xt76q52f7x09 https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt76q52f7x09/data/mets.xml Young, Bennett Henderson, 1843-1919. 1910  books b92-47-26953325 English J.P. Morton, printers, : Louisville, Ky. : Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. Mound-builders Kentucky. Kentucky Antiquities. Prehistoric men of Kentucky  : a history of what is known of their lives and habits, together with a description of their implements and other relics and of the tumuli which have earned for them the designation of Mound builders; a paper preparepared to commemorate the silver anniversary of the Filson Club / by Colonel Bennett H. Young. text Prehistoric men of Kentucky  : a history of what is known of their lives and habits, together with a description of their implements and other relics and of the tumuli which have earned for them the designation of Mound builders; a paper preparepared to commemorate the silver anniversary of the Filson Club / by Colonel Bennett H. Young. 1910 2002 true xt76q52f7x09 section xt76q52f7x09 






























































COLONEL BENNETT H. YOUNG
  Member of The Filson Club

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FILSON CLUB PUBLICATIONS No. 25



THiE PREHISTORIC MEN

          OF KENTUCKY



A History of
   description
      which



what is known of their Lives and
of their Implements and other Relics
have earned for them the designation of



Habits, together with a
and of the Tumuli
Mound Builders



                    A Paper
Prepared to commemorate the Silver Anniversary of The Filson Club


                       BY

    COLONEL BENNETT H. YOUNG
                Member of The Filson Club


                   3lluotratto



      LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY,
JOHN P. MORTON  COMPANY
            (Incotporsted)
    PRINTER5 TO THE FILSON CLUB
             1910

 


































     COPYRIGIIT, 1910,

          BY

THE FILSON CLUB



    All Rights Reserved


 








        TABLE OF CONTENTS


                                                    PAG9
Confidential Foreword......       .  ..   .   .  V-xIII
Theories and Traditions as to who were the Prehistoric
    Men of Kentucky .  . . . .  . .  .  . .     .  I
Beginnings of Archeological Research in Kentucky     I2
Period in which These People Lived in Kentucky    .     9
Stone Grave Burials  ...   .   .. .  . .  . .    .   22
Mounds and Mound Burials     ...    .. .  . .    .   31
Earthwork and Stone Fortifications and Enclosures  . .  5o
Kentucky's Largest Fort ...    ....    .  . .    .   75
Imaginary Battle Scene  ...    ....    .  . .    .   85
Stone Structure in Nelson County  .  ....   .    .   96
Prehistoric Dress. . ..o.o....              . . . i00
Needles, Awls, and Thread . . . . . . . . . . i09
Weapons and Manner of Use    ..   .. . . ...        I14
Axes, Celts, Pestles, and Mortars.. . . ..     ..   122
Pottery Ware and Implements ..    ..1..   . .    . I43
Chipped Stone Implements .       ... . . . . . . 147
Ceremonials of Polished Stone.     ... . . . . . 194
Pierced Tablets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205
Tubes ................ . 207
Boat Stones   . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219
Copper Implements and Ornaments   . . . . . . . 224
Ornaments and Other Objects of Hematite   . ...     233
Engraved Gorgets and Other Objects of Shell   . . . 235
Stone Beads and Rings   ...   . .  . .  .   ...     247
Fishing and Fishing Implements ..   .....        . 250
Drills, Drilling, and Fire Making...   ....      . 259
Images and Idols   ....    .  . .   .....        .  262
Pipes and Smoking  ....    .  . .    ......      .  270
Discoveries in Kentucky Caves  ...     ....      . 294



1 iii ]

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    A CONFIDENTIAL FOREWORD



IN i890 the author was induced to begin the collection
   of prehistoric implements. Thomas G. Went, a learned
   and intelligent antiquarian, who was for many years
Chief Assistant in the office of the Superintendent of
Public Instruction of Kentucky, at Frankfort, first in-
duced me, by the gift of a small and well-selected cabinet,
to enter upon what was to become a delightful and per-
manent study and pursuit.
   When a member of the Constitutional Convention
of Kentucky, in September, i890, a delegate incidentally
mentioned to me that Mr. Went had some beautiful arrow-
heads, and that they w)uld well repay a visit and inves-
tigation. This was done on the following day, and these
specimens were found to be marvels of beauty. Few
comparatively in number, but which had been selected
by a careful, discriminating, and enthusiastic student,
they were worthy of all the admiration that could be felt
or expressed in their examination.
   During the conversation he inquired if his visitor
were a member of the Constitutional Convention. Having
received an affirmative reply, he remarked that there
was one member of the Convention from Louisville he
was extremely anxious to meet-Bennett H. Young. The
response came that the visitor knew the gentleman well
and had a great affection as well as regard for him, and
would be glad to bring him over on the day following,



[ v ]

 

A Confidential Foreword



and twelve o'clock was fixed as the time for the call of
this Louisville visitor. Promptly at the hour the author
appeared at Mr. Went's desk. The venerable student
raised his eyes when saluted, but a shadow of disap-
pointment passed over his face as he saw the author
alone. In response to his inquiry why Young did not
come, I waved my hand and smote upon my breast, and
with some degree of pleasure and also pride, said, "Mr.
Went, I am he!" This naive and somewhat uncere-
monious introduction pleased the reserved and laborious
educator and collector, and, in recognition of some slight
favors done, he shortly afterward presented me his entire
cabinet.
   When a mere lad, on my father's farm in Jessamine
County, Kentucky, while plowing, hoeing, planting, and
harvesting with my brother, I had picked up some b)eauti-
ful arrow-points and a few stone axes, and placed them
in a small box as my most valued treasures. College
life, war, exile, and the experiences of an eventful and
busy professional career, coupled with that strenuousness
which faced all Confederates after the end of the struggle,
had buried the memory of the flints and axes. The gift
of Mr. Went awoke a slumbering admiration which for
forty years had remained dormant, and with a well fixed,
increasing yearning I at once set about gathering a store
of these stone implements and remains. Like a tiger,
the taste of blood only enlarged the desire, and soon my
researches, as well as my demands for specimens, became
a torment to my friends and acquaintances.
   Opening a school of correspondence, by incessant
inquiry the best fields in the State were soon located.
Kentucky had been largely neglected among archeologists.



[ vi ]

 

4 Confidential Foreword



Something had been written, but it had not permeated
the public mind. It was something new in Kentucky,
at that period, to have a really earnest, aggressive col-
lector. In a little while my home became an exaggerated
junk shop. It does not take one long to recognize the
fact that a great collector must confine his work to a
single line, and to attain preeminence, unless extraordi-
nary outlays be made, to a limited territory. Kentucky
to Kentuckians has generally appeared to be large enough
for reasonable ambition, and so my collection was made
a distinctly Kentucky aggregation. Here and there some
stranger specimen of rare beauty from the outside crept
into the cases, but the main purpose was to confine the
museum to Kentucky archeological art. Persistent work,
untiring patience, unflagging enthusiasm, and moderate out-
lay resulted in gathering together what some antiquarians
are pleased to consider one of the world's best collections.
The leading scientists of this country have not hesitated
to say that in some respects this Kentucky cabinet
has no superior among the best public and private
collections of its kind, a fact which appeals very strongly
to one's honest pride.
   Long since the desire for mere numbers of specimens
has passed away, and for the last decade only those things
which are of highest excellence have been considered
or sought. The pleasure and joy of massing such a multi-
tude of prehistoric remains aroused a yearning and resolve
to know all that could be learned of the people who created
and used these implements, and induced a study of that
which would give some account of those who, in the ages
past, called Kentucky home, and who, hundreds and
maybe thousands of years ago, lived and loved, toiled,



[ vii ]

 
A Confidential Foreword



battled, and builded along its water courses, in its val-
leys, on its hillsides, and over its mountain heights.
   None who considered all that pertained to this van-
ished race could doubt that, in centuries gone by, a vast
population had lived in the bounds of Kentucky; that
they who constructed the fortifications, erected the
monuments, and tilled the soil within the limits of the
Commonwealth had been industrious, ingenious, brave,
and thrifty, and that among the nations of their day
and generation they had been leaders, ranking high in
nationhood, and had stood for much that was bold, wise,
and progressive.
   The publication of my investigations, explorations,
and discoveries from time to time in Kentucky prints and
elsewhere, and lectures before intelligent audiences along
such lines, have always called forth surprise and created
a deep and abiding interest. Cultured people never fail
to be fascinated and interested with the remarkable facts
that the prehistoric remains of Kentucky furnish, and
all who hear the story connected with the finds of
archeological pursuits long to hear more of what these
indestructible and inanimate witnesses have to tell of
those who in the long "long ago" made Kentucky
their abode.
   This appreciation of the work done in opening the
graves and revealing their secrets, in measuring the mounds
and locating and investigating the forts and describing
the implements of peace and of war, aroused the desire to
put into some permanent form, with adequate illustra-
tions, that which had been learned of these wonderful
people; and so, when Colonel R. T. Durrett, the
President of the Filson Club, asked me to write for



[ Viii ]

 
A4 Confidential Foreword



that organization the twenty-fifth volume of its publi-
cations, and thus commemorate its silver anniversary, I
consented to prepare this book. Its conclusions may not
always meet those of many of its readers. Its reasonings
may not always be logical, but it represents truly the
things seen by him who writes, and may at least prove
helpful to him who in after years, on a larger scale, with
better facilities and more learning, undertakes to make
a record of those who inhabited Kentucky centuries before
Columbus turned the prows of his ships toward the setting
sun, or found in the New World the verification of his
deductions, which his fellows classed as the dreams of a
sentimental theorist.
   This work is written without any technical or scien-
tific plan or purpose. Its object is not to be learned.
The sole purpose is to place in permanent form illustra-
tions of some of the most beautiful and best typical remains
of this ancient people, and to publish in a way to attract
the general reader, and for the information and instruc-
tion of the people at large, an account of those who, so
many hundreds of years ago, loved Kentucky, and occu-
pied it as their home.
   The study of these first simon-pure Kentuckians ought
to be as attractive and interesting as the study of men
who lived in Egypt, Hindustan, China, Europe, or Africa
in the centuries past. There are both sentimental and
historic reasons which should induce Kentuckians as much
to search for knowledge of the prehistoric people of the
State as for that of the prehistoric men of other lands.
It may be truly said that no practical good can come
from learning aught of these people, of whom no printed
and few pictorial remains exist, but if this be true where



[ ix ]

 
4 Confidential Foreword



prehistoric Kentuckians are concerned, it is certainly
equally true of those nations who inhabited other parts
of the world, and of whom dim tradition, graves, and
metal or stone implements alone speak to the people of
the present age. There is much of human knowledge that
is neither practical nor exact, yet which pleases the mind
and widens the range of research and thought. It might
give one more reputation among the professors and
scientists to deal with these matters on different lines,
and it would give more scholastic satisfaction. This book,
however, is simply written for the people at large, and
endeavors to tell in a way that can be fully understood
and readily appreciated, in so far as can now be ascer-
tained, the customs, habits, pursuits, achievements, and
manufactures of Kentucky's first settlers.
   There are many persons to whom I must confess a very
high degree of obligation; the-y are so many that it is
difficult to determine where to begin naming them.
   First comes Mr. Samuel G. Tate, a brilliant young
lawyer at the Louisville bar, whose selected cabinet, acute
observations, wide reading, and enthusiastic pursuit of
all that touch prehistoric Kentucky, has made him in
this work to me absolutely essential. His journeys and
investigations have added much to the store of prehis-
toric lore, and if his life is long spared he is destined to
gain a leading place in this department.
   Second, Professor H. Stahl, of Parkersburg, West Vir-
ginia, who came and spent several months in my home,
and who, by his artistic genius in arranging the plates
and designing photographic positions and investigating
the facts, did for me that which I could not do for myself.
He, aided by his own splendid cabinet and a patient study



[ x I

 
A Co;wfidenfial Foreword



of forty years, has gained for himself a well-merited promi-
nence among the archeologists of the Middle West.
   Third, Mr. Harry L. Johnson, of Clarksville, Tennessee,
a Louisville-born boy, who with his father, Captain James
Johnson, has gathered more of that which is beautiful
and exquisite in prehistoric art, explored more mounds,
opened more graves, and handled more specimens in the
archeological line than any private individual known to
me of the present generation. Living on the banks of the
Cumberland River, a few miles above Clarksville, in the last
few years he has expanded and enlarged his explorations,
and in his home on the river bluff are treasures which make
archeologists turn green with envy, and of such vast
extent that he himself only partly knows either their
full beauty or their commercial value. His intense love for
these treasures of the past, and his unlimited energy in
their discovery and acquisition, have brought to him one
of the most remarkable of existing cabinets. It ought
to be the ambition of some possessor of great wealth to
persuade Mr. Johnson to part with his treasures, and
place them where wondering thousands might see their
marvelous beauty. He has generously lent me for illus-
tration in this book a number of Kentucky specimens,
and I am indebted to him for help in many ways in getting
material for this volume.
   I beg to acknowledge my obligations to Professor
F. W. Putnam, of Harvard University, whose scientific
attainments and great scholarship lend a charm to his
delightful writings; also Professor Warren K. Moorehead,
whose industry and zeal, and wide knowledge of all
that concerns prehistoric man, give him worthy pre-
eminence among the archeologists of this country; Gen-



[ xi ]

 
A Confidential Foreword



eral Gates P. Thruston, whose "Antiquities of Tennessee"
is certainly the most wonderful book from a local archeo-
logical standpoint that has been published in America.
This work on the antiquities of Tennessee has been an
inspiration and a help to all who deal with this delightful
and interesting subject. No one can deal with primitive
man in Kentucky without a deep sense of obligation to
Professor Lucien Carr, of Cambridge, Massachusetts,
formerly connected with the Kentucky Geological Survey.
His acute power of analysis, his tireless pursuit of
knowledge, and his wonderful breadth of reading excite
surprise and admiration.
   Among others who have lent me kindly and generous
assistance I name Colonel R. T. Durrett, Louisville, Ken-
tucky; Honorable James H. Mulligan, Lexington, Kentucky;
Miss Belle Bennett, Richmond, Kentucky; Colonel J.
Stoddard Johnston, Louisville, Kentucky; Honorable T.
E. Pickett, Maysville, Kentucky; Honorable C. L. Searcy,
Waco, Kentucky; J. Wesley Griffin, Esq., Warsaw, Ken-
tucky; Honorable J. S. Brown, Warsaw, Kentucky; Miss
Ora Hazelip, Brownsville, Kentucky; Honorable Thomas
G. Stuart, Winchester, Kentucky; Honorable M. J. Holt,
Louisville, Kentucky; L. B. Handley, Esq., Hodgenville,
Kentucky; Stanley Frost, Esq., and C. J. Ogg, Esq.,
Berea, Kentucky; Reverend Cary F. Moore, Cynthiana,
Kentucky; Doctor W. P. Taylor, Fulton, Kentucky; J. E.
Pilant, Esq., Fredonia, Kentucky; Charles O'Neill, Esq.,
Frankfort, Kentucky; Major W. A. Elliott, Mammoth
Cave, Kentucky; Miss Sallie L. Hazen, Glasgow Junction,
Kentucky; Mrs. Ellen Rogers, Cadiz, Kentucky; Captain
John W. Tuttle, Monticello, Kentucky; Doctor W. E.
Baxter, Frankfort, Kentucky, Honorable B. F. Proctor,



[ xii ]

 

A Conxidenhfal Foreword



Bowling Green, Kentucky; Miss Annie L. Gullion, Carroll-
ton, Kentucky; Honorable J. M. Richardson, Glasgow,
Kentucky. There are many others whose kindly co-
operation has placed me under lasting obligations.
   These pages have been written while the author was
either trying or preparing a lawsuit, every working
day of the week. Many errors must have crept into
the text, and the author in advance confesses the reason-
ableness of all fair criticism, and pledges himself, when
the duties of life are less exacting, to prepare a new and
enlarged edition, which shall exhibit his appreciation of
the suggestions of all those who think he has made
mistakes.
                                BENNErr H. YOUNG.
   Louisville, June I, I9IO.



i xiii ]

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THE PREHISTORIC MEN
   OF KENTUCKY

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    THE PREHISTORIC MEN

             OF KENTUCKY



   THEORIES AND TRADITIONS AS TO WHO
      WERE THE PREHISTORIC MEN OF
                   KENTUCKY.

IN all ages of the world there has been a universal
   interest in the study of mankind. No sooner do
   we hear of a race than there arises a desire to know
something of their condition, their manner of living, and
the source of their origin.
   One of the first questions that comes up in connection
with the prehistoric race in Kentucky is, Who were they
Were they the Indians rendered more ingenious, mechani-
cal, and skillful by concentration in large communities,
or were these prehistoric men of a different race, descend-
ants of a different people, with differing characteristics
and methods of living It was several hundreds of years
after the white people came to America and settled this
continent before any thorough investigation was made
of the antiquities which existed in this land. Those who
came in personal contact with the Indians inquired of
them what they knew of the antiquities of which this
book treats. The answer almost without exception
was that they knew nothing of the people who were



[ 1 ]

 
The Prehistoric Men of Kentucky



engaged in the building of these mounds, how they were
erected, whence the people came who made them, or
whither they had gone.
   No human memory has revealed and no hand has
detailed that which occurred to these primitive people
into whose past we attempt to throw the light of
research. Before all who undertake to investigate this
question there is a mysterious past, and the silent and
mute vestiges erected in stone and earth are all that reach
the eye of him who would penetrate into the secrets of
this vanished people. Along the tributaries of the Missis-
sippi may be found the imprint of many things of this
mysterious race, whose mounds and whose temples, and
whose forts built of indestructible material, testify that
in the valleys and the prairies and on the rich hillsides
of this vast and fertile territory there was once a people
who had a history, and who in war and peace must have
been brave, patriotic, and industrious. The scant mate-
rial at the command of the inquirer renders his task
difficult and sometimes burdensome. Traditions here,
mounds there, forts elsewhere, temples of worship scat-
tered all through this territory, are the sources from
which information must be secured and on which deduc-
tions must be based.
   The Delawares have a tradition that, many centuries
ago, a warlike race emerged from the West and started
upon a course of conquest. But this mighty host, when
it approached the territory contiguous to the Mississippi
River, found as a bar to its progress a valiant, aggressive,
and resourceful people. These traditions have been so
beautifully told by Doctor Thomas E. Pickett, one of
the most charming writers that Kentucky has ever pro-



[ 2 ]

 
The Prehistoric Men of Kentucky



duced, that we can not forbear quoting from his pamphlet
entitled "The Testimony of the Mounds." He says:
   "The two nations thus confronting each other upon
the banks of the Mississippi measured the situation with
a civilized eye-the Lenni-Lenape diplomatically par-
leying for the right of passage, and the subtle Allegewi
hypocritically affecting to hear. As a result of these
diplomatic negotiations, the Lenni-Lenape were treacher-
ously assailed in an attempted passage, and driven back,
though not utterly destroyed, by their perfidious foe.
But the tradition further relates that there was a coincident
migration of the warlike Iroquois from the far West on
a higher line of latitude, and that this people were seeking
to effect a passage of the same stream at another point.
The Lenni-Lenape, speedily rallying from their repulse,
strike a military league with the Iroquois, proclaim a war
of extermination against the Allegewi, reduce their strong-
holds, desolate their lands, and drive them southward
in disastrous retreat-their chosen seats being abandoned
to the conqueror in tumultuous haste, and themselves
becoming a nation of wanderers upon the shores of the
stream which they had perfidiously attempted to defend.
But this tradition of the Delawares does not stand alone.
That the prehistoric inhabitants of Kentucky were at
some indeterminate period overwhelmed by a tide of
savage invasion from the North, is a point upon which
Indian tradition, as far as it goes, is positive and explicit.
It is related, in a posthumous fragment on 'Western An-
tiquities,' by Reverend John P. Campbell, M. D., which
was published in the early part of the present century,
that Colonel James Moore, of Kentucky, was told by an
old Indian that the primitive inhabitants of this State



[ 3 1

 

The Prehistoric Men of Ken/ucky



had perished in a war of extermination waged against
them by the Indians; that the last great battle was fought
at the Falls of the Ohio; and that the Indians succeeded
in driving the aborigines into a small island below the
Rapids, 'where the whole of them were cut to pieces.'
The Colonel was assured that the evidence of this event
rested upon facts handed down by tradition, and that
he would have decisive proofs of it under his eyes as soon
as the waters of the Ohio became low. When the waters
of the river had fallen, an examination of Sandy Island
was made, and 'a multitude of human bones was dis-
covered.' There is a similar confirmation of this
tradition in the statement of General George Rogers
Clark, that there was a great burying-ground on the
northern side of the river, but a short distance below
the Falls. According to a tradition imparted to the
same gentleman by the Indian chief Tobacco, the battle
of Sandy Island decided finally the fall of Kentucky,
with its ancient inhabitants. When Colonel McKee com-
manded on the Kanawha (says Doctor Campbell), he
was told by the Indian chief Cornstalk, with whom he
had frequent conversations, that Ohio and Kentucky
(and Tennessee also is associated with Kentucky in the
prehistoric ethnography of Rafinesque) had once been
settled by a white people who were familiar with arts
of which the Indians knew nothing; that these whites,
after a series of bloody contests with the Indians, had been
exterminated; that the old burial places were the graves
of an unknown people; and that the old forts had not
been built by Indians, but had come down from 'a very
long ago' people, who were of a white complexion and
skilled in the arts.



[ 4 ]

 
The Prehistoric Men of Kentucky



   "In addition to this traditional testimony, various
and striking traces of a deadly conflict have been found
all along the Ohio border. To say nothing of the vast
system of fortifications covering exposed and important
points, and evidently designed as a general barrier against
hostile incursions, there are significant traces of former
conflicts in the old 'battlefields' of Bourbon, Pendleton,
and Bracken counties, which, clearly indicating occur-
rences beyond the pale of the historic period, confirm
in some measure the traditional theory or belief of a pro-
tracted and desolating struggle for the possession of this
borderland. And doubtless the familiar appellation of 'the
Dark and Bloody Ground' originated in the gloom and hor-
ror with which the Indian imagination naturally invested
the traditional scenes and events of that strange and
troubled period. General Clark declares that Ken-tuck-e in
the language of the Indians signifies 'the river of blood.'
   "It is not improbable, judging from the frequency
with which fortifications occur upon the banks of water
courses, that the bloodiest battles were fought upon the
banks of navigable streams. Ken-tuck-e, to the Indian,
was a land of ill repute, and, wherever a lodge fire blazed,
' strange and unholy rumors' were busy with her name.
The old Indian who described to Colonel Moore the san-
guinary and decisive battle of Sandy Island expressed
great astonishment that white people could live in a
country which had been the scene of such conflicts; and
an ancient Sac, whom Colonel Joe Hamilton Daveiss
met at St. Louis in i8oo, gave utterance to similar expres-
sions of surprise. Kentucky, he said, was filled with the
ghosts of its slaughtered inhabitants; how could the white
man make it his home "



[ 5 ]

 

The Prehistoric Men of Kentucky



   While the early authorities questioned the connection
of the American monuments with the arts and science
and culture of the European, yet they all admit that these
things, found in America when the white man came, have
intrinsic evidence which demonstrates conclusively that
they were constructed hundreds of years before. How
little the early wise men of America knew of these antiq-
uities has in the last fifty years been fully and thoroughly
demonstrated. Doctor Benjamin Franklin, in reply to a
learned man who made inquiries concerning these remains,
sagely suggested that the works in Ohio had been con-
structed by De Soto, and so wise and learned a man as
Noah Webster, after hearing Franklin's theory, undertook
to defend and prove it. Subsequently, however, he
abandoned the views which he had then set forth, and
concluded that they were the work of the Indians. Other
authorities insisted that while these remains were not
constructed by De Soto and his followers, yet they be-
longed to an age that antedated the discovery of the
country, and they vigorously assert that these wonderful
antiquities were not the product of Indian industry or
skill, but of another people who were not savage, but
who had some knowledge of arts and sciences and also
some well-defined ideas of political organization. Early
in I8oo, there appeared in these discussions two very im-
portant characters, Reverend Thaddeus M. Harris, of
Massachusetts, and Bishop Madison, of Virginia. It is
said of these two archeologists that they were among
the first who united opportunities of personal observation
with the advantages of scientific culture, to impart to the
public their impressions of Western antiquities. They
represented the two classes of observers whose opposite



[ 6]

 
The Prehistoric Men of Kentucky



views divided the sentiment of the country. The first
class saw no evidence of art beyond what might be expected
of existing tribes with the simple difference of more numer-
ous population and consequently better defined and more
permanent habitations; the others found proofs of skill
and refinement to be explained, as they believed, only
upon the supposition that a superior native race, or more
probably people of foreign and higher civilization, once
occupied the soil.
   Bishop Madison was an advocate of the first theory
and Doctor Harris undertook to make good the claims
of the second, and urged with great vigor that the Mound
Builders were Toltecs who, after residing for a time
in the regions of the Mississippi Valley, moved south
into Mexico. These two views were pressed with great
force and earnestness by many learned and careful observ-
ers in later years. As has been said, on this subject two
opinions are held and strongly advocated; the first, that the
people who constructed these remains were of a different
and superior race to the Indian. Those so holding contend
that the remains found in the shape of mounds, teocallis
(or places of worship), fortifications, implements of various
kinds, indicate that these people were a race of superior
culture to the Indians; that these remains point conclu-
sively to the fact that those who constructed them were
an agricultural people of sedentary habits, and lived in
organized communities; that the works themselves bear
evidences of mathematical and engineering knowledge
which the Indian never possessed or exhibited; and that
the fortifications show that these people were at war with
other nations, and that in such warfare it became neces-
sary for these Mound Builders to erect stone, wooden,



[ 7 ]

 
The Prehistoric Men of Ken/ucky



and earthen defenses, and that the evidences show that
these were displaced by more aggressive and warlike
foes. They also insist that the Indians themselves declared
that they knew nothing of the people who builded these
structures, and that they were concluded ages before
even the red men found them, and that they could tell
nothing concerning the origin or use of these monuments.
There are some who insist that these monuments
must have been erected by a people different from the
American Indian, yet they do not attempt to tell who
the Mound Builders were. They hold no opinion upon
the racial and ethnical relations of those who constructed
these monuments, but declare that the Indian was not
capable of doing the work which was required in their
construction.
   The second class insist that there is nothing in these
monuments to indicate greater genius, greater skill, or
greater patience than the American Indian has exhibited
along many other lines; that it is established beyond all
question that in historical times the Indian constructed
mounds and fortifications, and further, that their burials
are similar in most respects to those of the Mound
Builders. They say that the mere fact of structures being
erected for military purposes demonstrates nothing, because
the different Indian nations were themselves constantly
at war with each other, and were known to make long
marches in order to punish or destroy other Indian nations
who had inflicted upon them some real or imaginary wrong.
They say further, that there was scarcely a tribe from
the Atlantic to the Western plains that did not have some
capital or fixed location in which large numbers of their
people resided, and that these subsisted upon the prod-



[ 8 ]

 

The Prehistoric Men of Kentucky



ucts of agriculture. They insist that De Soto found
all the tribes he visited were successful in cultivating
maize and various vegetables, and that the early voyagers
along the Atlantic shores found the same thing true from
Florida to Massachusetts, and that John Smith and his
colony depended largely for subsistence upon the products
raised by the Indians. Champlain, La Salle, and Mar-
quette all observed that the Indians were engaged in suc-
cessful agriculture, and, instead