Miscellaneous Papers Relating to Anthropology/The Great Mound on the Etowah River, Georgia
THE GREAT MOUND ON THE ETOWAH RIVER, GEORGIA.
By Charles Whittlesey, of Cleveland, Ohio.
Not having seen a detailed description of this mound, I made a visit to it in behalf of the Western Reserve Historical Society in May, 1871. It stands upon the north bank of the Etowah, about 2 miles below where it is crossed by the Chattanooga and Atlanta Railway, near Cartersville. Its form, size, and elevation are singular and imposing. It occupies the easterly point or angle of a large and luxuriant river bottom, a part of which is subject to inundations. The soil is a deep, rich, black loam, covering several hundred acres, which has been cultivated in corn and cotton since the Cherokees left it about forty years since.
I was compelled, by bad weather, to make the survey in haste. The bearings were taken with a prismatic compass, the distances measured by pacing, and the elevations obtained with a pocket level.
Fig. 1.
They are therefore subject to the corrections of future surveyors. Its base covers a space of about 3 acres, and stands at a level of 23 feet above low water in the river. In great floods the water approaches near the mound on the west, but has not been known to reach it. The body of the mound has an irregular figure, as shown in the plan. It is longest on the meridian, its diameter in that direction being about 270 feet. On the top is a nearly level area of about an acre, the average height of which is 50 feet above the base. A broad ramp or graded way (1) winds upward from the plain, around the south face of the mound, to the area on the top.
Like some of the pyramids of Egypt, it has two smaller ones as tenders: one on the south, C; another to the southeast, B; each about 100 feet distant, their bases nearly square, and of nearly equal dimensions. If they were not in the shadow of the great mound they would attract attention for their size and regularity. The ground at B is 3 feet higher than at C. All of them are truncated. The mound is not a perfectly regular figure, but approaches a square, with one side broken into three lines. Its height above base is 18 feet. The bearing of its western side is north 10° west, and the length on the ground 47 paces, having been somewhat spread out by plowing around the foot.
Fig. 2.
On the east is a ramp, with a slope of one to two degrees which allows of ready ascent by persons on foot.
The slopes of all the mounds are very steep and quite perfect, in some places still standing at an angle of 45°. B is a regular truncated pyramid, with a square base about 106 feet on a side, two of the faces bearing 5° west of the meridian. Its elevation is 22 feet. There is no ramp, or place of ascent which is less steep than the general slopes.
Towards the southeast corner of the surface of B is a sunken place as though a vault had fallen in.
The proprietor has managed to cultivate the summits of all the mounds, regarding the group in the light of a continual injury by the loss of several acres of ground. Most of the material of the mounds is the rich black mold of the bottom land, with occasional lumps of red clay. The soil on their sides and summits produces corn, cotton, grass, vines, and bushes in full luxuriance. The perimeter of the base of the great mound is 534 paces. As the ground had been recently plowed and was soaked with a deluge of rain, a pace will represent little more than 2 feet. I give the circumference provisionally at 370 yards. The area on the top is like the base, oblong north and south, but its figure is more regular. Its perimeter is 231 paces.
From the center of the pyramid C a line on the magnetic meridian passes a few feet to the west of the center of the platform on the summit of A. Its sides are nowhere washed or gullied by rains. Prior to the clearing of the land, large trees flourished on the top and on the slopes. I estimate its mass to contain 117,000 cubic yards, which is about four-fifths of the Prussian earth monument on the field of Waterloo.
At the base the ramp is 50 feet broad, growing narrower as you ascend. It curves to the right, and reaches the area on the top near its southwest corner. Twenty-five years since, before it was injured by cultivation, visitors could easily ride to the summit on horseback along the ramp. From this spot the view of the rich valley of the Etowah, towards the west, and of the picturesque hills which border it on either side, is one of surpassing beauty.
About 300 yards to the north rises the second terrace of the valley, composed of red clay and gravel. Near the foot of it are the remains of a ditch, inclosing this group of mounds in an arc of a circle, at a distance of about 200 yards. The western end rests on the river below the mounds, into which the high waters back up a considerable distance.
It has been principally filled up by cultivation. The owner of the premises says there was originally an embankment along the edge of the ditch on the side of the pyramids, but other old settlers say there was none. If the last statement is correct, a part of the earth composing the mounds can be accounted for by the ditch.
Its length is about one-fourth of a mile, and it does not extend to the river above the mounds. Near the upper end are two oblong irregular pits, 12 to 15 feet deep, from which a part of the earth of the mounds may have been taken. The diameter of the pits varies from 150 to 200 feet, and the breadth from 60 to 70. The ditch is reputed to have been 30 feet wide and 10 feet deep. Two hundred yards to the northeast of A are the remains of four low mounds within the ditch, near the large pits. Five hundred yards to the northwest, on the edge of the second terrace, is a mound which is yet 8 feet high, although it has been industriously plowed over more than thirty years. On the opposite side of the river, one-fourth of a mile below, and on the same side 2 miles below, are said to be small mounds.
Fig. 3.
On the summit of a rocky hill, 2½ miles northwest, which overlooks the valley of the Etowah towards Rome, and also the hill country on the south, is an inclosure of loose unhewn stones, known as the "Indian Fort." It has now the appearance of a heavy stone fence which has fallen down. There are six openings or entrances, B B B, having a breadth of 10 to 60 feet, situated at irregular distances. It is an irregular oval figure inclosing the rocky summit of the hill, the largest diameter of which is 220 paces and the shorter 200. The elevation of the knob, at the center, is 60 feet above the terrace or bench, on which the lines of loose stones are lying. This interior space is principally cleared of loose stone, and shows bare ledges of lime rock, in horizontal layers.
The hill is covered with an open growth of oaks. There is nothing in this structure suggestive of a fort, except its elevated position, which, however, is by no means inaccessible. The openings are too wide and too numerous to warrant the idea of a defensive work. It is more probable that it was the scene of imposing public processions arid displays, and was approached by crowds of persons from all sides through the openings. The rude wall or line of stones would be the necessary result of clearing the ground of the blocks of limestone once scattered profusely over the surface.
Near where the railway from Cartersville to Cedarville crosses Petit's Creek, at the base of the limestone bluff, about half a mile east of the "fort," is an artificial pile of small stones, which was once about 18 feet in height. It is now very much injured by persons in Search of treasure and of relics, who have formed a crater at the center nearly down to the ground, throwing the stones over the sides* It must have been a regular cone, with smaller heaps attached around its base, which was irregular, and about 160 feet in circumference. This mound of stones does not differ from those raised by the red men over the remains of their dead chiefs except in size.
A few days before I was at the great mound, a rude stone effigy of a female was plowed out near its base on the north side. It is quite grotesque, resembling the uncouth carvings in wood of the Indians of the north, Its height is 14 inches, its weight 36 pounds, and the material is the limestone of the region.
Fig. 5.
I have a photograph of it, viewed on three sides. On the hips and back are colored zigzag lines of white and brown, intended for ornament. Some years since a male, probably the mate to it, was plowed out near the same place; also an earthen vase and other pottery, with flint disks. The first found image was lost or destroyed, and the other soon will be. In style and artist to execution they appear to be the work of the present red man.
Fig. 6.
Mr. Tumlin, the owner of the premises, and Mr. Sage, of Cartersville, who knew the country while the Cherokees were in possession of it, state that the summit of the great pyramid was a fortified village, surrounded by pickets of wood and a slight embankment. This parapet is still visible, but is, at least in part, owing to furrows turned outward in plowing, and, until recently, the stumps of the pickets were struck by the plow. Near the southeast corner of the area, on the top, is a low mound. It is a third of a mile, at the nearest point, to where there is land of a height equal to the mound, and therefore it was a place easily defended. Although the Cherokees made use of it as a fort against the Creeks, they always denied having any knowledge of the race or the persons by whom the mound was erected. The gentlemen above named questioned them repeatedly on this point, and always received the same answer. If it had been designed as a place of defense originally, a much less broad and gentle road to the summit would have been made.
I was attracted to this mound and its surroundings as a type of the flat top pyramids, so common on the waters of the Gulf of Mexico, which have been by some archæologists attributed to the present race of red men. In Florida and in Alabama, the early English and Spanish travelers found Indian caciques with their wigwams on the top of such mounds, around which were the villages of their tribe. Instances are given where Indian towns occupied spaces surrounded by ancient embankments of earth, both with and without mounds.
Mr. S, F, Haven, long distinguished in archæology as the secretary of the American Antiquarian Society at Worcester, Mass., in his article in the Smithsonian Contributions for 1855, vol viii, has referred to an instance of an intrenched fort made by the Arickarees, in a bend of the Missouri River, above Council Bluffs, The description of this fort by Lewis and Clark does not give it the character of an earthwork with ditches for defense. It was a temporary breastwork of logs and earth and stone, hastily thrown up, such as are common in Indian warfare, and in all warfare.
The Indian forts which were attacked by Champlain in northeastern New York in 1609 were constructed of pickets set in a low bank, strengthened by interlacing branches and poles, secured by bark and withes. During the French wars with the Iroquois, on the waters of Lake Ontario, they met with nothing more advanced than these light stockades. The pickets were set in the earth, and the bank raised against them from both sides, to give them a more firm support. In no case was the bank or ditch relied upon as a protection or as an obstacle to those without. They were of a profile too slight for this purpose.
The northwestern Indians have been questioned in numerous instances as to the authors of the earthworks of the West. They universally deny having any knowledge or tradition of the persons who built them; a tradition which could not have been lost, or the art of making them. The relics which are found in the mounds, in connection with the first or oldest burials, although there are resemblances, differ from the relics of the red men in many particulars. If stone axes or mauls of the Indian type have been found in the mounds, they are rare. The last-named race were not miners of copper or copper- workers. In the implements of the two races there are resemblances, especially in those which are made of flint, but no greater than in those of the ancient races in Europe, where no connection is claimed.
It cannot, however, be denied that continued investigations bring to light a strong similarity between the works of the ancient tribes of the South and the mound-builders. If the dividing line shall be broken down as to them, there is a wide difference between the northern tribes and the mound-builders.
Col. C. C. Jones, of Atlanta, Ga., in his valuable work on the Southern Indians (1874), has given historical proof to show that the Spaniards were witnesses to the erection of such mounds.
Most of the above descriptive matter is an abstract of my remarks at the Chicago meeting of the American Association, in August, 1871, before the appearance of the book of Colonel Jones. The drawings used at the meeting have been reduced by photograph for this paper. I take pleasure in referring to his work (pages 137 to 143) for details not in my description, especially the artificial ponds D D, and the mound E inclosed by the moat. The cavities E E E of my sketch are the ponds P of Colonel Jones, but at the time of my visit were without water. There is but one ascent to the platform A, which is represented at 1, e, j, and is in very good condition. Fort Hill no doubt had a relation to this group of mounds answering to the high places of worship which are common in Palestine.