Genius Monkeys and Imported Mound Builders

One of the books I am reading for an introductory level Archaeology class is: Frauds, Myths, and Mysteries: Science and Pseudoscience in Archaeology by Kenneth L. Feder. The book is like a journey into common misconceptions of science starting with accounts of archaeological hoaxes such as the famous Piltdown Man and traveling to less-known myths like the "mysterious" builders of the earthworks mounds along the river valleys of the eastern United States.

Despite a lack of evidence people readily accepted Piltdown Man because it was more comfortable to believe that the human brain came first, followed by upright-walking. I guess the idea of upright-walking critters with ape-like brains must have been unpleasant to think about 100 years ago. And thus, Piltdown Man was accepted without sufficient evidence for 50 years until further analysis turned the whole story into an embarrassment for the scientific community.

I am beginning to understand that people have the tendency to want to believe things that support their already held beliefs. It is obviously difficult for people to admit that their beliefs might not be true. But being a scientist requires the ability and willingness to recognize that previously held beliefs might need to be reviewed in the face of contrary evidence. A scientist must also be careful not to push agendas by using science as a weapon.

In the early 1800s, as Americans were settling the eastern river valleys in the United States, there was speculation about the great mounds being found in these fertile floodplains. What group(s) of people had built them? Almost everyone agreed that the Indians were far too savage and primitive to have built these marvels of engineering and so the readily accepted belief was that the Indians had killed the builders of the mounds, and that the mound builders must have been Europeans or Asians or even Africans.

Although there was plenty of evidence in support of the Indians having built the mounds, and although there was no proof for any Old World societies to have been the builders, the evidence or lack thereof wasn't considered because people wanted to believe what supported their already held beliefs: that Indians were sub-human and incapable of great works of art or architecture. The mid nineteenth century saw hundreds of faked "artifacts" that contained Egyptian, Chinese, and Hebrew writing, allegedly discovered within the mounds. These fakes served as validation for a continuation of racist ideas.

At the time that Europeans arrived, the eastern United States was full of clean and thriving agricultural cities with pyramids rivaling the largest in the world and surplus and trade across large geographic areas. Were you taught this in public school? What is the result of failure for generations to recognize the American Indians as the builders of such well-planned and elaborate cities?

Poverty Point, Louisiana
http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/sassaman/
pages/research/research.html

Cahokia Mounds, Illinois

Mound Builders: Mississippi Valley
http://www.nps.gov/history/delta/concept06.htm