The Nephilim Chronicles: Fallen Angels in the Ohio Valley

by Fritz Zimmerman

  The Washington Post, October 25, 1906

  OLD TIME GIANTS

  Skeletons Eight Feet Long Unearthed in Illinois

  Used Bamboo Implements

  Burial Ground of the Ancients is Opened Near Quincy

  Relics Brought to Light Which May Solve the Mystery of the Mound Builders-Carving, Apparently of Ivory Which Rivals from an Artist View-point the Work of the Japanese.

  Quincy, Ill., Oct 24-On what is known as one of the Illinois River hills, about midway between Cooperstown and the river, and eight miles from Mount Sterling in Brown County, has just been made one of the richest and possibly the most wonderful of pre-historic finds. A curious resident of the locality.[...] mound in almost the center of the. Illegible… farm of Mrs. Crabtree, a widow, and already the results of the exhumation would make the eyes of the archaeologist dance with delight. Skeleton Eight Feet Long

  With the first day’s work the mound began to give up traces of handiwork of past ages and the bones of those who had wrought it, and others immediately joined in the search, still going on. Thus for several skeletons, by actual measurement are eight feet long, and several pieces of remarkable pottery, beads, and curious implements have been taken out. The bones crumble badly almost as soon as they are taken in the open air. They are so numerous that it is believed a prehistoric burying ground has been found, greater in extent and more perfectly preserved than any yet discovered.

  Under the bones of each of the ancient dead, were found pieces of pottery, beneath the fragments of the skulls of some of them great vases, the largest of which would easily hold two gallons. Underneath one skeleton was a curious bowl. In the center of whose basin was the well fashioned figure of a king seated upon a log, and it is thought that these bones may be those of a great leader of the race that once ruled this portion of the continent.

  Implements of Bamboo

  Strangest of all articles found with the bones were implements that are apparently made of bamboo, some of them evidently shaped for purposes of weaving. Countless beads were found in the mound of a strange material, almost white, and possibly made from the best of potter’s clay.

  Forty of the greater pieces found in the mound were taken to Cooperstown, where they are now temporarily in the possession of H. C. Ren, postmaster. One of the pieces is shell-shaped dish with a wolf’s head, the work on which leaves no doubt that it was carved, even the teeth of the wolf gleaming from it, as exquisitely done as some of the ivory carving of the Japanese, and some of those who have seen the piece believed it to ivory. This and what is thought to be implements of bamboo at once caused interesting speculations.

  Hundreds of people from Mount Sterling, Cooperstown, and the country around for miles have been attracted to the scene of the excavations by the news of the wonderful find. The soil of the mound has never before been disturbed, and to this fact is attributed the marvelous preservations of things taken from it. The mound is one of a series along the Illinois River hills, which a noted archaeologist pronounced would one day solve, when fully explored, the mystery of the mound builders.

  Indiana

  The Indiana Gazetteer, 1849

  Decatur County, Indiana On the bottom of Big Flat Rock, in north-west corner of Decatur county, is a mound about eighty feet in diameter, and eight feet high, originally covered with trees, like the forests around. An excavation was made into it a few years since. First there was a mixture of earth, sand and gravel for one foot; then dark earth, charcoal, lime and burnt pebbles were cemented together so as to be penetrated with difficulty; then a bed of loose sand and gravel mixed with charcoal; then were found the bones of a human being, in a reclining position, with a flat stone over the breast and another under the skull. Most of the bones were nearly decomposed, but some of them, and part of the teeth, were quite sound. From the size of such of the bones of the skeleton as remain, it must have once been of gigantic size. A short distance from this mound is a smaller one, which contains a great number of skeletons.

  Fifth Annual Report of the Geological Survey of Indiana, 1873

  Geology of Lawrence County, Indiana At the site of the former county seat, Palestine, there was a vaulted tomb containing skeletons of persons of not less than 6 ½ feet. Hammered copper earrings and a globular “war whistle,” were also found.

  Lima Daily News, ( Lima Ohio) July 27, 1892

  May Buy The Mounds

  Congress To Purchase Prehistoric Works

  (Anderson, Ind., Letter)

  The questions of converting the Indiana prehistoric mounds into a national park will be revived again this session of congress and more favorable action may be taken. As archaeologists continue the study of the mound builders they find that the Indiana mounds are most remarkable of all in the nation. Recent discoveries have added a great deal of interest to the Indiana mounds and they have again demanded the attention of the Smithsonian Institution, which was one of the prime movers some years ago in the attempt to have the grounds converted into a national park.

  A camera cannot do the Indiana mounds justice. They are not great heaps of earth which show well in a photograph, as is the case with those in Ohio and along the Mississippi, and are not even as attractive as those in Illinois and the northwest, which follow the contour of snakes and wild beast, but they posses outlines well defined and precise Scientist are convinced that their builders possessed many of the talents of the ancients of Egypt and Asia. Like the other mounds, they are covered with forest, which show that ages have passed since the builders occupied them.

  The precision of the modern surveyor and the methods of the nineteenth century builder have been combined in the Indian mounds and the result is a work of art rather than a crude heap. If it was known that the builders had surveyed Saturn through telescopic lens and beheld the circles around the inner globe, it might be claimed that they had used the planet and its girdle as their pattern for the construction of earthworks. The five great mounds lie just east of the city. The outer circle of the greatest of the five is but ten feet in height, but broad enough to allow teams to pass over its crest. It is 180 feet in diameter, and measured from any point it is identically the same distance from the center of the mound. The precision of these outer ridges is so nice they at once attract attention. With a graceful curve the ridge slopes on an angle of about 120 degrees to a great ditch fifteen feet wide and about fifteen feet deep. Like the ridge, it is perfect circle. From the ditch rises the inner, the great mound. The rise is rounded and evened off as prettily as though it had just been completed. In the very center of this mound, which is fully 100 feet across, is a prominence and this is five feet above the outer circle ridge and twenty feet higher than the inner ditch. From this a path wide enough for teams to pass runs to the outer ridge, where there is an opening. It bridges the ditch. All mounds large and small are built identically this pattern, all of the openings being to the north and on a direct line from the center mound to the North Star. These openings have been much studied, but significance of their direction has not been determined. The recent discoveries, given later, all tend to the belief that all of these mounds are buried deep under the present surface and were built on the strata of shale probably before the alluvial deposits were made.

  The great mounds of the Indian group all belong to the Bronnenburg family, which is among the wealthiest and best known in the county. The Bronnenbergs, while enterprising farmers have little idea of the assistance they might give to science by allowing excavation in the mounds. They have persistently refused to allow any excavations made in any of the mounds, but recently a midnight party was organized which dug in the center of the center mound. Although the men went down twenty feet they found nothing but loose alluvial soil that had evidently not been used in the construction of the mounds, but had accumulated later. This strengthens the theory that the real works of primitive art lie far below the present surface of the ground, and are built upon the underlying strata of slate.

  Dora Biddle of Anderson a c
ollector of antiques has a skull, and another is on exhibition here, which has been severed just above the ears, in such a manner as to remove the crown of the head and lay the brain bare. These skulls were found with others under conditions, which would indicate that they were those of the mound builders. They are very large, show marked intellectually, and unlike skulls of the present day, or of the Indians, have a fifth skull bone in the back of the head. There can be no doubt that the purpose of removing the tops of these skulls was to remove the brain tissue. The skulls have been severed with some fine instrument, which did the work as precisely as the surgeon’s saw of today would do it.

  Recently, while making an excavation near the mounds, workmen who did not appreciate the find suddenly came upon a composition, which resembled a baked cement or clay. It was round and secure. They broke into it and found they had opened a hermetically sealed cave, which resembles greatly our cisterns of the present day. It was dry as a powder-house, and the air, which came from its recesses, was sickening and tainted with great age. Here in this small receptacle, scarcely large enough to hold more, were found six skeletons in a sitting position. All six skeletons in a sitting position. All were propped up evidently when first put in. When the fresh air came rolling in they crumbled to pieces and but for a few bones which remain no trace is left of this remarkable find. The bones that are saved, however, indicate a people who were very large-decidedly larger than those of the present day. Parts of the skulls showed that the heads were very large also-the foreheads were very large.

  There can be little doubt that this find is closely connected with the mounds and that the skeletons were those of mound builders. It is claimed a similar discovery was made some years ago near the mounds, and that this proves convincingly that mound builders were the occupants of the cells. This mode of burial could not have been that of the modern Indians who occupied this part of the country at the time of the landing of Columbus.

  Francis Walker of this city, who has long advocated the converting of the Indian mounds into a national park, says that the mound builders of this section were far advanced in the arts and sciences. If the mounds were as supposed, built upon the shales which underlie the alluvial deposits, a reference to geological data would place the existence of these aborigines back as far as the time of the Pharaohs.

  To the east of the mounds is a cave of artificial formation that leads in toward the great mound 150 feet distant, and is fully fifty feet below the present surface of the mounds. There is little doubt that here lies the solving of the great mystery. It is probable that following this would bring a person in the inner chamber of a work of primitive building that would solve the doubts now existing regarding the history of this remarkable people.

  Should the movement to convert these lands into a national park be successful the Smithsonian Institute and other Institutions of learning which have been greatly interested in this group will make excavations that are now impossible. They have long regarded the builders of these mounds as those from which they would get most knowledge, owning to the superiority and advancement these people evidently held over other tribes of builders. Many minor discoveries have been made in the past few months that throw additional light upon the mounds and the builders, but they do not differ greatly from the few set out above and simply serve to further the theories, which have recently taken the place of the older ones

  History of Blackford County, Indiana

  One Moundbuilders skull, from a subject only twelve years old-as is evident from the stage of

  development, which the teeth exhibit, is as large as the skull of a full-grown man of modern type. This

  was found in a mound, accompanied with cup shaped vessels. With such mounds and relics, the

  Salomonie River abounds

  History of Just 100 Years, Vol., I

  Laporte County, Indiana 1938 Near the junction of the Kankakee with the Little Kankakee on the farm of Wm. Flannigan...Directly under the apex of the principle mound, on a plane about one to one and one-half feet about the same level, was found three skeletons in a semi-reclining attitude and facing northeasterly. The central one was that of man, fully matured, of much more than the ordinary Anglo-Saxon's size and proportions of the present day. At his right was one that was markedly feminine, much smaller and younger, and at the left, one scarcely discernable, but from the bone outlines and their structure, also young and not so large as the central figure.

  Indiana Geological Report 16th, Annual Report, 1885

  Pulaski County, Indiana In Indian Creek Township at a point opposite Pulaski Mills, in the "bottom" or alluvium of the Tippecanoe, is a large mound about one hundred feet in diameter at the base, and which was, before being plowed over, fully twelve feet high. Many years ago an excavation was made in this mound by a minister then sojourning in the neighborhood, with the result of unearthing several crumbling human skeletons. The bones were reported to have been very large and strong, but yielded to the action of the air and crumbled to dust

  Indianapolis News , November 11, 1875

  Jennings County Indiana

  "Remains Of Vanished Giants Found In State"

  One of the strangest contributions ever to come to hand tells of the existence in what is now Indiana, long before statehood and even before the Indians came here, of a mysterious giant mound-builders race whose men were more than nine feet tall.

  What's more the contributor of this odd information, Helen W. Ochs of Columbus, Ind., wrote that evidence of their one-time existence here still remains near Brewersville, Jennings County.

  She quoted from the geological report many years ago on Jennings County by W.W. Borden that the remains of the largest work of those moundbuilders in that country were to be seen on the bluffs 75 to 100 feet above Sand Creek in Sand Creek Township. The report added:

  "It is a stone mound 71 feet in diameter, showing at this time a height of three to five feet above the surrounding surface. The exterior walls appear to be made of stones placed on edge but the central portion did not show any regular arrangement of the stones"

  Mrs. Ochs said the first discovery of human skeletal remains in that mound was made in 1865 when a farmer, getting stone for a spring house, dug into "a sort of tomb" in which he found the skeleton of a small child.

  She quoted George M. Robison, his son, as saying the top of the mound was not less than 30 feet above the level of the surrounding ground. He added:

  "I well remember that several large forest trees were growing on the top. One was a white oak not less than three feet in diameter at the base"

  Discovery of the child's skeleton aroused much curiosity, causing several people to dig into the top of the mound and resulting in the finding of several other skeletons. Mrs. Ochs added:

  "Some of them were bound with perfectly-preserved bands of cedar wrapped around their chest while others were charred, perhaps in observance of a religious rite. Weapons found with the skeletons were unlike those used by Indians"

  She quoted Robison further as saying that no intelligent investigative work was conducted there until 1879, 14 years after the discovery of the mound. He continued:

  "The state geologist brought a couple of men here, one from Cincinnati and one from New York, and with Dr. Charles Green of North Vernon, they made quite an extensive examination. Among other things found was the skeleton of a man, it was intact, or rather, I might say, the bones were not scattered. It measured nine feet, eight inches.

  "There was sort of necklace of mica lying around the neck and down across the breast. At the feet stood a sort of 'image' made of burned clay with pieces of flint rock imbedded in it"

  Robison kept that image and some of the bones. Mrs. Ochs said that as late as 1937 bones of that giant were in a basket in the office of the Kellar Mill along Sand Creek about a mile below the mound's site:

  "Kenneth Kellar, grandson of Robison, remembers that basket of bones. He said the bones were lost when the 1937 flood washed out the office"


  Robinson who told of seeing the huge skeleton exhumed added that, according to the men of science who were there, they were the remains of a white race that had inhabited that part of the country before the advent of the red man. He said there were no signs of anything like pottery, no signs of metal working of any kind, just simply the bones of a "dead and gone race of human beings that we today know practically nothing about. We know not whence they came or where they went" Mrs. Ochs said that the giant-like race had worked hard to entomb its dead. The rocks in the mound had been placed end to end with no attempt to plaster or seal them together. She continued:

  "Evidence that this mound was dug into has washed out until the one-time graves now are smooth indentations in the leaf-covered ground" She said Edith Hale, a retired schoolteacher; Beulah Kellar Lowe, granddaughter, and Kenneth Kellar, the grandson of Robison, remembered the bones and image described by Robison.

  "This I feel substantiates the findings under discussion," Mrs. Ochs concluded.

  Combination Atlas Map of Grant County Indiana, 1877

  Several mounds of considerable size have been found in various parts of the county. Six of these

  mounds were found within the present limits of Marion, but only one remains, being just back of

  Buchanon and Son Marble Shop on Third Street.

  The first frame courthouse was built on a mound, which stood just east of the present courthouse. This

  was about sixty feet in diameter and ten feet in height, which was among the largest found in the

  county, the average diameter being from ten to fifteen feet. The mound in the courtyard furnished the

  material out of which the brick was made for the present courthouse.

  Excavations into these mounds, show that they are composed of alternate layers of gravel and sand. On

  a level with or just below the surface of the surrounding ground, the skeletons of human being in many

  instances have been exhumed. These seemed to have been buried in a sitting posture and the stature of