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Show 129 17. Who had built these "mounds" and to what purpose? Where had the Aztecs, Incans, and the North American "mound-builders" come from? (Surely such advanced cultures could not have developed independently from European culture. Were they, in some way, distantly related to Europeans? If this could be proved, it would provide an explanation of these cultures' superior development). Why had these cultures vanished? Was their demise explained through natural causes, war, or moral degeneration? Such were some of the concerns of early nineteenth-century natural science. Bodmer and Maximilian passed through the Ohio Valley, the location of a great number of ancient earthworks and mounds, on their way to the Missouri river. Certainly Maximilian was aware of the speculations concerning the origin of these mounds. In his journal entry for June 1, 1834, on the return segment of the expedition, Maximilian mentions having visited the Cahokia mound Trappist's Hill, as well as other Indian mounds in the same vicinity; he noted that "Mr. Bodmer made sketches of a few of them with the greatest speed." (See Trappists Hill opposite St. Louis, pencil and ink on paper, 10" x 12-1/2", KBA #131 and Prehistoric Indian Mounds opposite St. Louis , ink over pencil on paper, 10-7/8" x 16-3/8", KBA #130). Speculations on the origin of these mounds was at its height during the 1830s: While settlement spread through and increased in the Ohio Valley, differing ideas about the origin of the mounds and their builders arose and were discussed and investigated. Some of the earliest students of mounds, Thomas Jefferson among them, felt that the mounds found throughout the eastern United States were the work of American Indians. The size, complexity, and geometric precision of the Ohio Valley mounds and earthworks, however, led other people to believe that they were the product of some advanced civilization. Many people during the early part of the 19th Century believed strongly that the American Indian, as known by them, simply did not have the energy or organizational ability, or technological skills, to build the earthworks. In addition, there was a romantic-perhaps nationalistic-appeal in the notion that a true civilization might have existed in America prior to the discovery by the Europeans. Thus there arose a widespread feeling during the 19th Century that the mounds and earthworks had been built by a lost race of civilized people, but there was no consensus among the advocates of the lost race idea as to the identity of the people responsible. Vikings, Greeks, Israelites, Persians, Hindus, Phoenicians, and emigrants from Atlantis all were put forth as candidates. As to the fate of the Lost Race, it was believed that they either must have emigrated voluntarily-perhaps to Mexico to become the Toltecs-or were displaced or destroyed by the ancestors of the historic American Indians. |