Mound building dominated cultures that existed in the Midwest 2,000 years ago, and the magnificent earthworks found in the East, South, and Midwest led some 18th- and 19th-century European-Americans to argue that Native Americans could not have mastered the math and engineering needed to build them. They instead promoted claims that peoples closer to their own heritage had created the earthworks, including early Welch or Irish settlers, lost ships carrying Egyptians or Phoenicians, the Lost Tribe of Israel, or refugees from Atlantis. Although early archaeology showed that Native Americans created the earthworks, many Europeans refused to accept this while Native Americans were in conflict with American settlers, and some settlers claimed that great societies had been destroyed by "savages," helping justify taking their lands. Only after 1890, when archaeologists began extensive investigations of mounds and other sites across the country, did European-Americans embrace the idea of past native civilizations; by then Native Americans had been forced onto reservations and were no longer seen as a threat, and with the buffalo gone, people began to think nostalgically about native lifeways. The limited archaeology completed at ancient sites shows that Native Americans created the magnificent earthworks and developed rich, elaborate societies, and among local natives the west was associated with the Moon, the souls of the dead, the color black, and death.