Myth Becomes Fraud
The myth of the moundbuilders is simply that- a myth perpetuated by a series of misunderstandings and misinformations. Although a myth can be made by simple mistakes, it takes a conscience lie to start an instance of fraud. This is exactly what ended up happening with the moundbuilders, as artifacts were “found” that lent to ideas that people wanted to promote. The Decalogue Stone and Keystone, also referred to as the Newark Holy Stones, were found in Ohio. They were proposed to contain inscriptions of the Ten Commandments and were said to be relics left by Moses himself. Further inspection of the writings proved that they were in different versions of Hebrew, so must have been from different time periods. Clearly they did not come from the same time period, as was indicated in their fake burials in non-Jewish burial mounds. Another example of flat-out fraud is that of the Walam Olum, which was an alleged ancient story deciphered by Constantine Samuel Rafinesque. The story depicts the arrival of the moundbuilders to North America and their eventual downfall at the hands of the Indians. Rafinesque obviously had no sense of historical timeline, as the arrival in his story in no way corresponds to the real arrival of people in North America. The perpetrators of these and other lies are just as bad as the people who made up the Cardiff Giant and the Piltdown Man.
Photo Compliments of J. Huston McCulloch from the site http://www.econ.ohio-state.edu/jhm/arch/decviews.htm
