John Wesley Powell - 3

The Squire/Davis report had 30+ years head start, before Major Powell got into the game.  By then, more than 2,500+ Mound Builder ruins had been found.  Many had been excavated, and there were wonderful examples of all kinds of things being publicly displayed...

Mass Graves - "The “bone pits” which occur in some parts of Western New York, Canada and Michigan, etc., have unquestionably a corresponding origin…. They are of various sizes, but usually contain a large number of skeletons. In a few instances the bones appear to have been arranged with some degree of regularity. One of these pits discovered some years ago, in the town of Cambia, Niagara County, was estimated to contain the bones of several thousand individuals." - E. G. Squier: Antiquities of the State of New York: (1851), p. 98

The “bone pits” which occur in some parts of Western New York, Canada and Michigan, etc., have unquestionably a corresponding origin…. They are of various sizes, but usually contain a large number of skeletons. In a few instances the bones appear to have been arranged with some degree of regularity. One of these pits discovered some years ago, in the town of Cambia, Niagara County, was estimated to contain the bones of several thousand individuals. …

This locality was visited and examined by Mr. O. Turner, of Buffalo, in 1823. The account of this gentleman is published in his history of the “Holland purchase,” page 27 as follows: 

“The location commands a view of Lake Ontario and the surrounding country. An area of six acres of level land seems to have been occupied; fronting which, upon the circular verge of the mountain, were the distinct remains of a wall. Nearly in the centre of the area was a depository of the dead. It was a pit excavated to a depth of four or five feet, filled with human bones, over which were piles of sandstone. Hundreds seem to have been thrown in promiscuously, of both sexes and all ages. Numerous barbs or arrow-points were found among the bones and in the vicinity. It has been conjectured that this had been the scene of some sanguinary battle, and that these are the bones of the slain.”

But, "Helmut" is NOT what the text says...

And, that is NOT what the Smithsonian found

See also https://www.kensingtonrunestone.us/ & https://youtu.be/rbX1qrtgyvw?t=1518] - "The Kensington Ruin Stone was discovered in central Minnesota in 1898 by Olof Öhman, a Swedish immigrant, who suffered accademic and instutional persecution for the remainder of his life. One of his children committed suicide because of the ridicule.  However, recent discoveries that it contains a unique ruin ("hooked X") that not known until ~2000 that has reopened debate that this Runestone "contains a valid/known writing system used by vikings"

NOTES:

http://famousamericans.net/edwinhamiltondavis/ - Bio of E.H. Davis

Wallace, B (1971). "Some points of controversy". In Ashe G; et al. (eds.). The Quest for America. New York: Praeger. pp. 154–174. ISBN 0-269-02787-4.

Wahlgren, Erik (1986). The Vikings and America (Ancient Peoples and Places). Thames & Hudson. ISBN 0-500-02109-0.

Hughey M, Michlovic MG (1989). "Making history: The Vikings in the American heartland". Politics, Culture and Society. 2 (3): 338–360. doi:10.1007/BF01384829. S2CID 145559328.

Holand, "First authoritative investigation of oldest document in America", Journal of American History 3 (1910:165–84); Michlovic noted Holand's contrast of the Scandinavians as undaunted, brave, daring, faithful and intrepid contrasted with the Indians as savages, wild heathens, pillagers, vengeful, like wild beasts: an interpretation that "placed it squarely within the framework of Indian-white relations in Minnesota at the time of its discovery" (Michlovic 1990:106).