Redwood County, Minnesota - Chapter 4: Prehistoric Inhabitants, 1916

Scientists declare that in the Glacial period, this region was several times covered with a great ice sheet at recurrent intervals. When for the last time the glacier receded, and its melting waters subsidide, it left behind an area that in a few years became a wonderfully diversified and beautiful region. Verdure took the place of glaring ice and swirling waters. The smiling expanses of gently rolling prairie, beautiful and virgin, dipping here and there into swales and pools, or even into sparkling lakes, covered in the summer with luxuriant grass and spangled with flowers, were caressed by perfumed breezes, untrod by human foot, and unmarred by human handiwork. In the ravines and along the watercourses were forest trees and tangled underbrush. And this varied landscape fairly quivered with animal life. The American bison, commonly called the buffalo, ranged the prairies, countless birds of all kinds flew over its surface, great flocks of waterfowl lived in its marshes and pools. In the edges of the wooded ravines, antlered animals such as the deer and the elk, and the larger fur-bearing animals such as the bear, were found in greatest profusion. All the smaller animals common to this climate found a home here. Prairie and woodland presented a scene of teeming life and ceaseless animal activity.

A country so bountiful and inviting to man, whether primitive or civilized, would remain uninhabited only while undiscovered. At some period of the earth's history, mankind in some form took up its abode in what is now Redwood county. How many ages distant that period was no one can tell. It is evident that man followed very closely the receding of the last glacier, if indeed he had not existed here previous to that time. A discussion of the possibilities of the existence of man in Minnesota during Glacial, Inter-Glacial and Pre-Glacial ages is beyond the scope of this work. It has been made a special subject of study by several Minnesota savants, and many notable articles have been written concerning evidences that have been discovered.

Many scholars are of the opinion that in all probability the first inhabitants of the northern part of the United States were, or were closely related to the Eskimo. While the data are very meagre, they all point that way. The Eskimos seem to have remained on the Atlantic seaboard as late as the arrival of the Scandinavian discoverers of the eleventh century, for their description of the aborigines whom they call "skralingar" (a term of contempt about equivalent to "runts") is much more consonant with the assumption that these were Eskimos than Indians.

So possibly it is permissible to picture the first human inhabitants of Redwood county as a small yellowish-brown skin-clad race, identical with the quartz workers of Little Falls, slipping around nimbly and quietly in the woods and dells, subsisting mainly on fish, but also partly on the chase. Their homes were doubtless of the simplest descriptions, and their culture not above absolute savagery.

The Eskimos seem to have followed more or less closely the edge of the last receding glacier. Whether they were forced out by a stronger race or whether they found the bleak shores of the Arctic seas more suited to their physical make-up than the fertile regions further south is only a matter of conjecture.

Scholars are of the opinion that the next inhabitants of Minnesota were tribes of the Siouan stock, in other words the ancestors of the present Sioux (Dakota) Indians. These peoples of the Siouan stock appear to have built the mounds of southern Minnesota. Possibly they lived in Redwood county. These Siouan people were possibly driven out by the people of the Algonquin stock, whereupon they eventually took up their homes in the neighborhood of the upper valley of the Ohio river and possibly elsewhere. How many centuries they lived there it is impossible even to estimate. In the meantime the Algonquin peoples probably occupied the Minnesota region, and possibly Redwood county. They did not make mounds. Some five hundred years ago the Siouan Mound Builders were driven out from their homes in the upper Ohio region where they had erected the mounds that are now the wonder of the world, and a part of them found their way to the homes of their ancestors in the upper Mississippi and the Minnesota river region. The mounds built here by these peoples were inferior to the ones built by their ancestors. In coming up the valley it is possible that these Mound Builders drove from the Minnesota regions the intruding Algonquins.

The Siouan Mound Builders, returning some five hundred years ago from the Ohio region were doubtless the builders of the mounds in Redwood county, though there are possibly some mounds in this county built by the Siouan people during their previous occupancy of the region.

The Mound Builders. Not so many years ago there was a widespread belief that the Mound Builders were a mysterious people of high culture resembling the Aztecs, and differing from the Indian in race, habits and customs. Now, scholars are unanimous in their belief that the Mound Builders were merely the ancestors of the Indians, doubtless, as already related, of the Sioux Indians, and not characteristically differing from them. These Mound Builders are the earliest race of whose actual residence in Redwood county we have absolute evidence. While Redwood can not boast of mounds of such gigantic proportions as some other parts of the United States, nor of such grotesque formations as the serpent mound of Ohio, yet the mounds of the county are sufficient in number, kind and distribution, to present a rich field for archaeological inquiry, as well as supplying evidence that Redwood county was populated by this ancient people.

The larger groups are invariably situated near the watercourses and usually on the lofty terraces that give a commanding view of magnificent prospects. Such a distribution of the mounds finds its explanation in the fact that the river banks afford excellent sites for habitations, and the rivers afford routes of travel in times of peace and war. Above all the streams furnish two substances absolutely necessary for the maintenance of life, namely water and food. The Mound Builder was not slow in picking out picturesque places as a location for his village sites. The distribution of the mounds bears ample proof of this. Any one who visits the groups can not fail to be convinced that the Mound Builders were certainly guided in the selection of the location for the mounds by an unerring sense of beautiful scenery and a high appreciation and instinctive love of nature as well as by other factors.

Purpose of the Mounds. The mounds of Redwood county are both oblong and round, varying from a swell of land to several feet in height. Other varieties have also been found. The arrangement of mounds in the various groups does not seem to depend on any definite rule of order, but seems to result from a process of mound building, extending over a considerable period of time, each site for a mound being selected by the builders according to the space, material, or topography of the locality.

Undoubtedly each mound was placed for some definite purpose on the spot where it is found today, but what the purpose of any particular mound was may be difficult to say. The spade often partially tells us what we want to know, but sometimes it leaves us as much as ever in the dark. When the interior of a mound reveals human bones, then the inference is that the mound served as a tomb, but intrusive burials, that is burials made long after the mounds were built, complicate the problem. But when a mound can be opened without revealing any trace of human remains or of artificial articles, it seems safe to conclude that not all the mounds were built for burial purposes. The erection of such a large number of mounds as exist along the Mississippi and its tributaries in Minnesota must have required an enormous expenditure of time and labor. The tools with which all the work was done were probably wooden spades rudely shaped, stone hoes and similar implements which indicate a low degree of industrial culture. Where the whole village population turned out for a holiday or funeral, a large mound could be built in a much shorter time than if the work was performed by only a few individuals. The surface of the land adjoining the mounds in Redwood county, and in fact all the mounds of this vicinity, frequently shows plain evidences of where the material was obtained for the construction of the mound. All in all, the regularity, symmetry and even mathematical exactness with which the mounds are built show considerable skill and taste. The reader can picture to himself the funeral scenes, the wailings of the sorrowing survivors, and the flames of the funeral pyres which were sometimes built. Or one can picture the mourning relatives waiting beneath the tree in which the body has been suspended on a scaffold while the elements are stripping the bones of flesh preparatory to their interment.

Life and Habits of the Mound Builders. Modern scientists unite in the belief that the Mound Builders were Indians, the ancestors of the Indians that the early settlers found here. The old theory of a race of Mound Builders superior in intellect and intelligence to the Indian has been exploded by archaeological research, though a few of the older text books advance the now obsolete theory.

The evidences that the race of Mound Builders was a race of genuine Indians are many. Indians are known to have built mounds. The articles found in the mounds are the same as the articles found on the Indian village sites nearby. Invariably a large group of mounds has nearby evidences of such a village. The articles found in the mounds and on the village sites are such as the Indians used.

Tomahawks, battle clubs, spearheads and arrows signify war and the chase. The entire absence of great architectural remains show that the Mound Builders lived in frail homes. The dearth of agricultural implements speaks of the absence of any but the most primitive farming. Ash-pits and fireplaces mark the bare ground as the aboriginal stove. Net-sinkers imply the use of nets; ice axes the chopping of holes in the ice to procure water; stone axes, a clumsy device for splitting wood ; stone knives were used for scalping, cutting meat and leather and twigs ; countless flakes mark the ancient arrow maker's workshop; cracked bones show the savages' love for marrow; shell beads, charms and ornaments in the shape of fish and other designs reveal a primitive desire for ornamentation; chisels and gouges recall the making of canoes; sun-dried pottery made of clay mixed with coarse sand, clamshells or powdered granite and marked with rows of dots made with a stick, thumbnail or other objects, or else marked with lines, V-shaped figures or chevrons, all are an index of rather a crude state of pottery making. The hand supplied the lathe and the wheel.

tion of the Mound Builders and are further evidence that the Mound Builders differed in no important manner from the Indians found here hy the early explorers.

The people were rude, semi-agricultural, warlike, ignorant of all metals except copper, hunters with stone arrow and spear, naked in warm weather and clothed with the skins of the huffalo and hear in winter. Their skill in art was confined to the making of such domestic utensils and such weapons of war and of the chase as were demanded for the personal comforts and physical necessities. They have left no literature, and these heaps of earth and a few rude pictures scraped in soft stones, together with a few crude relics, are our only source of information regarding this once powerful people.

Location of Mounds. The artificial mounds of Redwood county have never heen adequately surveyed or excavated, though many interesting studies have been made of them. A volume entitled ' ' The Aborigines of Minnesota, ' ' published by the Minnesota State Historical Society in 1911, contains a valuable resume of these explorations and studies as follows:

Mounds below Redwood Falls, S. E. y±, section 30, township 113-35, group of thirteen mounds, about 150 feet above the Minnesota river, of which seven are elongated and one is angled twice in opposite directions in equal amounts, so that its parts, at the extremities, are still parallel with each other. Redwood river is 900 feet toward the west. The largest tumulus is 75 feet by 5y2 feet, and has been excavated. Surveyed Sept. 29, 1884.

In 1867 the largest of these tumuli was opened by David Watson by sinking a shaft from the center downward. He found some very much decayed human bones at the depth of four feet. From four feet to eight feet from the surface he found iron rust, indicating, as he judged, that some tool had been oxidized and lost. He also found in the immediate vicinity, glass beads of many different shapes, sizes, colors and varieties, and more human bones that were not so much decomposed, indicating burial at two dates.

He also reported "rifle pits" in section 31, a little north of the center, and gives a statement by an "intelligent Indian' that that was the scene of a hard-fought battle of several days duration. Similar pits were reported by Mr. Watson in 1868 on the north side of the Redwood river, on section 8, town ship 112-36," similar to those near the mouth of the same river - (Hill record).

Mounds four and a half miles east of Redwood Falls, N. E. y4, N. E. 14, section 3, township 112, 35; about 125 feet above the river, on a ridge; three tumuli, about 30 feet in diameter, on cultivated land. Surveyed Oct. 31, 1887.

Mounds five and a half miles east of Redwood Falls, S. %, N. E. y4, section 2, township 112, 35; about 125 feet above the river. No. 5 is 30 feet by 2y2 feet, with an exterior ditch of eight feet by one foot. The group embraces 10 mounds, of which two are elongated.

There is a lone mound, S. E. y4, S. E. y4, section 6, township 112, 34, at the Lower Agency, immediately opposite Birch Cooley creek, about 110 feet above the bottomland, 30 feet by one foot.

A trapper reported one N. E. y4, S. E. y4, section 32, township 109, 35, on the right bank of a stream emptying into the Cottonwood. - (Hill record).

"The Aborigines of Minnesota," 1906-1911, a Report Based on the Collections of Jacob V. Brower, and on the Field Surveys and Notes of Alfred J. Hill and Theodore H. Lewis, Collated, Augmented and Described by N. H. Winchel, published by the Minnesota Historical Society, 1911.