Definition: Adventurer, traveler, spent a great deal of the mid-19th century traveling in the midwestern United States investigating burial mounds and discovered and mapped hundreds of them. Unfortunately, he was under the mistaken impression that they had been built by a "moundbuilder" race, not the Native American peoples who presently inhabit the country, an idea that was long perpetuated after him.   

Elsewhere on the Web:

Caleb Atwater
A brief biography written by student Sara Halverson at the Minnesota State University's EMuseum.