The popular opinion, however, based in a great degree upon the well ascertained purposes of the barrows and tumuli occurring in certain parts of Europe and Asia, is that they are simple monuments, marking the last resting-place of some great [p142] chief or distinguished individual, among the tribes of the builders. Some have supposed them to be the cemeteries, in which were deposited the dead of a tribe or a village for a certain period, and that the size of the mound is an indication of the number inhumed; others, that they mark the sites of great battles, and contain the bones of the slain. On all hands the opinion has been entertained, that they were devoted to sepulture alone. This received opinion is not, however, sustained by the investigations here recorded. The conclusion to which these researches have led, is, that the mounds were constructed for several grand and dissimilar purposes; or rather, that they are of different classes. The conditions upon which the classification is founded are four in number,—namely: position, form, structure, and contents. In this classification, we distinguish—
1st. ALTAR MOUNDS, which occur either within, or in the immediate vicinity of enclosures; which are stratified, and contain altars of burned clay or stone; and which were places of sacrifice.
2d. MOUNDS OF SEPULTURE, which stand isolated or in groups more or less remote from the enclosures; which are not stratified; which contain human remains; and which were the burial places and monuments of the dead.
3d. TEMPLE MOUNDS, which occur most usually within, but sometimes without the walls of enclosures; which possess great regularity of form; which contain neither altars nor human remains; and which were “High Places” for the performance of religious rites and ceremonies, the sites of structures, or in some way connected with the superstitions of the builders.
4th. ANOMALOUS MOUNDS, including mounds of observation and such as were applied to a double purpose, or of which the design and objects are not apparent. This division includes all which do not clearly fall within the preceding three classes.
These classes are broadly marked in the aggregate, though in some instances it is difficult to determine the character of the mounds which fall under notice. Of one hundred mounds examined, sixty were altar or temple mounds; twenty sepulchral; and twenty either places of observation or anomalous in their character. Such, however, is not the proportion in which they occur. From the fact that the altar or sacrificial mounds are most interesting and productive in relics, the largest number excavated was of that class. Excluding the temple mounds, which are not numerous, the remaining mounds of the Scioto valley are distributed between the three other varieties in very nearly equal proportions.