Incidental Discoveries & Fanciful Speculations
Pipestone Quarry
The earliest mention of archaeological sites in Minnesota was by explorers, adventurers, and government employees, who jotted down notes as they traveled through the state. Examples are Jonathan Carver, George Catlin, Joseph N. Nicollet, Lt. Stephen Long, and William H. Keating. Carver, who traveled through the state in the late 1760s, mentions an “old fortification” at Lake Pepin, petroglyphs (“hieroglyphycks”) at what is now called Carver’s Cave in St. Paul, and the Pipestone Quarry near Pipestone, Minnesota, which he brought to the attention of the world in his travel writings. Catlin and Nicollet described the Pipestone Quarry in the 1830s (in fact the formal name of pipestone is Catlinite, after George Catlin). Nicollet also mentions a stone effigy of a man he passed in southwestern Minnesota. Long jotted down the presence of stone burial cairns on the bluffs overlooking Red Wing at the juncture of the Mississippi and Cannon rivers. Some of these early explorers mention the presence, too, of numerous earthen mounds and earthworks along the Mississippi River south of Lake Pepin and along the Minnesota River.2 The picture in the paragraph shows Native Americans at Pipestone.
Not surprisingly, there was widespread interest in the identity of the people who built the mounds, made the petroglyphs, and chiseled catlinite from the quarries. Since the basic outline of prehistoric America was unknown, armchair historians fabricated a past for the New World woven largely from the myths of their European heritage. One widely accepted interpretation was that a mysterious race of civilized Mound Builders built the earthworks, some of which were thought to have been platforms on which houses were built. Some armchair historians thought the Mound Builders were from the lost continents of Atlantis or Mu, while others thought they were descendents of wandering Hindus, Welchmen, or Israelis. The Mound Builders were supposedly vanquished by migrating tribes of Indians not civilized enough to continue the tradition of mound building.3
Since people thought that civilized people built the earthworks, treasure hunters and the curious dug into numerous mounds. Notes were rarely taken and only prized artifacts were saved. The rare surviving descriptions of these “excavations” are mostly special interest articles in local newspapers. Although many mounds were badly damaged, the reasons behind these explorations are understandable given the frame of understanding at the time.
The main characteristics of this period are:
- An incidental recording of the most visible archaeological remains in the state, in particular “foundations,” the Pipestone Quarry, visible earthen burial mounds and other earthworks, and rock art;
- The notion that a mysterious race of civilized Mound Builders built the thousands of mounds and earthworks scattered across the state;
- Wide-spread digging into earthen burial mounds by treasure hunters, the idle, and the curious;
- The absence of a basic understanding of the prehistory of the Americas; and
- The absence of well-developed procedures for site excavation and artifact analysis.
Contributors to this chapter: Guy Gibbon
Date of last contribution: October 30, 2008