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Michigan Ancient Garden Beds
These extensive indications of ancient culture necessarily imply a settled and populous community. We are led, therefore, to look for other evidences of the numbers and character of the people who made them. But here an extraordinary fact presents itself; such evidences are almost wanting! The testimony of nearly every one whom I have consulted— men who were among the first of the white race to break up the sod, that for ages had consecrated these old garden lands—agrees in the fact, that almost none of the usual aboriginal relics were found; no pottery; no spear and arrow heads; no implements of stone; not even the omnipresent pipe. Tumuli, or burial mounds of the Red man, are not uncommon, though not numerous, in Western Michigan, but have no recognized association with the garden race.
Upon the St. Joseph and Colorado rivers, and in the town of Prairie Ronde, exist several small circular and rectangular embankments, resembling the lesser works of the Mound-Builders so numerous in Ohio. But no connection can be traced between these detached earthworks and the garden beds. None of them seem to have been the bases of buildings, nor do they give indication of any religious origin or rites. There are no traces of dwellings, and the soil which has so sacredly preserved the labor of its occupants, discloses not even their bones!
Farming
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