MOUNDS IN MISSOURI
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16:21 9/6/00
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Text taken from: "A HISTORY OF MISSOURI"

FROM THE EARLIEST EXPLORATIONS AND SETTLEMENTS UNTIL THE
ADMISSION OF THE STATE INTO THE UNION.
By LOUIS HOUCK Printed 1908


Louis Houck references the following material from
Bancroft's Native Races of America, vol.iv p. 781.

No doubt a large population at some prehistoric period dwelt in what is not Missouri, 
and especially in eastern and southeastern Missouri. IT is the opinion of Brackenridge 
that "an immense population" was once supported by this country. Indeed, it would appear
from the vestiges yet remaining of these prehistoric people that during the era of their 
occupancy of the land the population of the country was greater, at least in those 
localities of the state where the mounds are most numerous, that even now. It is 
impossible to estimate the number of these prehistoric people. Large as the number 
may appear, I am certain that the 28,000 mounds which have been discovered within 
the limits of the state, mostly in the eastern portion, only indicate approximately 
the prehistoric population. As a deeper interest in Missouri archaeology grows up among
all classes of the people we may expect many additional discoveries. Even Now fragments of
potter, agricultural implements of stone, village sites and prehistoric habitations are 
uncovered at most unexpected places. How much more by close observation will yet be revealed 
it is impossible to tell.

All the evidence tends to show that these do-called mound-builders were a homogeneous race 
and agricultural people; nothing indicates that they were either ferocious or warlike; no 
weapons what-ever have been found in their burial mounds. But spear, arrow, and lance heads 
are found in every variety on and near other mounds, and also in greater abundance apparently 
near points where probably shops or factories existed and where such arrow, or lance heads
were made. As already stated, clay pottery sling -balls or bullets were unearthed several 
feet below the surface near some mounds. That these mound-builders were sedentary, 
semi-civilized people ins certain. The immense works which still attract our attention 
were not built by a migratory people, but "by a race that lived long in the land," and Bancroft 
thinks that some of the works "could not have been accomplished in less than four or five 
centuries," of course taking into account their methods and facilities.

This also has been noted, that the mound-builders always had their settlements on good and 
fertile soil. Brackenridge, in 1810, noticed that the prehistoric mounds "invariably occupy 
the most eligible situations for towns and settlements," that there is "not a rising town or 
a farm of an eligible situation in whose vicinity some of them may not be found," and further 
says that" a surveyor of public lands" told him "wherever any of these remains were met with 
he was sure to find an extensive body of fertile soil." This observation has been found to be 
generally correct.