Wednesday, Rob wrote about Neolithic graves in Europe. We hear about burial mounds, bogs, and even buried boats, mostly in the British Isles, but we know less about our own prehistoric Native Indian culture that preceded what we consider First Nation.
I grew up a short distance (a brief bicycle ride or a longish walk on little-boy legs) from an Indian mound called Hogback. It’s one of the simpler prehistoric Indiana burial sites, especially compared to the Serpentine Mound many miles east. The region was known as a finder's gold mine of points (arrowheads), spear tips, and birdstones.
The latter was a throwing weapon carved into an elongated form to fit the hand. While most birdstones were simply shaped without regard for museums that might come long after, a few have been found carved into the likeness of a bird with folded wings. An ancient craftsman had taken the time and effort to indulge in aesthetics, an astonishing reach across time and space.
Mounds
Indian mounds dotted the landscape through the Illinois, Indiana, Ohio belt, but also could be found in New England and New York. Some have been bulldozed, flattened for farming, or simply, disgustingly, used for easily obtained road-building material. Fortunately, others remain, some accessible by the public.
A curious question has arisen. Genetic research has shown the four major native American bloodlines descend from migrants traversing the Bering Land Bridge, a fifth strain suggests a prehistoric European migration.† Not only is the DNA distinctive, but napping technology and burial practices differed. Were the mounds from this ancient group?
Classmates, Lela, Diane, and Kristi, found this fascinating documentary.
That Which Remains
One day I mounted an expedition to search the mound (no digging, just scoping the ground) and I made a find. It was a perfect, miniature axe head. I rushed home to show my parents.
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| brachiopod |
My dad took one glance and said, "Not an axe head." I must have looked stricken because he handed it back and smiled. "It's much, much older. It's a brachiopod."
That was cool. And emblematic of Dad, an encyclopedic Google before Google. How many fathers could instantly identify a brachiopod by name?
Credit
Inspiration and following links are thanks to bright, beautiful, and brainy classmates Diane, Lela, and Kristi. They are an amazing resource.
- DNR: Indiana’s Prehistoric Mounds and Earthworks
- NPR: Prehistoric Treasure In The Fields Of Indiana
- PDF: Paleolithic, Neolithic, Copper, Iron Ages of Indiana
† Distant European ancestry isn’t unique amongst anomalies. Melanesian and Australian genes have unexpectedly popped up indigenous American populations.
A nice piece and thanks for the good links!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Janice. I appreciate it.
DeleteOne thing I have learned from my own NatGeo DNA swab is that our ancestors were a randy, wandering bunch. Let's not forget the blond/red-haired mummies of China - the fun part is that some white supremacists tried to claim they were 100% Northern European! But it turns out that their DNA came from Europe, and the Indus Valley AND etc., etc., etc.
ReplyDeleteI have theories of my own about legends of advanced civilization - sounds like maybe I should do a blog post about THAT sometime...
Definitely, Eve, you should blog about it. Family history tracebacks of the last few hundred years suggest my ancesors had, shall we say, wandering eyes.
DeleteI haven't heard of birthstones or mounds before. We learn about East Coast Native Americans and Western Plains Indians but not those groups or tribes that lived in between.
ReplyDeleteIndiana alone has identified 2100 mounds and it's possible hundreds remain unnoticed, thought of as simply a natural hillock.
DeleteSeveral years ago, PBS produced a documentary of a possible prehistoric European group that migrated to the new world. Curiously this same people disappeared from the European scene about the same time. I don't recall the name of the group or the name of the show, but you might want to check it out.
ReplyDeleteAnne, I'm pretty sure I saw such a documentary, but it will take some digging to come up with a name. Thanks for the heads-up.
DeleteThe last I heard, they're still teaching little kids in grade school that "Columbus discovered America." So what were the First Nations people, chopped liver? And didn't the Vikings drop anchor in Newfoundland centuries before Christopher Columbus was even born?
ReplyDeleteElizabeth, Columbus had a superior PR department. The Vikings probably shrugged and said, "Meh, just another piece of land." Still, Europeans must have been as excited as space fans watching landings on Mars. Thanks, Elizabeth.
ReplyDeleteYou may also have to throw the Chinese in as having discovered North America, but from the Pacific side. Shang Dynasty letters/pictographs found in Arizona show that the Chinese may have been there prior to 1046 BC (for trading, not settlement) before the fall of the Shang Dynasty which occurred in 1046 BC. The Shang type of writing disappeared shortly after the next dynasty took over.
ReplyDeleteTo paraphrase Pete Seeger: "Where do you think the Roman emperors got their curly hair?"
ReplyDeleteThe opening of Rex Stout's novel The SIlent Speaker: Seated in his giant's chair behind his desk in his office, leaning back with his eyes half closed, Nero Wolfe muttered at me:
ReplyDelete"It is an interesting fact that the members of the National Industrial Association who were at that dinner last evening represent, in the aggregate, assets of something like thirty billion dollars."
I slid the checkbook into place on top of the stack, closed the door of the safe, twirled the knob, and yawned on the way back to my desk.
"Yes, sir," I agreed with him. "It is also an interesting fact that the prehistoric Mound Builders left more traces of their work in Ohio than in any other state. In my boyhood days--"
"Shut up," Wolfe muttered.