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| MOUND BUILDERS OF BURLINGTON WI copyright 2004 Mary Sutherland Continued from Page One. Poverty Point Along the Mississippi River in Louisiana a Berber styled mound building culture was found, which was named Poverty Point. It was a trading city through which the copper wealth of the Mississippi River and the Great Lakes was funnelled. Copper from Lake Superior made its the way to the Gulf Coast and eventually to the Old World via this north-south trade route. Utilizing Megalithic ideas, Poverty Point's mounds were aligned so as to predict the vernal and autunmal equinoxes. The Invasion of the Dannites The Old Copper Berbers mined copper and their population multiplied for almost 1000 years before a major revolution took place. The Canaanite-Berber cultures of Western Europe were savagely disrupted by the invading Israelites . Refugees -- first a trickle, then a flood -- began to flee from the ceaseless predations of this migrating people from the East. Thousands boarded their boats and set sail for the New World; and a massive surge of Berber immigration to North America from North Africa and the Iberian Peninsula was underway -- as proven by a myriad of cultural innovations from the Beaker Group culture which burst upon the North American scene. Professor Barry Fell dates a MAJOR WAVE of "Iberian" (i.e. Canaanite-Berber) colonists to the New World to this period (America B.C., frontpiece). Explains R. Ben Madison -- At this point in the archaeological record, Berber cultural traits appear suddenly and mysteriously all across the eastern United States and in the Caribbean. North African bent-stick and split-stick hafting techniques for grooved stone axes, for example, spread throughout the region. Agriculture, pottery, earthen mounds, and "new artifacts" arrived suddenly (Mason, 202). According to the Greek historian Herodotus (484?B.C. - 425B.C.), Berbers wore what we call "Mohawk" haircuts -- like many North American Indian tribes. Herodotus also mentions that the Berbers engaged in the same kind of "vision quest" commonly found in North American cultures (Herotodus: The History, 4: 172ff). "To this day," adds Madison, "Berbers have the same kind of animal legends as North American Indian mythology (Hart, 164f). Berbers had arrowheads, atlatls (spear throwing devices), WORE FEATHERS IN THEIR HAIR, and wore fringed leather clothing, exactly like the Native American peoples of North America (Kennedy 1971, 272f)." (P. 14). Following this Great Migration , we are left with three large and substantial Canaanite/Berber groups in the New World. The first -- which had settled around Lake Superior and Wisconsin in approximately 1430 B.C. -- was named the "Old Copper Culture" by the archaeologists. Its continuation, the "Red Ochre Culture," spread through Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois and Indiana. The second group settled in and around Poverty Point, Louisiana circa 1000 B.C. Finally the third group, which was the third great wave of Berber immigration, arrived shortly after 500 B.C. and was instrumental in the emergence of the Adena Culture All these groups, explains R. Ben Madison, maintained some contact with their parent civilization, the Beaker groups, back in Europe and North Africa. But when the Danites exploded into Spain and pushed the Canaanite-Berbers out, this disrupted what was left of the Beaker trade with the New World and, at roughly the same time, "for reasons not yet understood," the Isle Royale copper mines were abandoned and there occurred a substantial decline (in the New World) in the use of copper to manufacture everyday tools and utensils. Jim Bailey writes that around Lake Superior, which was a focus of Canaanite/Berber colonization in those days, modern Ojibwe Indian legends say that their ancestors drove out a race of white miners (Sailing to Paradise. N.Y.: Simon & Schuster, 1994. P. 30ff). At the same time that the Danites/Celts drove the Berber Beaker culture (also, Picts) out of western Europe, the Poverty Point culture (the Berber Beaker trading outpost in the New World) also collapsed. The reason the Poverty Point culture collapsed is not sure, but it seems its inhabitants dispersed to the West. However, one Berber culture in North America survived -- the "Red Ochre" culture in Wisconsin. From this culture (along with the new influx of Berbers from Spain) a new civilization was beginning to emerge -- the ADENA CULTURE. The Adena Mound-builders The umbilical cord between Western Europe and North Africa was cut when the Israelite Celts/Danites invaded Europe circa 500 B.C. But, like the Phoenix rising out of the ashes, the Berber culture was revived -- and from a different quarter after North Africa and the Iberian Peninsula fell under the influence of Carthage. According to R. Ben Madison the remnants of the Berber-Beaker culture on the Iberian Peninsula -- now mixed with Danite/Celtic or "Celtiberian" peoples -- began to trade with Carthage. The remaining Berber economies such as Talseia (Tarshish) began to decline while, at the same time, the Poverty Point culture faded back into the Louisiana bayou country and its inhabitants fled to Texas. As a result of the situation in Spain, the Berbers returned to the New World in Carthaginian ships to begin regular trade with the American Northeast. By approximately 200 B.C. the Berber descendants of the Red Ochre Culture expanded into what is now Ohio where, notes Madison, "Libyan Berber colonists were arriving in greater and greater numbers, perhaps to staff the trading posts that sprang up in the river valleys east of the Mississippi, especially the valley of the upper Ohio River in Ohio and West Virginia -- probably the colony Diodorus Siculus wrote about" (The Berber Project, p. 16). Etowah Mound At this time a new, Canaanite/Berber-derived culture called "ADENA" began to flower in Ohio. The Adena culture emerged from the Berber-dominated "Red Ochre" tradition -- the descendants of the very people whose ancestors had first mined copper on Lake Superior. "Political leadership in Adena," writes Madison, "was probably provided by Berbers from Africa." Mound-building was an important art in both their Megalithic and Beaker phases." In both North Africa and Western Europe the Berbers buried their dead in stone tombs which were then enclosed in large earthen mounds. Across the Atlantic in North America this Berber custom was continued -- many mound-builder tombs are EXACTLY the same layout, a rock tomb covered in an earthen mound (Radin, The Winnebago Tribe, p. 55). The historic copper trade apparently continued -- or was revived. Copper ingots of IDENTICAL "ox-hide" shape have been found on both sides of the Atlantic, proving that around 200 B.C. there was a revival of the regular Atlantic trade between the Mediterranean and North America. This involved copper from Michigan and Wisconsin, set down the Mississippi River and out to Europe. Bruce J. Trigger reveals that there were also Adena sites in Maryland -- suggesting traffic up the Potomac and Monongahela rivers from the Atlantic into the American interior (Handbook of North American Indians, p. 29). At roughly the same time, claims Harvard Professor Barry Fell, waves of "Iberian Punic Colonists settled in North America" (Fell 1976, 169ff). "In 1838," writes R. Ben Madison, "a Talseian (Iberian) inscription was discovered in Mammoth Mound, an ADENA SITE at Moundsville, West Virginia. It was immediately pronounced by French and American linguists to be Berber, Libyan, or Numidian. The brief inscription explains that the mound was a burial site for a notable named Tadach, and that his wife had it built in his memory. Similar inscriptions are found in other Adena mounds (McGlone, 9ff). This, and another nearby stone inscription, was written in the PUNIC language, in Iberian letters (Fell 1976, 157f). In Oklahoma, a Punic inscription -- apparently some sort of "hymn to the sun" -- was discovered and dated to approximately the time of the first Carthaginian arrival in the New World, while a nearby inscription in Iberian script marks the grave stone of a notable named Haga (Fell 1976, 159f). The Anubis Caves in the Oklahoma Panhandle contains an inscription in Libyan letters which Fell claimed was "Arabic." However, most scholars point out that it is Berber. The Iberian/Punic alphabet has also been found on inscriptions in Iowa, Massachussetts, Spain and Lebanon -- showing the Middle East origin of the Mound-builder Berbers. "Herodotus describes 'a place in Libya,' beyond the Pillars of Hercules (i.e. past the Straits of Gilbralta) where the Carthaginians traded for precious metals. He wrote that the local natives used SMOKE SIGNALS to communicate over long distances -- an obvious reference to the famous Native American custom (Herodotus, 4: 196). Elder Charles B. Thompson was one of the first Mormon writers to identify the "mound-builders" with the Nephites whose story is told in the Book of Mormon. According to the Book of Mormons, there were two races here ages ago. One was the Nephites and the other were the Lamanites. The Nephites were a white skinned, red haired , civilized, industrious people... whereas the Lamanites were an idle, savage, and vicious people delighting in war and bloodshed... The order was given to wipe the Nephites off the face of the earth, along with all record of their existence. (Deut.) In some battles thousands were slain who were piled up in heaps upon the face of the land and then earth thrown upon them. This may account for some of the numerous mounds and tumuli found in this country. Josiah Priest, American Antiquities, was one of the first to give full documented accounts of this lost race, based on abundance of proof from recent discoveries. History informs this nation of Nephites were brought down and destroyed by the Lamanites... God stirred up the Lamanites to camp against them round about, and to raise forts against them with a mount, and thus they were brought down. (Deut.) After Priest completed his report, most of his books and documents concerning this was destroyed. The wars of the Jaredites (Nephites) and the Lamanites Mormons Take Sacred Tablets Claiming them as their Own. According to the Book of Mormons, after the Genesis Flood , during the time of 'The Tower of Babel, a group sailed from the Region of the Tower of Babel to North America . This group of peoples were the Jaredites. According to the Morman Book of Ether, a group of people called the Jaredites fled the Tower of Babel at least 3000 years before Christ. Because they were a righteous people the LORD did not confound their language, and a Prophet led them called "The Brother of Jared" (his actual name was Mahonri Moriancumr). All of the Jaredite names are Hamitic, and the descendants of Ham were black and most likely what we know today as the ancient Olmecs. "In the year 1883 B.C. an invasion of Spain took place from the confines of North Africa. Having become a civilized land and wealthy due to changes in climate and the presence of many producing gold mines, Spain aroused the greed of Egypt and other North African nations. A king by the name of GERION or DEABUS, with a large army and many ships, conquered Spain and forced the inhabitants to dig gold for their new African overlords. Many Spanish slaves died from overwork under this tyranny" Osyris slew Gerion in 1849 B.C. ,, upon which part of his tribe took to ship and sailed to the New World. A tradition found among the Toltecs of Mexico and preserved by Ixtlilxochitl declares there once were giants in their land. Even the date of the arrival of these giants has been preserved by the Toltec historian. It was 520 years after the flood. The First Battle of Cummorah By 600 BC the Jaredites had divided into two warring camps.. Their armies fought on the Hill Ramah (which is also the Hill Cummorah and which is now located in Western New York State). A man named Ether "hides " the records of his people (gold plates). The Second Battle of Cummorah and the Nephites Mosiah 5:65 mentions a Nephite search party had come across ruins of an earlier civilization (Jaredite). To prove this find they brought back 24 gold plates and some armor and weapons. The breastplates are descibed as large. About 100 BC, a group of Nephites (called the Limhites) who had broken away from the main body of Nephites migrate to the area near the Hill Cummorah. They find the gold plates of the Jaredites. Later they are reunited with the main body of Nephites and add the Jaredite plates to the main body of plates A thousand years after the Jaredite battle on the Hill Ramah, the Nephites and Lamanites battle their way Northward until they arrive at the same hill (now called Cummorah). They also fight to the last Nephite warrior. The Lamanites who survive will become the American Indians. After the Final Battle, a man named Moroni buries the gold plate records of his people in the hill. Fourteen hundred years later the Mormons 'claim' he returns as the Angel Moroni and leads Joseph Smith to the plates (1823) Nothing is mentioned more prominently in the Jaredite records than the Hill Shim where their great battle of destruction took place. This being so, the records were probably found in or near the Hill Shim (or Cum) which gave the Nephites an apposite warning of their own future should they disobey the commandments of God, as well as a place name to tinker with and transform into their own tongue. It may also have given Ammaron the idea to hide his own records in the same hill, where Mormon recovered them years later.. The same association of name and place similarly seems to have given Mormon's son Moroni the idea to hide the records, with his additions, in another hill some twenty-three hundred miles to the north following his own lost battles. Nothing is more common in the study of languages than the observation of interchange and "drift" of vowels and consonants. Ramah is obviously an earlier form of Cumorah, "ramah = mora". And it is suspected that Cu was a Nephite addition, being probably equivalent to whatever was particularly striking about the hill to the Nephites. Cu-morah is therefore probably an iterative of the same description of the hill in two separate languages. Most Book of Mormon scholars take it for granted that there were two Cumorahs: one in Central America where the Nephites lives out most of their history; the other in Western New York state near the Finger Lakes where Joseph Smith found the plates. Again, nothing is more common than for migrating folk to take place names with them and apply them to new sites. Shim (meaning hill of the land of Shem?) was known to both the Jaredites and Nephites, and that it was in the hill Shim where Ammaron deposited his records -- and from which Mormon later took them. The Book of Mormon index (p. 329) confirms that Ramah and Cumorah refer to this same hill and it would not be too difficult for one to link Shim with the Central American Cumorah. The consonantal shifts into the change in pronunciation since the letter C commonly undergoes a sound shift from "k" to "ch" or "sh" and vice versa., as in modern Italian, Romanian, and Hebrew (remember how Joshua tested the Canaanite infiltrators by having them pronounce the word "shibboleth"? The Canaanites could pronounce it only as "shibolet" .. It seems the "th" sound has been retained only in modern Icelandic, English, and Spanish. This Shim = Cum + Ramah (or "morah"). Book of Mormon scholar John Sorenson suggests that Shim actually lay between the Jaredite land of Moron (source of Moroni's name? [fellow from (or born in ) Moron]) and the hill Ramah, or Cumorah. Sorenson's reading of the B of M puts Shim not far from the eastern seashore, south of modern Veracruz, probably in the Tuxtlas mountain mass, in the Sierra Madres some 80 miles further south. . Sorenson adds that no place was of greater importance in Nephite history since they struggled to the death for almost 35 years in or near Shim in southern Veracruz. Veracruz is on the Gulf of Mexico. The Nephites must have fought in slow retreat from the area of the narrow neck of land northward over many generation. They would thus have been compelled to retreat along the Gulf Coast until they hit the Mississippi River. Because of its width near the Gulf, they'd have had to retreat almost straight north along its west bank until reaching a point where the river could be crossed. This would have brought them to the Finger Lakes area just south of Lake Erie, the exact location of the Second Cumorah near which the Nephites were wiped out. Anthropologists have found enormous stacks of bones in this very area, indicating some mighty pre-Columbian battles in the region. And given the fact that the modern Indian tribes of the region were never very numerous, one wonders where else all the bones could have come from. Besides which we know that Moroni was exhausted and probably wounded during his last battle and could not have wandered far to hide the plates. And Joseph Smith found the plates about 1200 years later in this exact location. In brief, while I can't tell you where the Nephites found the Jaredite record, they did. Moroni had it (see Ether 13:1) and so in all probability did his father Mormon -- and possibly even more remote Nephite ancestors. But just before their final overthrow, a man by the names of Mormon took their record containing their history and sacred writings... to come forth in due time for a sign to Israel, that the time of their redemption had come... This account also agrees with the Indian traditions which claim that their forefathers were once in possession of a sacred Book, which was handed down from generation to generation, and at last hid in the earth; but these oracles are to be restored to them again and then they shall triumph over their enemies and regain their ancient country. The Mormons took this as the sign this Race was the Lost Children of Israel and that now with them, the Mormons, being in possession of the Lost Books, they would be able to fulfill the prophecies..thus a new religion was born...Mormonism. It seems that both the jaredites and the nephites were Mound Builders and differed both racially and culturally from the Native American Indians which came later. As late as 1830 newspaper reports were being published, telling of Mormon elders claiming that the ancient Old World peoples who migrated to the Americas came ashore in places as far away as the shores of South America: "on the coast of Chili 600 years before the coming of Christ..." and that from these Old World colonists "descended all the Indians of America.". From 1822 onward the popular press was filled with discoveries of new and perplexing southern ruins and relics.. THE RED RECORD OF THE ALGONQUIANS The Wallam Olum -- The Red Record -- is the Delaware's record of their ancient history, told in the form of an epic song. "Recorded in pictures and words, the saga tells of the rise to glory of the Lenni Lenape and their great Lenape family, also called the Algonquians, the most populous and widespread Native American language group in ancient North America" (The Red Record, translated and annotated by David McCutchen. Garder City, NY: Avery Publishing Group, Inc. 1993. ) As the Lenape migration neared the Mississippi River, they came upon agricultural lands where permanent settlements became possible. The Lenape soon discovered that farther to the east were the powerful people called the TALEGAS -- best translated as "foreigner" or "stranger." According to Heckewelder [an early missionary], the Lenape arrived at the Mississippi and followed it downstream to where it meets the Missouri River. This is the location of CAHOKIA, the most likely site for the "Talega king" in IV:52 [of The Red Record]. The great walled city of Cahokia, near where east St. Louis is today, was a commercial, political, and religious center of the last and most spectacular era of Moundbuilder culture -- the Mississippian Temple Mound phase. Cahokia has been described as "a cross between New York, Washington, D.C., and the Vatican." -- The Red Record: The Wallum Olam, p. 107. Cahokia A.J. Conant, a member of the Academy of Science of St. Louis, Missouri, is quoted below: Atop the mounds constantly burned the flames that were only extinguished at the end of the old year and were relighted by the rays of the sun when the priests focused the rays of the newly born Sun on the wood of the sacrificial fires. This took place amidst the most extraordinary solemnity. -- The Roots of the American Indian, p. 59. According to early reports the fires were extinguished during the winter solstice when the days became shortest and the sun reached the lowest point in the southern sky, and the weather became very cold. "Then, to give life to the dying sun, the rays of the king of the heavens were focused on the altar of the sacrifices in order that, with the light of the fire that burned, he could see his way back to the north" (ibid., p. 53). This is the EXACT same ceremony that was celebrated in ancient Rome, Egypt and Babylon! The people who constructed the mounds and the pyramids all paid homage to the same gods because they were of one blood and language. Foremost among their gods was the PLUMED SERPENT called Piasa CANAL SYSTEM INTERLINKING LAKES AND RIVERS FOR TRANSPORT The ancient people not only had developed a great urban civilization based upon an agrarian economy but construsted the ingenious system of interlocking canals. With amazing skill, the engineers developed an internal system of navigation, linking the lakes and rivers with the various metropolitan centers of the region, and it was by means of these interconnecting waterways that the cities received the needed produce. The Mississippi River served as the principal transportation artery. Dr. G.C. Swallow, in referring to one of these canals, said, "One of them, that I examined, measured 53 feet wide and was 14 feet deep." More of these canal system was created interlinking water routes from the Great Lakes. Many archaeologists and investigators say that the 'artificial' rivers in the southern part of the United States are a gift handed down by this mysterious race. CONTINUED |
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| The Mound Builders - The Ancient Ones- The Giants - The Men of Old - The Mound Builders - Mound Builders Mounds of Wisconsin - Mound Builders of Wisconsin - Effigy Mounds - Conical Mounds- Ceremonial Mounds - |
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| A series of mounds was located off W going into Rochester, several miles from Burlington. Here you find one of our researchers, Christine, helping to map and document this particular mound located in the public hunting grounds and wetland area behind her parents home. Unfortunately, another parcel of this land containing these mounds was sold to a private construction firm here in Burlington and is now being destroyed for housing development. Photo coming. |
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| Although burial sites are protected under federal law with a stiff monetary penality and imprisonment - mounds are still being destroyed for development . We are in the process now of trying to get help so that areas such as these are protected and monitored. Photo coming. |
| Help Save the Mounds Save our History for the Future of the Generations to Come |
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| Artifact found in Georgian Mound Site Olmec Figure Descendent of Ham/ Hamitic Jaredite |
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| MAPS OF LOCAL MOUND SITES |