Mound Builders

By George Barnes, Justin Bradley, Jenny Stafford, and Justin Young

We are going to put the info we know about them and say where the Vikings were at this period of time. Clerico Notes: We are going to take the info Mr. Clerico gave us and put it in paragraph form. Mr. Clerico is one of our high school teachers who is also an archeologist. He came and talked with us one day about Indians in Nevada.

The Mound Builders lived during 1000 A.D. The mounds are found in almost all the valleys of the Mississippi and Ohio River Systems. Types of mounds. North America’s mounds were of many shapes and must have been used in several different ways. Some of the mounds were  built in the lower Mississippi at about the time of Columbus. They  towered 80 feet high and were 200 feet square at the base. One of the mounds was called the Great Mound, and is located near Moundsville, West Virginia. It is sometimes called the Grave  Creek Mound. It was opened in 1838 by people who were not trained as anthropologists. A shaft 10 feet wide was sunk from the top of the mound, and a second vault was discovered. It was directly over  the first and was of the same size. From this upper mound the  searchers took more human bones, over 1,700 beads, 500 sea shells, 5 copper bracelets and many pieces of mica.

Viking Runes?

They also found a flat stone inscribed with what looked like Viking Runes. This stone has caused a great deal of argument. No one can be sure whether this stone was actually found inside  the vault or whether it had been placed there as a joke by some of the diggers. Though various people have made what they call translations of this Grave Creek tablet, it is the present opinion of the archaeologists of the National Museum in Washington that the stone was planted in the excavation by a trickster.

Period

Date Culture
Burial Mound 1 500-900 A.D. New: Burial mounds and villages were built. They made pottery and woven articles. Tobacco pipes were made Some farming began
Burial Mound 2 900-1300 A.D. New: Large burial mounds were built. Art forms developed Wide trade with distant tribes.

Reference:

Americans Before Columbus By Elizebeth Chelsey Baity
Publisher The Viking Press NY:NY (MCMLI)

Clerico Notes:

The Indians in the northern country had to hunt and gather food all  year long so they could survive the winter. They also had to make winter clothes so they wouldn’t freeze to death. These Indians never had time to have fun. The southern Indians had a lot of time to have fun because they could get food at all time of the year and they didn’t have to make winter clothes. The southern Indians had life better than the northern Indians