Whispers Beneath the Earth:The Forgotten Mound Builders of Niagara
Mounds in the Mist: The Vanished Earthworks of Western New York
A Journey Beneath the Forest Floor
Before asphalt and fences divided the land, before cities rose on the banks of the Niagara, there were people here—builders, dreamers, and mourners—who raised great circles of earth and trenches of meaning across the plateaus and terraces of what is now Erie County. Today, their works lie nearly silent. But if you know where to look, the ground still whispers.
From the windswept edge of Buffalo Creek to the tangled ravines of Murder Creek, Western New York holds the buried bones of a forgotten world—the mounds of a people who left no name behind.
What We Know: E.G. Squier’s Forgotten Survey
In 1849, a man named E.G. Squier traveled the region, documenting what he called the “aboriginal monuments” of New York. His accounts are haunting. He found over a dozen earthworks—some circular, some square, some raised high with palisades, others already reduced by the plow.
“It is extremely difficult to find them, in consequence of the forest and thick undergrowth… but no doubt new ones will be discovered.”
Among them:
A burial and fortification site near Buffalo, where Red Jacket, the legendary Seneca orator, was buried beside Mary Jemison, the “White Woman of the Genesee.”
A hill near Little Buffalo Creek, with embankments still rising three feet high, surrounded by old lodge sites and fragments of pottery.
A mysterious circular enclosure in Lancaster, now overgrown, its purpose unknown.
A bone pit in Clarence, 14 feet square and 5 feet deep, holding hundreds of human skeletons, jumbled together in a mass grave.
And a work at Fisher’s Falls, along Murder Creek, perched over a plunging gorge—where “rude mortars” were carved in stone for grinding corn.
Who Were These People?
What makes these sites even more powerful is that we do not know for certain who built them. They are older than the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) and older than the Neutral Nation. Some scholars believe they were created by Woodland-period cultures like the Meadowood or Hopewell traditions, dating back over 2,000 years. Others may have been the work of now-forgotten peoples—lost nations whose names, languages, and stories were erased long before Europeans ever arrived.
They buried their dead in sacred order.
They built palisades for defense and mounds for ritual.
They left no written words, but the earth remembers.
Memory and Erasure
Some of these mounds still exist, hidden in tree lines and beneath fields. Others have been erased—by plows, by roads, by silence. In their place, stories linger:
The “Dah-do-sot” mound, once venerated by the Seneca, believed to contain the slain of an ancient battle.
The old council house of Red Jacket, still standing when Squier passed by.
Bone pits where generations of the dead were laid side by side.
“The rude cabins of the aborigines have scarcely crumbled away… a small band are at bay upon the borders of the Tonawanda, sullenly defying the grasping cupidity of those who… would deny these the poor boon of laying their bones beside those of their fathers.”
Why It Matters
These mounds are not just footnotes. They are spiritual architecture, testaments to Indigenous endurance, artistry, and grief. To walk in Erie County is to walk atop sacred ground, where stories lie beneath every hill.
We owe it to these ancestors—to remember them, to respect what remains, and to resist the erasure of their legacy.
Want to Explore?
While most ancient earthworks in the region are now gone or on private land, you can:
Visit local museums like the Buffalo Museum of Science, which house artifacts.
Walk the trails along Buffalo Creek and Tonawanda, where mounds once stood.
Read E.G. Squier’s full account in Aboriginal Monuments of the State of New York (1849), available online in the public domain.
Monumental earthworks built by the Hopewell Culture have been discovered across America.
During the 1800s, white settlers began constructing homes and farms in areas once occupied by ancient Indigenous earthworks, often unaware of the history beneath their feet.