Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 1.djvu/59



of country, showing conclusively that these first inhabitants of Iowa, of which anything is known, must have made considerable progress in some of the arts of civilized people.

Their mounds extend as far west as the Little Sioux River, and the Des Moines Valley is especially rich in these evidences of occupation by the “Mound Builders.”  At one point a few miles above the city of Des Moines, on a bold bluff of the river, are many acres covered with their mounds. At other points are found well preserved earthworks laid out on high bluffs, evidently for defense. There is, near Lehigh, in Webster County, an elaborate system of these earthworks commanding a view of great extent.

The lines of these works can easily traced and in many places huge trees have grown up in them. There are evidences that these people cleared forests, graded roads, wove cloth, made stone and copper implements, exhibiting great skill in these works which have survived them. If they were of the same race with the inhabitants of Central America, who erected the massive structures found in ruins on that portion of the continent, their civilization must have become well advanced. It is not improbable that as these antiquities are further explored, additional light will be thrown upon the history of this race of people who preceded the Indians in America. That they existed in great numbers, and through a period of many thousand years, cannot be doubted. That they were assailed by warlike invaders coming upon them from the north and west is generally believed. That the earthworks found along the rivers were erected as protection against enemies there can be little doubt.

How long they resisted the invaders can never be known, The terrible conflicts may have lasted through several generations, as they were gradually dislodged from their strongholds and forced southward. They may have slowly perished before the resistless onslaught of the invaders until the remnants of the once numerous race