*'*& Sl 'J'.'f fell victims of or J - 1 ;‘ißv\/ -,-mounds of the Mound Builders. They varied in style and in purpose, too. Some were built so that the vanity of a great man of the tribe could be sat- isfied by having his house upon a hill where all might see. Other mounds v>i ** community X''X' _i%., #¦ seemed to have served as islands of refuge in times of floods, which iSE. jc gi then as now swept the Mississippi and its tributaries. Still other mounds were probably forti- \ m V f« -'^^^^^^^^¦NuaiHlH^^HP? fications, and others, in the shape of gigantic animals, were probably some tribal animal totem. But all the mounds, whatever other purpose they might have served, wr ere the burial of the rich and poor alike—true poor man's pyramids. The labor of creating some of the mounds is staggering to contemplate. The great Cahokia mound, often called Monk’s Mound, near East St. Louis, is the largest earthen structure in the whole United States, even todav. It measures 1,080 feet one way, 700 feet the other, and has an average height of 100 feet. The base of the mound measures 13 1 acres, greater than the base of the gigantic Pyramid of Cheops in Egypt. Many years must have been needed to do this job. Probably the mounds were erected by stages, being built to a certain height, and added The “Sk>M raper** Method of Burial Employed by tin* Mysterious Builders of Hick- to only later. This is truly son’s Mound. Vear After Year as One Level B«>< ame Crowded, Earth Has Hauled the case with burial mounds. layers be- In and Another I-a>er Begun So That Ilieh and I’oor Alike Could Be Ijiid to lb*st When the original Along With their Personal Poss«*ssion.H ami a Supply of Food. M came so crowded that no more bodies could be buried there, the Mound Builders Builders did virtually everything that the Egyp- rumors, sj»«*culation and fantasy run hauled in more earth, raised tians did with their pyramids. At least, they had rampant. the mound to its new- height, the essentials of the idea. The Mound Builders, for so they J and started burials on the Scientists have never been able to solve the wore named, were the descendants of Jl second floor, as it were. Anak of Biblical fame. riddle of how the whole culture of the Mound the Giant In this way —as in the along the race when the The Mound Builders had two sets Builders vanished with great Dickson mound in Illi- latter day Indians of Columbus’ time ruled North of teeth in their mouths. whole Builders were Egyp- nois— a skyscrajier America. The l>est bet is, j>erhaps, that the cruel The Mound cemetery came into being had mas- tians who had long ago cross<*d the 1492 Indians were men* barbarians who ecn developed by The Mound effect is striking. now lost race. idolaters who had been destroyed in the To the Mound Builders’ be- But whatever it was, all prior knowh*Ohio AltAr Mound. (Tile vanished race was like. wagons over the eastern mountain ranges the vanish«*d race of people who had toga Turner Group). personal adornment into the fertile fields of the Midwest —to Ohio, erected the great American mounds. Love of Illinois and Indiana. So said speculation. was a dominating passion. strings of pearls 'Hiere. scattered about the flat countryside, the Modem discovery nas shown that these earlier Wives of the chiefs prized pioneers found occasional rolling hills. Like man fantastic ideas about who and what were the from fresh water oysters and other bivalves. * of the Mound Builders eternal they set their homes'upon those hills. Mound Builders were unfounded, and reveal these Still another mystery ancestors meaning the symbolism which they began plow those mounds there great peoples as the of the tribes that is the of When they to many of their mounds. Great Snake light skeletons, pottery, copper breast were here when the first White Man came. worked into came to great mounds, at thought to be Mound, a rocky promontory in Adams plates, copper helmets crested with deer antlers, And the first atop very ancient some were dated as far back as County, Ohio, is in the form of a serpent that strings of fresh water pearls, and all the other opened jaws to the that laO’oOO B. C.—were shown by tree ring analysis extends 1254 feet from its artifacts The snake is swallowing a gigan- revealed a to have been erected in the tenth, eleventh and tip of its tail. twelfth centuries, from 900 to 1100 A. D. Indeed, tic “egg” that is 120 feet long and 60 feet across. long past civili- still be found the which in a few cases, the discovery of distinctly European In the center of this oval can zation than sacrificial altar. no one ever artifacts in some mounds lends more a sus- remains of a picion that Mound Builders may have existed It has been suggested that the serpent swallow- knew. ing egg is pictorial of primitive As always until the White Man came. the the concept Why the Mound Builders and all their fine races for an eclipse of the sun. when knowl- of all mounds, and w 11M edge is lacking, culture vanished is one of the biggest unsolved One of the most famous mysteries yet remaining about these peoples. That one of the most fruitful for science because of they were conquered by more primitive Indians is the treasures it has disclosed, is Dickson Mound, one suggestion. But any race that conquers an- on a high bank overlooking the valley of the Equipment of other keeps alive the glories of Its conquests in Illinois and Spoon Rivers., This Figure, In- its literature, at least in its legends parsed down Over ISB skeletons have now been recovered trieately Carved by word of mouth. and preserved there, yet the surface of the great on Shell Found But the White Man’s Indians ha 1 no such treasure has only been scratched. in a Mound. I*u/- legends. Where did they come from? Where did they z!es SeientUts. It is more plausible that the Moun 1 Builders go? N’o one yet knows.

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