Teaching U.S. History as Mystery

David Gerwin, Jack Zevin

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2010
• ISBN:
  9781135147396
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Presenting U.S. history as contested interpretations of compelling problems, this text offers a clear set of principles and strategies, together with case studies and "Mystery Packets" of documentary materials from key periods in American history, that teachers can use with their students to promote and sustain problem-finding and problem-solving in history and social studies classrooms. Structured to encourage new attitudes toward history as hands-on inquiry, conflicting interpretation, and myriad uncertainties, the whole point is to create a user-friendly way of teaching history "as it really is" ? with all its problems, issues, unknowns, and value clashes. Students and teachers are invited to think anew as active participants in learning history rather than as passive sponges soaking up pre-arranged and often misrepresented people and events.

New in the Second Edition: New chapters on Moundbuilders, and the Origins of Slavery; expanded Gulf of Tonkin chapter now covering the Vietnam and Iraq wars; teaching tips in this edition draw on years of teacher experience in using mysteries in their classrooms.

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There Are Still Mysteries Out There
Investigating the Mound-Builder Peoples of North America

Oh call back yesterday . . . bid time return.

(Shakespeare, Richard II, Act iii, Scene 2)

Certitude is not the test of certainty. We have been cocksure of many things that were not so. If I may quote myself again, property, friendship, and truth have a common root in time. One cannot be wrenched from the rocky crevices into which one has grown from many years without feeling that one is attacked in one’s life. What we most love and revere generally is determined by early associations. I love granite rocks and barberry bushes . . . but while one’s experience thus makes certain preferences dogmatic for oneself, recognition of how they came to be so leaves one able to see that others, poor souls, may be equally dogmatic about something else. And this again means skepticism. (Holmes, 1919, p. 40)

In this chapter you will find mysteries involving artifacts, remains, ruins, and earthworks that offer little or no written clues as to their makers, meanings, or functions. These mysteries surround an extensive Native American culture that covered a time span of at least a thousand years and incorporated a wide area stretching from the upper reaches of the Mississippi River in Minnesota to the bayous of Louisiana and from the upper reaches of the Ohio River to its joining with the Mississippi in southern Illinois. These peoples have been collectively called the Mound Builders because of their custom of designing and constructing raised mounds of earth, often in geometric or animal shapes, some of which served as burial places, some as platforms for buildings, and others some mysterious purpose we don’t yet understand. They built the mounds and designed artifacts in different time periods, ranging as far back as over two thousand years ago. Since the founding of the United States these peoples have been referred to as Adena or Hopewell or Mounds Indian cultures, often after places in which constructions and artifacts were first discovered. We are not really sure of the interconnections among and between these peoples, but there certainly was extensive trade and transport throughout the central river systems of the present United States, and beyond to other areas of North America. To this day, mounds dot the landscape of the Mississippi River valleys from Ohio, Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Minnesota to Louisiana, Arkansas, Alabama, and Oklahoma.

A History Without Words

Our case study in this chapter will focus on these ancient and far-flung Native American cultures collectively called the Mound Builders. We would argue that the evidence could support a minor, medium, or major mystery because it involves missing evidence, enigmatic artifacts, conflicting interpretations, and disputes over meaning, as well as the biases and emotions that have colored the big picture of these early peoples. There are minor mysteries involving the interpretation of artifacts such as “effigy pipes” to ascertain their functions and structures; medium mysteries that call for application of analogies to discover the meaning and purposes of the mound structures, their design, building techniques, and shapes; and major mysteries that examine the theories of explanation offered in American history to explain Mound-Builder culture in terms of the prejudices and science of those times. Using our five criteria for mystery, we may conclude that comprehension problems are common as we look over the artifacts left behind, and errors likely given the biases and improbable theories of early archeologists. Conflicting viewpoints arise among scientists and historians, from interpretations that reflect our own values and the evidence from those we study. Solutions may be relatively easy based on the wealth of data, but the lack of written or spoken sources makes us feel that an overall solution or interpretation may take a lot more work than seems likely at first contact with the data. Finally, issues seem to grow out of the lack of attention or degree of misinterpretation by scholars rather than out of the data themselves, leading us to strengthen our view of the Mound Builders as a medium mystery involving considerable effort, due largely to both practical and theoretical errors of interpretation.

From the evidence available, you and your students must decide on your own interpretations from bones, tools, pipes, and images carved in stone, and from shapes built out of earthen mounds that travel across the American landscape. You might think about this type of record as history without words. Archeology, the study of material evidence, offers many such non-verbal, non-written opportunities for teachers to promote inquiry through mystery because there is so much missing information from our “finds” that we must constantly resort to inference or analogy for insights into the past. Lack of written or oral history in the case of the so-called Mound Builders makes the problem of interpretation all the more difficult and challenging. And that is all to the good because insights demand sharp observation and analysis of what remains we have found, remains that seem very mysterious on first contact, and may remain so even after a thorough review of the evidence.

Partly because of lingering prejudices against Native Americans, and partly because of the local nature of exhibits and research on the Mound Builders, we would go so far as to say that the Mound-Building peoples are sadly neglected, yet offer a perfect opportunity for teachers to exploit in arousing student interest. No one really knows the reasons for many of their constructions.

Even in the first days of European settlement, the vast majority of Mound-Building peoples had disappeared, but a great many earthworks remained as testimony to their organization and artistic expression. So we can begin to develop and test our own theories about the finds we have discovered or read about, much like the inferences we create to solve the puzzle of a murder in a good detective yarn. We can also study the theories offered by scholars and archeologists, past and present, who have made intensive studies of the Mound Builders and have come to many conclusions, some predictable and some surprising. For the more advanced student perhaps, we can also inquire into the historical context for different theories about the Mound Builders, as these ideas themselves are subject to historical change and interpretation.

Since the Mound Builders did not leave written records, and existed over a very long period of time, and in different locales, there is still a good deal of research and speculation on the reasons for mound construction. These reasons or functions are closely tied up with attempts to interpret the lifestyles and beliefs of mostly prehistoric remnants, many of which have been moved, destroyed, paved over, and mangled or looted. Thus, the already mysterious Mound-Builders record is rendered even more of a problem through destruction and losses.

What Do the Mounds Tell Us?

Mound Builders have left constructions dating back to at least a hundred years before the common era, 100 b.c.e., when these peoples built huge earthen monuments on or near river systems in the Midwest and Eastern United States. A most famous find took place in Ohio, near the town of Chillicothe not far from Cincinnati at the farm of Mordecai Hopewell. Forty very old cone-shaped mounds were discovered on his farm in the 1840s. The cultural artifacts discovered on the farm have been called Hopewell ever since and represent some of the oldest remains found of Mound-Builder society.

The state of the Hopewell mounds in the 1840s is known to us through the diagrams drawn by Ephraim Squier, a newsman, and Edwin Davis, a doctor, both from Chillicothe, who were among the first to carefully and systematically study the mounds, making detailed maps and sketches, some of which are presented in the chapter for your analysis and study. The newly created Smithsonian Institution (1846) in Washington, D.C. became the publisher of their large and fascinating work, Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley (1848), heralding the beginning of “modern” archeology in the United States. Squier and Davis’ careful drawings and observations are still a wonderful historical source as many of the mounds have been altered, destroyed, paved over, or reconstructed (sometimes poorly) since their day. Hopefully, their work was accurate in giving us an accounting of most of the major mounds in the river valleys.

Near Hopewell’s farm is Mound City, another huge concentration of burial mounds, in which elaborate burials of human beings were unearthed, as well as shell beads, copper ornaments, elk and bear teeth, obsidian points, effigy pipes in the form of ravens and toads, copper headpieces and headdresses and disks. Archeologists and anthropologists have suggested a series of labels for the styles of different places and times, with early Woodland Indian societies called Adena cultures after a site in Ohio by that name.

Other mounds also were found at Seip, near Mound City, and throughout the Ohio valley, including a walled compound of great size with a village inside near Lebanon, Ohio overlooking the Little Miami River, which has been dubbed “Fort Ancient.” Archeologists have termed those who lived here peoples of “Fort Ancient traditions.”

Some of the mounds in the area yielded rich grave goods demonstrating a strong respect for the dead, who were usually cremated and their ashes placed within the structure along with jewelry, copper, spears, etc. Based on the grave goods, most of these Native people were agriculturists who knew how to grow corn but did not use this as a main crop, as far as the evidence shows. Rather, they planted and harvested a wide variety of crops including squash, marsh elder, sunflower, goosefoot, and other local plants. Small household groups appear to have built settlements along lakes and marshes, near rivers, and many of these were connected by paths and what are suspected to be roadways linking them with burial and ceremonial sites. There was also evidence of a trade network as graves yielded an array of materials and objects such as mica from the Appalachians, volcanic glass from Yellowstone, and copper from the Great Lakes area.

These Hopewell societies seem to have faded out around 400 c.e., five hundred years after the earliest structures, for reasons unknown to this day. Other significant mounds have been identified in more recent times throughout Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, Ohio, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Alabama, usually in conjunction with a major river or lake.

A series of conical mounds at Poverty Point, Louisiana near Vicksburg, Mississippi yielded an age-dating estimate of 1750–1350 B.C.E.! Others, perhaps more spectral in terms of size and richness of objects, have been dated from 500 C.E. up to about 1650 C.E. and cover a vast territory in the United States. There are also major sites at Spiro, Oklahoma, Moundville, Alabama, and Cahokia, Illinois, one of the largest towns, to name but a few of the many mound locations.

Archeologists in the field generally refer to the time periods as Archaic through Early, Middle, and Late Woodland to the Mississippian/Oneota, which come up to historical times. Archaic was characterized by hunting and gathering using stone and bone tools and lasted up until about 1000–800 B.C.E., while the Woodland periods (800–200 B.C.E., 200 B.C.E.–300 C.E., and 300–1250 C.E. respectively) represent more settled lifestyles with pottery production and agricultural activity.

You Decide

• Have you ever seen the notations B.C.E. and C.E. used in place of B.C. and A.D.?
• Did you know that B.C. stands for “Before Christ” and A.D. for “Anno Domini” or “Year of Our Lord,” also referring to Jesus? Do you think that these are neutral terms depicting a historic turning point? Do these terms imply belief in Jesus?
• Is it helpful in gaining distance from our own culture to use terms such as “Before the Common Era” (B.C.E.) or “Common Era” (C.E.) instead of B.C. and A.D, or is this effort more convoluted than helpful?

Although we call these peoples Mound Builders because of their custom of constructing earthworks, the works themselves seem to have served different purposes. Some are clearly burial mounds and contain bodies, ashes, artifacts, and other objects, ceremonial or household, or both. Other mounds seem to be walls or protective barriers that surround villages or block easy access to an area, as far as can be told by us present-day historians and archeologists, amateur and professional. Still more mounds existed that were apparently temples or ceremonial bases, or had the houses of chieftains built on top and were the centers of some sort of worship or civic function. Many are round, or rectangular, or oblong, while others are in the shape of animals and birds or reptiles, for reasons we do not fully understand. These animal-, bird-, or reptile-shaped mounds are often referred to as “effigy mounds” because they are in the form of living creatures, representative perhaps of their spirits as well as their shapes. In fact, a great many of the “effigy” pipes discovered in mounds, a good deal of the artwork and jewelry, and the earthworks themselves are in the form of living creatures, perhaps odes to nature expressing respect for the Earth and its abundance, perhaps as spirit totems, perhaps simply for artistic pleasure.

We can review mound forms and functions to determine the reasons why they were built: for religious worship, for artistic expression, for burial purposes, for building and government, for alignment with the sun, moon, and stars, or for all of these and many more as well. The mounds are not all the same, nor do they se...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• History In Poetry
• One: Mystery In History: Defining History As Mystery, Defining Levels of Investigations
• Two: From Vietnam to Iraq and Back: Vietnam, Iraq, and the “Lessons of History”
• Three: A Medium Vietnam Mystery: Was the War Constitutional?
• Four: There Are Still Mysteries Out There: Investigating the Mound-Builder Peoples of North America
• Five: Truer Than True: Looking At Women In the Old West
• Six: Solved Mysteries?: The Case of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings
• Seven: Beyond the Bare Facts: Exploring Race and History Through Jefferson and Hemings
• Eight: What Caused ____?: The Origins of Slavery In the Chesapeake
• Nine: Conclusion: Teaching History As Mystery