The crimsoned hills of Onondaga : romantic antiquarians and the Euro-American invention of Native American prehistory
"In the early 19th century, Euro-Americans in the United States pushing westward encountered the ruins of vast earthworks and finely made artifacts. Reflecting their biases, most believed they could not possibly have been made by Native Americans. These discoveries generated widespread public interest, and the Romantic Antiquarians sought to provide an explanation. They speculated civilization was brought to prehistoric America by Egyptians, the Lost Tribes of Israel, Phoenicians, Polynesians, Romans, and Vikings, among others. While origins were bitterly disputed, Romantic Antiquarians contended the colonies were destroyed by a migratory wave of barbarians -- Native Americans. In The Crimsoned Hills of Onondaga, Professor De Villo Sloan applies literary analysis to antiquarian writing -- a body of work most often associated with the history of archaeology
Print Book, English, ©2008
Cambria Press, Amherst, N.Y., ©2008