Caleb Atwater

Caleb Atwater (December 1778 – March 13, 1867) was an American politician, historian, and early archaeologist in the state of Ohio. He served several terms as a state politician and was appointed as United States postmaster of Circleville, Ohio. He was known best during the 19th century for his publication History of the State of Ohio (1838), the first book-length history of the new state. It also included much natural lore.

Atwater was recognized by contemporaries as a pioneer of the study of the mounds or massive earthworks in the Ohio Valley; he published an account during 1820. These are now known to have been constructed by ancient Native Americans of the United States. At the time, Atwater and other scholars developed various theories of origin; he thought a culture other than ancestors of Native Americans created such monuments. He helped publicize a theory by John D. Clifford, an amateur of Lexington, Kentucky, who suggested that people related to Hindus of India had migrated by sea and built the mounds, to be replaced by ancestors of contemporary Native Americans.