Gerard Fowke (June 25, 1855 – March 5, 1933) was an American archeologist and geologist best known for his studies of Native American mounds.Born Charles Mitchell Smith in Charleston Bottom, Mason County, Kentucky, near Maysville, his parents were John D. Smith and Sibella Smith.[1][4][5] He was the eldest of five children and the only one to survive to adulthood. Fowke's mother died before he reached ten years of age.[4] He spent his childhood in Kentucky and was raised by his father and other relatives.In 1887, he legally changed his name to Gerard Fowke, naming himself after a prominent American ancestor of his maternal grandmother, Elizabeth Fowke Less