by Paul Schrag
A rapid decline in the Cahokian population is said to have begun sometime after 1200 CE.
By 1400 CE the site heralded as hosting the most magnificent pre-Columbian city north of Mexico was barren. Theories abound as to what led to the seemingly catastrophic decline of the civilization, including war, disease, drought, and sudden climate change. Archaeologists scratch their heads when considering the fact that there are no legends, records, or mention of the magnificent city in the annals of other local tribes, including the Osage, Omaha, Ponca, and Quapaw.
The largest earthwork at the historical site, called Monks Mound, is at the center. At least 100 feet tall, it is the largest manmade, prehistoric mound in North America. The mound is 1,000 feet long, 800 feet wide, and composed of four platform terraces. Archaeologists estimated that 22 million cubic feet of earth was used to build the mound between the years of 900 and 1,200 CE. Since then the mound has eroded or been damaged to the point that no one knows how large the mound really was.
Even more curious than the existence and seemingly sudden disappearance of a vast culture is the surprising discovery of what appears to be a massive stone structure lying hidden below the massive Monks Mound.
On January 24, 1998, while drilling to construct a water drainage system at Monks Mound, workers hit a 32-foot-long stone structure.
“This is astounding,” said William I. Woods, professor of geography and courtesy professor of anthropology at Kansas University, who was at the time an archaeologist with Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville. Woods led the investigation of the mystery structure. “The stone is at least 32 feet (10 meters) long in one of its dimensions,” he wrote. “It is buried about 40 feet below the surface of a terrace on the western side of Monk’s Mound and well above the mound’s bottom.”3
Woods noted that even if the structure turned out to be just a large slab of stone, it would still be a dramatic find, because the nearest source of stone was more than ten miles from Cahokia, which lies approximately twenty miles southeast of St. Louis. In fact, no stones had ever been found at the site other than those used to craft primitive tools, weapons, and artifacts.4
Archaeologists Andy Martignoni Jr. and Steve Fulton were on duty at the site and discussed the situation, speculating it could be a drain or even a tomb. Comparing the “feel” of the drill with countless other operations, the drill operator told them the structure seemed to be made of large stones apparently placed together deliberately, deep into the western face. That gave the archaeologists more reason to think this might be something other than just a large rock. There is a large region of stone of undetermined shape located 40 feet below one of the terrace surfaces but still well above the base of the mound. Until then the prevailing dogma has long been that the Native Americans who built Cahokia worked only with earth, never with stone, which is not found anywhere near the region in question. The Monks Mound discovery directly challenged thinking at the time about the culture that built Cahokia and suggests that what is beneath the mounds themselves may be much, much older. Discovery of the massive, unidentified stone could push the dates of construction back much further, associating Cahokia with other similar structures that range from 3,000 to 3,500 years of age.
More recently the discovery made at Cahokia on February 17, 2010, of what appears to have been a Stone Age copper workshop has baffled explorers even further. About two hundred yards east of Monks Mound, an excavation revealed evidence of the only known copper workshop from the Mississippian era. The copper workshop is being studied in relation to a peculiarity on an engraved drinking cup made from a conch shell found at the top of the 10-foot-high mound. Some speculate that the shell came from the Gulf of Mexico. It contains a symbol of an arrowlike logo with a circle in the arrowhead. This symbol first turned up in rock shelters excavated in Wisconsin and east central Missouri and was dated from about 1000 CE, more than two hundred years before the peak of Cahokia-area civilization.
The symbols on the shelter walls are similar to the shell fragments found on the mound at Cahokia, and scholars now believe Cahokia may have been the center of the ancient Mississippian culture. Copper relics have been found throughout the Mississippi Mound network, but to claim that they all must be related somehow to the Cahokias is too hasty an assumption. Could these earth-covered mounds conceal the remains of much older and forgotten ruins? The truth will be revealed only when a full dig is conducted. As it is today, less than 1 percent of the Cahokia mounds have been excavated. What is ironic about the copper find is that this recent excavation did not take place at the site of the stone structure but rather somewhere else leading to an even more fascinating discovery.
And while Lewis didn’t get to see all of Cahokia, he and the party did wander into the mounds at Grave Creek. After Lewis’s vivid descriptions of these mounds in his journal and his documentation of finding brass beads in a burial site, the journal is abruptly cut off. It remains unexplained why everything in the journals of Lewis is detailed meticulously until the topic of mounds is mentioned. Then begins a series of strange omissions or missing pages. Gary Moulton elaborates.
More difficult to explain is Lewis’s lack of journal-keeping once the expedition got underway. No Lewis journals are known to exist that cover the first phase of the expedition, from May 14, 1804, until the group left Fort Mandan on April 7, 1805. This is the longest hiatus in Lewis’s writing and to historians it is the most curious gap.5
This gap, and others, are discussed further in chapter 9.
Above the surface, scholars teach that the mounds are the works of the Native Americans. But below the surface another tale is emerging as a growing number of scholars come forth with evidence that points to a prehistoric civilization that predates the Native American.
Prince Madoc, Welsh Natives, and Legends of the Mandan
During their encounter with the Flathead (Salish) Indians on September 5, 1805, while in what is today western Montana, members of the Corps of Discovery noted that the natives spoke a strange tongue. Sergeant John Ordway observed, “these natives have the Stranges language of any we have ever seen. they appear to us as though they had an Impedement in their Speech or brogue on their tongue. we think perhaps that they are the welch Indians.”1 Clark noted in his journal that only the Flathead (Salish) tongue was “a gugling kind of language Spoken much through the Throught.”2
Ordway was certain the Corps had discovered the legendary Welsh Indians descended from Welsh Prince Madoc, who had sailed to the American continent centuries before Columbus. As the story goes, in 1170 CE a Welsh prince named Madoc sailed west, far away from the disasters occurring in his homeland. Bards throughout the next four centuries did the same. The earliest printed report of Madoc’s story is David Powel’s The History of Cambria, published in 1584.
Madoc . . . left the land in contention betwixt his brethrens and prepared certain ships with men and munitions and sought adventures by seas, sailing west. . . He came to a land unknown where he saw many strange things. . . . Of the visage and returned of this Madoc there be many fables, as the common people do use in distance of place and length of time, rather to augment than diminish; but sure it is that there he was. . . . And after he had returned home, and declared the pleasant and fruitful countries that he had seen, he prepared a number of ships, and got with him such men and women as were desirous to live in quietness, and taking leave of his friends took his journey thitherward again. Madoc arriving in the country, into which he came in the year 1170, left most of his people there, and returning back for more of his own nation, acquaintance, and friends, to inhabit that fair and large country, went thither again.3
Gutyn Owen, the famous bard and historian of Basingwerk Abbey. is one of the most influential proprietors of the Madoc myth. His writings are cited as crucial sources by authors such as Richard Deacon, who wrote the influential Madoc and the Discovery of America in 1966. This rare book builds a solid case for Madoc’s voyage of discovery, despite controversial claims t
hat Madoc’s story was invented after 1492, giving England claim to prior rights in the New World. Deacon’s research indicates that in 1625 the archbishop of Canterbury wrote a world history that suggested a Welsh prince had discovered America. What if the young Prince Madoc lived on to build ancient settlements and interact with the Native Americans? The ocean current naturally would have carried Madoc and his fleet into the Gulf of Mexico. Once there he would have been attracted to the perfect harbor offered in Mobile Bay.
There’s another traveler the ancient bards speak of who also sailed to American shores. An Irish monk named St. Brendan was said to have discovered sometime between 512 and 530 CE an island so big he failed to find the shore after forty days of walking in a forested land full of fresh fruits and divided by a river too wide to cross. His tales, first published in Latin, were fanciful bestsellers that read more like great entertainment than actual reality. St. Brendan’s exploits were quickly synchronized with folklore, and he joined Madoc as another mythological hero. In 1977 historian, author, and ship captain Tim Severin proved a voyage from Ireland to the North American mainland was possible. Against all odds Severin and his robust crew built a leather boat exactly like those used in the days of St. Brendan and sailed across the dangerous Atlantic Ocean, safely landing in Newfoundland.
There have been ancient fortifications found along the Mississippi River, with architecture unlike any previously discovered in the region. In a 1781 letter, Governor John Seiver of Tennessee recounts a conversation he had with a ninety-year-old Cherokee chief. Seiver asked the chief about the people who had left the fortifications in his country. The chief told him white people who crossed the Great Water had built them. This letter can be found in the files of the Georgia Historical Commission.
There are three major forts that stand out against the typical native settlements found along the Mississippi. All three of these forts share striking similarities to ancient Welsh fortifications. The fort at Chatsworth, Georgia, is virtually identical in layout and method of construction to Dolwyddelan Castle in Wales, the supposed birthplace of Prince Madoc.
As forts were built and territory expanded upriver, a clash with hostile native tribes was inevitable. It’s presumed this hostility forced them to build a defensive stronghold, complete with a massive wall 800 feet long. The wall, another anomaly of southeastern archaeology, long predates the Cherokees found living there in the 1700s. Cherokee legends called the wall builders “moon-eyed people,” who were said to have fair skin, blond hair, and blue eyes. Throughout the centuries scholars and historians have argued for and against the Madoc story.
In November 1953 a memorial tablet was erected at Fort Morgan, Mobile Bay, Alabama, by the Virginia Cavalier Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, which reads, “In memory of Prince Madoc, a Welsh explorer, who landed on the shores of Mobile Bay in 1170 and left behind, with the Indians, the Welsh language.”
The memorial, subject to much controversy, was taken down after a hurricane in 1970. Despite resolutions being passed and the support of the governor to restore the plaque, this part of American history is mostly forgotten, covered up, or transparently ignored.
More than any other tribe, the Mandan of the northern plains showed signs of contact with Welsh explorers such as Madoc. They were a small, peaceful tribe that lived at the convergence of the Knife and Missouri Rivers near Bismarck, North Dakota. They were known for their friendliness, which was the outward expression of a deep-seated ethical philosophy. The Mandan shared the northern plains with tribes such as the Hidatsa, Arikara, Assiniboin, Dakota, and Chippewa. The lands they collectively inhabited were largely similar and had few natural barriers to prevent the mingling of people. Because of this the various tribes had many traits in common. They all depended on buffalo for food, clothing, and other necessities.
But of these, only the Mandan and Hidatsa lived in earth-lodge villages when they were first visited by white people in what is now North Dakota. The Mandan were further differentiated from their native counterparts in the way they set up their villages, their spiritual beliefs, and their physical appearance. These differences have led many scholars to suggest that the Mandan derived from different bloodlines than their northern plains counterparts. Despite a widespread absence of facts about the Mandan in history books, there is more than enough documentation elsewhere to suggest that the tribe originated in Europe.
The Mandan lived in earth-lodge homes rather than teepees, and unlike the settlements of other tribal nations, theirs were permanent. The women of the Mandan tribe tended their gardens, prepared food, and maintained the lodges while the men spent their time hunting or seeking spiritual knowledge. Their villages were strategically located on bluffs overlooking the river. This position provided maximum defense and limited any attacks to one land approach. These villages were the center of the social, spiritual, and economic lives of the Mandan.
The Mandan earth lodges were unlike those built by other tribes. These lodges were large rectangular and circular huts 15 feet high and 40 to 60 feet in diameter. Each hut had a vestibule entrance and a square hole on top that served as a smokestack. Each earth lodge housed ten to thirty people and their belongings. Villages contained fifty to one hundred earth lodges. The frame of an earth lodge was made from tree trunks, which were covered with crisscrossed willow branches. Over the branches they placed dirt and sod. This type of construction made the roofs strong enough to support people on nights of good weather. The floors of earth lodges were made of dirt, and the middle was dug out to make a bench around the outer edge of the lodge.
Surrounding the village were stockades of poles as tall as 6 feet high to prevent enemy attacks. In the middle of a Mandan village was a large, circular open space that was called the central plaza. In the middle of the plaza was a sacred cedar post that represented the “Ark of the First Man” or “Lone Man,” a revered hero from their ancient legend. At the north end of the plaza was the medicine or ceremonial lodge. The arrangement of the lodges around the central plaza represented the social status of each family. The higher in status villagers were, the more duties were required of them, and therefore they were located closer to the ceremonial lodge. A strange feature of the Mandan villages that did not correspond with the behavior of other native tribes was that the Mandan homes were arranged resembling streets. The Hidatsas, another peaceful tribe, were the only other native people who built earthen huts, which practice they learned from the Mandan.
The rich flood-plain fields that surrounded the village made agriculture the basis of Mandan existence. The Mandan women were responsible for sustaining the gardens within the village. The agricultural year began in April when the women would clear the fields by burning the old stalks and weeds of the previous year’s crops. Around May they planted rows of corn, beans, tobacco, pumpkin, sunflowers, and squash to maximize exposure to sunlight. To tend their gardens, women used tools such as digging sticks, rakes, and hoes made from wood or buffalo bones. To protect their gardens from natural predators like prairie dogs, birds, and rodents, the women constructed scarecrows out of buffalo hide. The Mandan women also performed daily cleansing rituals before entering their gardens by rubbing sage over their bodies. They believed this would protect their crops from worms and disease.
Harvesting began in late August with squash and ended in October with corn. After harvest, women would dry the corn in scaffolds built above the ground. After the corn was dry women picked the seeds that they would use for the next year’s crops, and the rest was buried with other dried garden items in underground storage pits to preserve them through the winter. These garrets took days to build and were deep enough to require a ladder to enter. When finished they were lined with grass and buffalo hide. The dried vegetables and seeds were placed inside. The garrets were then covered with a layer of buffalo hide, a layer of dirt, and then grass on top. In comparison to the traditions of the other native tribes, these techniques impressed white traders and scouts as unchar
acteristically advanced.
But the most mysterious of the Mandan characteristics was their physical appearance. Unlike other natives encountered by early explorers, the Mandan were purported to have mixed complexion that varied from white to almost white, blue and green eyes, and reddish or blondish hair color. All these characteristics suggest European genetics were at some point introduced to tribal bloodlines.
Some theories name Paul Knutson, a thirteenth-century Norwegian, as a possible candidate for having introduced a Nordic/European genetic strain and Christian cultural nuances to the American Midwest. This theory arose because the Mandan built their settlements using an architectural style unknown anywhere else in North America but common in medieval Norway.
In a letter dated January 22, 1804, to Meriwether Lewis, President Jefferson specifically requests the expedition to make contact with and verify rumors of the existence of a white, blue-eyed tribe of natives that had come to be referred to as the “Welsh Indians” because of the similarities between the language of the Mandans and the language of the Welsh. The original source of these claims cannot be pinpointed with exact accuracy, but they had circulated enough that the issue became a matter of great importance to government officials. Documented accounts begin in 1738, when Pierre Gaultier de Varennes, Sieur de la Vérendrye, took an expedition from his forts in present-day Manitoba to what is now North Dakota in search of this mysterious tribe.
During this expedition, near the banks of the Missouri River, de Vérendrye found a stone cairn with a small stone tablet inscribed on both sides with unfamiliar characters. Jesuit scholars in Quebec later described the writing on the stone as Tartarian—a runic script similar to Norse runes. Professor Peter Kalm of the Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences interviewed Captain de Vérendrye about this discovery in Quebec. The tablet was reportedly shipped to France, stored with other archaeological artifacts in a church at Rouen, and buried under tons of rubble by a direct bomb hit during World War II.