ARCH 100 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Mound Builders, Adena Culture, Midwestern United States
18 Feb 2020
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Document Summary
European settlers began encountering many mounds as they moved west, into the. The settlers considered the indians they encountered to be generally lazy & inferior people. It was inconceivable to these settlers that these indians or their ancestors could have possibly built the mounds. This led to a number of myths about who were the actual builders. The mounds were attributed to virtually every source other than the native indians of the region: Further, the mound builders were thought to have been exterminated by the indians. All of this was justification for removing the natives from their ancestral lands. Mounds were routinely destroyed to make way for agricultural lands, and later developments. Few mounds are left today, and fewer are intact. Local traditions but early stages of sharing cultural traits over a long distance. Shared traits primarily found in burials & ceremonial behaviours. Adena sites known primarily from the central ohio valley area.
