Mound Builder (people) - Alternative Explanations

Alternative Explanations

Through the mid-nineteenth century, European Americans did not recognize that ancestors of the Native Americans had built the prehistoric mounds of the eastern U.S. They believed that the massive earthworks and large ceremonial complexes were built by a different people. The antiquarian author William Pidgeon epitomized this view; Pidgeon supported his conclusions by creating fraudulent surveys of mound groups that did not exist.

A key work in increasing public knowledge of the origins of the mounds was the 1894 report by Cyrus Thomas of the Bureau of American Ethnology (now Smithsonian Institution). He concluded that the prehistoric earthworks of the eastern United States were the work of early cultures of Native Americans. A small number of people had earlier reached similar conclusions: Thomas Jefferson, for example, excavated a mound and from the artifacts and burial practices, noted similarities between mound-builder funeral practices and those of Native Americans in his time. In addition, Theodore Lewis in 1886 had refuted Pidgeon's fradulent claims of pre-Native American moundbuilders.

Writers and scholars have put forward numerous alternative origins for the mound builders:

Vikings

Benjamin Smith Barton proposed the theory that the mound builders were Vikings who came to North America and eventually disappeared.

Ancient world immigrants

Other people believed that Greeks, Africans, Chinese or assorted Europeans built the mounds. Euro-Americans who embraced a Biblical worldview sometimes thought the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel had built the mounds.

Book of Mormon inhabitants

See also: Archaeology and the Book of Mormon

During the 1800s, a common folklore was that the Jews, particularly the Lost Ten Tribes, were the ancestors of Native Americans and the mound builders. The Book of Mormon (first published in 1830) provides an example of this belief, as its narrative describes two waves of immigration to the Americas from Mesopotamia: the Jaredites (ca. 3000 - 2000 BCE) and an Israelite group in 590 BCE (called Nephites, Lamanites and Mulekites). The Book of Mormon depicts these settlers' building magnificent cities, only to be later destroyed by warfare around 385 CE.

Some Mormon scholars have considered The Book of Mormon narrative a description of the mound-building cultures; other Mormon apologists argue for a Mesoamerican or South American setting. Theories about a Mesoamerican setting for the Book of Mormon did not arise until after Latter-day Saints were influenced by publicized findings about the Central American stone ruins. This occurred after the Book of Mormon was published.

Black civilizations

In the 20th century, certain sects affiliated with the Black nationalist Moorish Science philosophy theorized a connection with the mound builders. They argue that the mound builders were an ancient advanced Black civilization that developed the legendary continents of Atlantis and Mu, as well as ancient Egypt and Mesoamerica. These black groups, similar to European Americans in earlier periods, propose that the American Indians were too primitive to have developed the sophisticated societies and the technology believed necessary to build the mounds.

Divine creation

The Reverend Landon West claimed that Serpent Mound in Ohio was built by God, or by man inspired by him. He believed that God built the mound and placed it as a symbol of the story of the Garden of Eden.

Mythical cultures

Some people attributed the mounds to mythical cultures: Lafcadio Hearn suggested that the mounds were built by people from the Lost Continent of Atlantis.