When Thomas began his investigations into the origins of the mound builders, he was under the impression that the mounds were made by a more advanced race that no longer existed. He argued that once America had been settled the people tended to stay in one place, which meant that the archaeological record had been produced by the same people of that area through history. Although he did not do field work he mapped out a plan of action for the mound excavations, and presented ten years of work in the 12th Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology for 1890–91. By the end of his research into the origin of the mound builders Thomas dismissed each argument advanced in favor of the vanished race theory. The Bat Creek Inscription was one artifact that Thomas used to support his hypothesis that "the Cherokee constructed many earthen mounds"; the evidence being that "the stone represented characters of Cherokee syllabary".
