Page:History of Southeast Missouri 1912 Volume 1.djvu/63

 HISTORY OF SOUTHEAST MISSOURI CHAPTER I ARCHAEOLOGY Mounds in Southeast Missouri — Great Numbers Known to Exist — Distribution of Mounds — Size of Mounds — Shape — Arrangement — • Various Mounds Described — An Ancient Wharf — Contents of Mounds — Who Built the Mounds — The Mound Builder Theory — The Work of the Indians — Probable Origin — Collections of Relics — Beck- with's Great Collection — Plates Found Near Malden — Other Remarkable Pieces. . In every part of the world are found evi- dences of the early existence of man. The dwellers in Europe find constant evidence that many centuries ago, long before the begin- ning of recorded history, there were men liv- ing who left behind them traces of their ex- istence in the form of tools and implements of stone, of heaps of shells, of earthen mounds and stone burial places. This is true also of the other continents, even of Asia and Africa, whose recorded history goes so far back into the past. It is also true of America. Here are to be found numerous remains, some of them centuries old, unmistakable evidence of man's residence here in ages long since past. These remains, or at least the most conspicu- ous of them, are great mounds of earth. They are to be found in most parts of the United States, though not in all places. Many of them are in Southeast Missouri. Here the remains are mostly earthen mounds and their contents. Some of these mounds are large, many of them are small. They exist in great numbers. In fact we now know that there are a great many more of them than was suspected a few years ago. They have been here many years. They were here when the earliest explorers visited the country. DeSoto found a large hill, perhaps in the immediate neighborhood of New Mad- rid. At any rate it was within the alluvial region of the southeast where no natural hills are to be found. It was doubtless one of the ancient mounds. All the early explorers noted them. They were old at that distant date. Some of them give evidence of great age. Large trees are growing upon them which could not, in the nature of things, have developed short of centuries. They are to a close observer one of the most striking fea-