Aboriginal Monuments of the State of New York: Comprising the Results of Original Surveys and Explorations (1850)
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Aboriginal Monuments of the State of New York: Comprising the Results of Original Surveys and Explorations (1850)
Ephraim George Squier (1821 – 1888) was an American archaeologist and newspaper editor.
Squier collaborated with physician Edwin H. Davis on the book, Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley, which was issued in 1848. The work was a landmark in American scientific research, the study of the prehistoric Mound Builders of North America, and the early development of archaeology as a scientific discipline. The book was the first volume of the Smithsonian Institution's Contributions to Knowledge series and the Institution's first publication. Among Squier and Davis' most important achievements was their systematic approach to analyzing and documenting the sites they surveyed, including the Serpent Mound in Peebles, Ohio, which they discovered in 1846, and the mapping of the Mound City Group in Chillicothe, Ohio, which has been restored using their data and is now part of Hopewell Culture National Historical Park. Squier and Davis's collection of ancient Mound objects is now kept at the British Museum.
In this book Squier writes: "It has long been known that many evidences of ancient labor and skill are to be found in the western parts of New York and Pennsylvania, upon the upper tributaries of the Ohio, and along the shores of Lakes Erie and Ontario. Here we find a series of ancient earth-works, entrenched hills, and occasional mounds, or tumuli, concerning which history is mute, and the origin of which has been regarded as involved in impenetrable mystery. These remains became a subject of frequent remark, as the tide of emigration flowed westward; and various detached notices of their existence were, from time to time, made public. No connected view of their extent or character was, however, given to the world, until 1817."
This book originally published in 1850 has been reformatted for the Kindle and may contain an occasional defect from the original publication.