| The anthropological career of Ephraim George Squier has long been of interest to historians. Despite such prominence, however, important aspects of his researches into the archaeology and ethnology of eastern North America have yet to receive an adequate assessment. The objectives, methods, and theoretical dimensions of his collaborative mound researches with Dr. Edwin Hamilton Davis have yet to be correctly defined, while the Davis of "Squier and Davis" has largely remained a nonentity. Although Squier was clearly the animating spirit of the Squier-Davis association, the contributions of Davis deserve more attention than they have generally received. Moreover, the unity of thought and recurrence of theme that connect Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley (1848), Aboriginal Monuments of the State of New York (1851), the Serpent Symbol (1851), and Squier's related minor writings have yet to be fully integrated into an overall and in-depth analysis. The findings embodied in Aboriginal Monuments of the State of New York, for example, significantly modified and elaborated several of the conclusions set forth in Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley. Similarly, Squier's cognate writings on native American mythological and historical traditions isolate important components of his anthropological thought that give continuity to his early works.;This inquiry, therefore, is a reappraisal of Squier's early researches into the archaeology and ethnology of eastern North America. His genesis as an anthropologist is traced from his humble origins as a poet and journalist through his pioneering researches in Ohio, his related fieldwork in New York, and his writings on the historical and mythological traditions of the Algonquian Indians. An assessment is made of the controversy surrounding the respective contributions of Squier and Davis to Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley, and of the circumstances leading to the publication of that work as the first volume of the Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge. The intellectual influences which shaped Squier's interpretation of the Mound Builders as a presumably "extinct" subgroup of the American race are examined, as are his views on several of the leading problems and issues that confronted American anthropologists in the mid-nineteenth century. |
