Editorialana. 469
DID THE MOUND BUILDERS HAVE HORSES?
"Did the Mound Builders Have
Horses" is the subject of an editorial
in the last issue of the American
Sportsman, March 2. The discovery
of the skeleton of a horse, dug up in the state of Nebraska, started a
discussion to which a number of the most
eminent archeologists of the
country have contributed their opinions.
Dr. Phyle treated the subject
at length in an essay some time ago. The
editorial is as follows:
A horseman is curious to know, after
reading Dr. Phyle's essay on
the evolution of the horse, whether the
"Mound Builders" had horses.
We are not expected to answer this
question, as all matters in the pre-
historic age are exclusively in the
domain of speculation. A similar
question was asked during a race on the
half-mile ring at Newark, Ohio,
the location of several notable memorial
mounds.
It is supposed that the Mound Builders
preceded the North Ameri-
can Indian, but it is not clear that the
Indian is the lineal descendant
of the Mound Builders. When the white
man invaded the Western Con-
tinent the Indians had no horses, but it
does not follow that the race
that built the memorial mounds had no
horses. The Mound Builders
are an extinct race, and their horses
may have perished from off the
earth at about the same time.
Scientists and antiquarians who have
examined the memorial mounds,
especially the famous ones at Newark and
in Adams county, Ohio, as-
sert that they have full proof that the
builders enjoyed a high degree of
civilization. The mound at the Newark
Fair Grounds forms a perfect
circle, a mile in circumference and some
twenty feet high. Upon it
stand very large maple, beech and
hickory trees, showing, it is believed,
that the erection of this mound far
ante-dated the arrival of Columbus,
over four hundred years ago.
It is thought that the Aztecs, found in
Mexico by Cortez, and the
ancient Peruvians, whose empire was
destroyed by Pizzaro, may have
been of the same race as the Mound
Builders.
Whether the Mound Builders had horses we
can only guess, but that
a race preceding the North American
Indians had horses we know to
a certainty. The evidence of the
skeleton horses recently discovered is
conclusive.
Prof. Starr, of the Chicago University
holds, with many others of
the more advanced scientists, that the
Mound Builders were Indians
and coarse barbarians. Prof. Starr also
holds that some of these mounds
were built by Indian tribes not yet
extinct. The French scientists. Lucien
Biart (who has written a very elaborate
book on the ancient Aztecs of
Mexico), holds that they were a true
type of Indians. Prof. John D.
Baldwin, author of the "Prehistoric
Nations," in his notes on American
archaeology, holds that the Mound
Builders were American aborigines
of the Indian type and not immigrants from another continent. Prof.