Mound builders in a 1900 history

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Kurimeo Ahau reads selections from a 1900 book, History of America Before Columbus, by P. de Roo. The opening leaves who was here first unsettled, but not recent. The authors, he says, run the arrow the wrong way, filling an empty land with outsiders. Plato’s Atlantis, in opinions he cites, means people were here before the flood stories. He adds that if the first man was not from here, Noah was, and he points to timber in Florida and Brazil. The pages he stays with move from shell heaps and cave bones, and from people living beside animals that later vanished, to a mound culture far beyond those shore camps. Earthworks cross Georgia, Florida, and the Ohio country, with forts, burial mounds, a raised lookout, and huge enclosures. Gulf goods are set against copper from Lake Superior. He follows the works through Colombia, Peru, and Chile, argues that the age is too deep for a late arrival from Asia, and reads Danish mounds as echoes of an American Atlantis rather than proof that Asia settled America.

Key points

He reads selections from P. de Roo’s 1900 History of America Before Columbus.
The book leaves the first nations uncertain while insisting the American past is old.
His own addition is that the story is usually told backwards, and that Noah belonged to America if the first man did not.
Shell heaps and cave finds are set beside later mound builders with forts, burial mounds, and a raised lookout.
Trade in the passages links Gulf goods with copper from Lake Superior, and pottery is compared with Italian ware.
He extends the works to Colombia, Peru, and Chile and rejects a late arrival from Asia in favor of an American Atlantis.