Page:Historic highways of America (Volume 1).djvu/54

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PATHS OF MOUND-BUILDING INDIANS

toiled their prehistoric people. Their low grade of civilization is attested by the rude implements and weapons and domiciles with which they seem to have been content. Divided, as it is practically sure they were, into numerous tribes, there must have been some commerce and there was, undoubtedly, much conflict. Above their poorly cultivated fields, or in the midst of them, they erected great earthen and stone fortresses, and, flung far and wide over valley and hill, stand the mounds in which they buried their dead.