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 CHAPTER I

HE latest explorations of the mounds erected by those first Americans, known best as the mound-building Indians, have revolutionized our conceptions of the earliest race of which we know in America. Very many notions, founded upon the authority of the earlier archæologists, seem now to be either partly or wholly incorrect. Many assumptions as to the population of this country during the mound-building era, the degree of the civilization, and the perfection of the arts, have not been substantiated by the more accurate studies which have been made in the past decade.

The most important reason why so little progress has been made in unraveling the mystery of the mounds that abound in central North America is that "the authors