Mound-Builders | Page 3

Sometimes they may be seen in clusters, indicating a great business centre and large population, while again only one may be found in a journey of fifty or one hundred miles.
During the last fifty years, these tumuli have been carefully examined, and, from their contents, shape and position, they are now classified as Temple or Sacrificial Mounds, Burial or Sepulchral Mounds, Symbolic Mounds, Signal Mounds and Indefinite Mounds. I shall briefly describe the characteristic of each class and give a few examples.
Temple Mounds.--These mounds are not so numerous in Ohio as in some other States, yet they occur in sufficient numbers to deserve a small share of our attention. The city of Marietta has slowly encroached upon some interesting remains of a sacrificial character, which consist of two irregular squares containing 50 and 27 acres respectively. They are situated on a level plain 100 feet above the level of the Ohio and Muskingum Rivers. The smaller square has ten gateways, which are covered by mounds, while the larger square, being strictly a sacred enclosure, has no mounds to cover the 16 openings, but contains nevertheless four temple mounds of considerable interest. On the top of these mounds, doubtless there were erected capacious temples, as there are significant avenues of ascent. There may still be seen the remains of the ancient altar, where, without doubt, these people assembled for worship, and where, from the presence of human bones, we may conclude human beings were offered in sacrifice. In all the sacred enclosures, evidences of altars have been found, on which, doubtless, the sacrificial fires blazed for ages. Often are to be found successions of alternate layers of ashes and blue clay, indicating a desire for pure sacrifice.
In the neighborhood of Newark, Ohio, at the forks of Licking River, may be seen most elaborate enclosures, square, circular, and polygonal in their form, covering in all an extent of four square miles. Like the ancient temples of the Druids, most of the enclosures have their openings to the east, or rising sun, so that the first rays shall strike the altar where doubtless a priest, from the early hour of dawn, performed mysterious rites.
On the west, there is erected a mound, 170 feet long and 14 feet in height, which overlooks the whole works, and has been styled "the Observatory". To the east is a true circle 2,880 feet in circumference, the wall being 6 feet in height. To the north of this is an avenue leading from the circle to an octagon of fifty acres, in the wall of which are eight gateways, which, however, are covered by mounds five feet in height. From this strange eight-sided figure run three parallel walls. Those to the south are about two miles in length, and those running towards the east are each about one mile in length.
About a mile east, where the middle line of parallel walls terminates, is a square containing twenty acres, within and around the walls of which are disposed seven mounds. To the north-east of this is an elliptical work of large dimensions. On the south-east is a circle, in the centre of which is the form of a bird with wings expanded. The body is 155 feet, the length of each wing 110 feet, and the head of the bird is towards the opening. When this structure was opened, there was found an altar, proving that, in this circular place, this ancient people must have assembled for worship.
There is a place three miles north of Chillicothe, where an extensive enclosure--now called "Mound City"--contains 26 well formed and regularly disposed mounds, covering an area of 13 acres. Many of those mounds contained altars at their base, but have been subsequently converted into ordinary mounds. One mound, which is 90 feet in diameter at the base and 7-1/2 feet in height, contained an altar, within the basin of which was found a layer of solid ashes three inches thick, in which were numerous pieces of pottery and shell-beads. On the top of the altar was a layer of sand, then gravel for two feet, then a thin layer of sand, then one foot of gravel.
Buried three feet below the apex of the mound, were found two well developed and highly preserved skeletons, which, however, were not those of Mound-builders, but rather of the Indians who were buried there long after the mounds were abandoned. One altar was covered by a layer of opaque mica, which must have been brought from a great distance. In the centre of the basin was found, besides numerous other relics, a large heap of burned human bones, which would indicate it an altar of human sacrifice. From other evidences, we may safely conclude that they were Sun or Fire-worshippers. As to the cause of these altars