Mound builders Meaning, Definition & Usage

  1. noun prehistoric Amerindians who built altar mounds
    Mound Builder.
  2. noun large-footed short-winged birds of Australasia; build mounds of decaying vegetation to incubate eggs
    mound bird; scrub fowl; mound-bird; megapode; mound builder.

WordNet


Definitions
  1. (Ethnol.), the tribe, or tribes, of North American aborigines who built, in former times, extensive mounds of earth, esp. in the valleys of the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers. Formerly they were supposed to have preceded the Indians, but later investigations go to show that they were, in general, identical with the tribes that occupied the country when discovered by Europeans.

Webster 1913