Native American Tribes: The History and Culture of the Mound Builders

by Charles River Editors

Native American Tribes: The History and Culture of the Mound Builders comprehensively covers the facts, mysteries, and theories surrounding the ancient Native Americans who built the elaborate mounds, discussing what is known and unknown about their origins.

Genres: History, Native American History, American History, Science, Native American

50 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 24, 2013

About the author

Charles River Editors is an independent publisher of thousands of ebooks on Kindle, Nook, Kobo, and Apple iBookstore & provider of original content for third parties.

Reviews

[Mike Curtis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Every summer, on the way to visit grandpa, my family and I drive past Cahokia Mounds in Southern Illinois. Every year, I say, this will be the year we stop and take the tour and finally learn about the people who inhabited our home state centuries ago.

This year we went to the St. Louis Arch instead. Last year we went to a restaurant that throws the rolls across the room at you. The time before that, it was a ballgame and some toasted ravioli. Once it was a drive to Memphis for some Blues, beer, and BBQ. All worthwhile stops, but Cahokia is still calling to me.

So, at least this year was the year that I read a bit about the ancient mound building cultures.

The problem with this book, is the same problem you get with trying to learn about any prehistoric culture that didn’t have a system of writing or record keeping. No one knows who they were, what they did, or how they lived. There are some guesses, most of them really educated ones from anthropologists and archeologists, and since I’m not an ologist of any sort - their guesses will have to be enough until I finally get around to veering off the highway and visiting the place for myself.

Armed with the basics that this book allowed me, I’ll probably understand what it looking at and who built it a bit better. If not, it’s off to the Budweiser tour and some more toasted raviolis.

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

An Early American Civilization

I have heard of the system of earthen works located across the North American continent which were built by an early American civilization. But until reading this book I didn’t appreciate how extensive they were. "The History and Culture of the Mound Builders" provides a very good overview of the various sites and the societies associated with them. Dates for the raising of these mounds range from 2500BC to as late as 800AD. It suggests that some of these earthen works were used as burial places whilst others had very different uses such as religious centres or astronomical observatories. Whilst details of the people who left these structures are still a mystery, research shows that much of the ritual elements have survived in the religion of modern Native Americans.

This book is well worth reading and includes some excellent photographs of several sites together with a good bibliography.

[Chester Johnson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Researching local Native American history.

[Kathryn · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Brief overview of the mound builders of Native America Civilization. I am very interested in the mounds and intend to do further studies as well as visit some of the sites to obtain a better sense of the massive mound building empire that existed before this land was discovered by Europeans. I really love this subject. It was a good place to start.

[Sandra Skipper · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of my favorite topics

Informative. Enjoyable. I love learning more about Native American history and culture. Mound builders are dear to my heart for I grew up around this culture.

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nice introduction

Raises lots of questions and gives fairly cursory answers. But suggestive and informative. More visual aids and maps would be helpful.