Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge, Vol. I. — A Closer Reading

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In Category - Anthropology

Authors: Squier, E. G. (Ephraim George), 1821-1888, Davis, E. H. (Edwin Hamilton), 1811-1888 Digital Source: Project Gutenberg Gutenberg Release Year: 2015 First Publication Year: Not confirmed

Key Word: Mounds -- Mississippi River Valley; Indians of North America -- Mississippi River Valley -- Antiquities; Mississippi River Valley -- Antiquities; Ohio River Valley -- Antiquities Target Reader: Readers of public-domain and historical texts

Book Edition: Project Gutenberg digital edition Book Language: en

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Words 154,130

Reading time 671 min

Text sections 36

This digital edition of Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge, Vol. I. — A Closer Reading is described by source-level measurements including 154,130 words, 11 hr 11 min estimated reading time, and 36 detected text sections.

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Source: Project Gutenberg record #49668

This editorial note examines the descriptive language and structural choices in Squier and Davis's 1848 survey of Native American earthworks, focusing on how the authors blend empirical observation with cautious inference about the mounds' builders.

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ern shore of Lake Erie, and through Michigan and Wisconsin, to Iowa and the Nebraska territory, on the west.[1] We have no record of their occurrence above the great lakes. Carver mentions some on the shores of Lake Pepin, and some are said to occur near Lake Travers, under the 46th parallel of latitude. Lewis and Clarke saw them on the Missouri river, one thousand miles above its junction with the Mississippi; and they have been observed on the Kanzas and Platte, and on other remote western rivers. They are found all over the intermediate country, and spread over the valley of the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico. They line the shores of the Gulf from Texas to Florida, and extend, in diminished numbers, into South Carolina. They occur in great numbers in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Missouri, Arkansas, Kentucky, Tennessee, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, and Texas. They are found, in less numbers, in the western portions of New-York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and North and South Carolina; as also in Michigan, Iowa, and in the Mexican territory beyond the Rio Grande del Norte. In short, [p002] they occupy the entire basin of the Mississippi and its tributaries, as also the fertile plains along the Gulf.

It is a fact but recently made known, that there are an abundance of small mounds, or tumuli, in the territory of Oregon. We are not informed, however, whether there are any enclosures, or other works of like character with those usually accompanying the mounds of the Mississippi valley, nor whether the mounds of Oregon are generally disseminated over that territory.[2] That they are of frequent occurrence upon the river Gila, in California, and also upon the tributaries of the Colorado of the West, is also a fact but recently ascertained. Whether these mounds possess features identifying them with those of the Mississippi valley, or indicating a common origin, remains to be decided.

It is not to be understood that these works are dispersed equally over the area above indicated. They are mainly confined to the valleys of the rivers and large streams, and seldom occur very far back from them. Occasional works are found in the hill or broken country; but they are not frequent, and are always of small size.

Although possessing throughout certain general points of resemblance, going to establish a kindred origin, these works, nevertheless, resolve themselves into three grand geographical divisions, which present, in many respects, striking contrasts, yet so gradually merge into each other, that it is impossible to determine where one series terminates and the other begins. In the region bordering the upper lakes, to a certain extent in Michigan, Iowa, and Missouri, but particularly in Wisconsin, we find a succession of remains, entirely singular in their form, and presenting but slight analogy to any others of which we have an account, in any portion of the globe. The larger proportion of these are structures of earth, bearing the forms of beasts, birds, reptiles, and even of men; they are frequently of gigantic dimensions, constituting huge «basso-relievos» upon the face of the country. They are very numerous, and in most cases occur in long and apparently dependent ranges. In connection with them, are found many conical mounds and occasional short lines of embankment, in rare instances forming enclosures. These animal effigies are mainly confined to Wisconsin, and extend across that territory from Fond du Lac, in a south-western direction, ascending the Fox river, and following the general course of Rock and Wisconsin rivers to the Mississippi. They may be much more extensively disseminated; but it is here only that they have been observed in considerable numbers. In Michigan, as also in Iowa and Missouri, similar elevations, of more or less regular outline, are said to occur. They are represented as [p003] dispersed in ranges, like the buildings of a modern city, and covering sometimes an area of many acres.

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Squier and Davis open their volume with a striking juxtaposition: the Smithsonian Institution's motto, “EVERY MAN IS A VALUABLE MEMBER OF SOCIETY, WHO, BY HIS OBSERVATIONS, RESEARCHES, AND EXPERIMENTS, PROCURES KNOWLEDGE FOR MEN,” appears twice in the front matter, framing the work as a contribution to systematic knowledge. Yet the text itself is a careful negotiation between what can be measured and what must be guessed. The authors repeatedly qualify their descriptions with phrases like “it is said” or “deserve little credit,” signaling a methodological caution that pervades the entire survey.

Measured Language and Qualified Claims

The authors’ diction reveals a persistent tension between empirical reporting and interpretive restraint. When describing the “city or ruins of Aztalan” in Wisconsin, they note that a “cellar and stairway within one of the square mounds, and a subterranean passage arched with stone, are mentioned as existing here; but they lack confirmation and deserve little credit.” This sentence does more than report a rumor—it enacts the authors’ evidentiary standards. Similarly, when discussing the possibility of burned bricks, they state that “we shall be warranted in ascribing the use of burned bricks to the race which built these works, only upon the most conclusive evidence, and such we do not at present possess.” The conditional “shall be warranted” and the explicit lack of evidence place the burden of proof squarely on future investigation. Such hedging is not weakness but a deliberate rhetorical strategy that defines the work as a scientific document rather than a speculative narrative.

The Vocabulary of Form and Measurement

The authors rely on a precise but limited vocabulary to describe earthworks: “truncated pyramids,” “elevated way,” “crescent-form work,” “bastions,” “embankments.” These terms are drawn from architecture and fortification, imposing a familiar grid on unfamiliar shapes. For instance, the Aztalan enclosure is said to have “the general outline of an oblong square,” and its walls are “interrupted, at intervals of from two to five rods, by bastions of the same height as the main wall, and extending seventeen feet beyond it.” The specificity of measurement—rods, feet, acres—creates an air of objectivity, yet the authors acknowledge that the plan they reproduce is “palpably an imperfect one,” with no gateways or entrances represented. This admission undercuts the illusion of completeness and reminds the reader that the survey is a partial, mediated record.

Attribution and the Problem of the Builder

Throughout the excerpts, the authors carefully avoid naming the builders. They refer instead to “the race which built these works” or “the ancient people.” This circumlocution is a deliberate choice, reflecting the uncertainty that pervades mid-nineteenth-century American archaeology. When describing the “horned bird” mound in Grant County, Wisconsin, they rely entirely on the observations of a Mr. S. Taylor, whose accounts are quoted at length. The authors do not vouch for Taylor’s interpretations; they simply present them. This layering of voices—Squier and Davis reporting Taylor reporting local knowledge—creates a chain of testimony that is both a strength and a limitation. The reader is left to weigh the credibility of each link. The authors’ own voice remains that of the cautious compiler, not the omniscient authority.

Structure as Argument: The Plate and the Text

The volume’s organization—plates numbered in Roman numerals, with corresponding text entries—mirrors the taxonomic impulse of the era. Each plate is a visual claim, and the text serves as its annotation. For example, Plate XLIV is described as showing “Ancient Work No. 1. On Rock River, Wisconsin. Nos. 2–8. Various localities.” The text then enumerates features: the “brick wall” five feet high, the truncated pyramids “forty or fifty feet square upon the top, and between fifteen and twenty in height.” But the authors immediately complicate the visual evidence by noting that “several conical mounds are mentioned in the description as occurring within the enclosure, but do not appear in the plan.” This discrepancy between what is drawn and what is reported highlights the editorial choices behind the plates. The reader is thus invited to see the plates not as transparent records but as constructed representations, shaped by the surveyors’ decisions about what to include and what to omit.

Readers approaching this work should attend to the interplay between the authors’ measured prose and the ambitious scope of their project. Squier and Davis are not simply cataloging ruins; they are building a case for a scientific archaeology at a moment when the discipline was still taking shape. Every qualified statement, every borrowed observation, every admission of uncertainty is a brick in that foundation. The value of the volume lies not in its conclusions—many of which have been superseded—but in its demonstration of how to describe what one does not fully understand.

Reading Squier and Davis’s cautious speculations about the mound builders, I felt that same quiet patience—how slowly we earn our certainties. The way they let the earth speak, rather than forcing answers, reminds me of a later book that ponders our own animal roots with equal gentleness. On the Relations of Man to the Lower Animals — Reading Companion holds that same tone, and I thought of it again today.