Page:History of Goodhue County, Minnesota.djvu/57

 HISTORY OF GOODHUE COUNTY 29 of the county? Similar reasons might be brought up against the idea of these earth heaps being ant hills. "In no ease were ants found to inhabit these mounds, nor do such mounds occur where ants are very numerous. A zoolo- gist or botanist would have a hard time to account for the origin of these mounds by referring them to the work of animals or plants. "These are only a few of the reasons which seem to warrant the conclusion that these mounds are not the accumulations of geological nor of botanical agencies, and since it is very certain that the white man did not build them, there seems to be but one other reasonable conclusion to draw, namely, that the mounds were built by prehistoric men who for some reason lived there either temporarily in the course of years or for longer periods of time. "The creeks, sloughs and ponds furnished an abundance of water. Fuel in great abundance was near at hand. The sloughs contained beavers, mink, muskrats and other game. In the nearby forests lived the deer in great abundance. Moose and elk were also here. Farmers tell of having plowed up bones belong- ing to these animals. Of buffalos there is scarcely a trace, if any, of their former presence. The only buffalo relic observed was a partially decayed horn which I found near the mounds in the Greenvale slough. "If closer study should prove the mounds to be burial places, then they are witnesses both of the large number of Indians buried here as well as the much larger population which was not honored by a monument of earth. The groups in the vicinity of Dennison probably indicate that somewhere between North- field and Faribault a trail passed from Cannon river to Prairie creek, while the southern end of the Stanton flats served as a halting place or station. Traces of such trails still exist. "The distribution of the mounds seems to be governed by the river courses and their tributaries, and by large flats which were either quite free from timber of else full of game. The absence of long mounds and the inability to find any traces of village sites or Indian relics of any kind seem to point to the great antiquity of these mounds, or else to warrant the view that with Red Wing, Spring Creek, Cannon Junction, Welch and other places along the Mississippi as headquarters, the Indians followed the water courses in temporary quest of game. They went along the Cannon to Faribault, Cannon lake, and very likely from there south into Steele, Mower and Freeborn counties. At least some mounds are found here and there in these counties, but, next to the Mississippi, the valley of the Cannon seems to