374 Results of Investigations of Indian Mounds. 



from the weight of the overlying soil ; until I read H. Gillman's report 

 upon "Indian Mounds in Michigan" in the American Journal of Science 

 and Art, January number, 1874, in which he says, "And I here re- 

 peat the interesting fact that all the tibia; unearthed invariably exhib- 

 ited the compression or flattened characterizing j)]atycneniic men. 



Directly in front of the mouth of each skeleton were placed from two 

 to three vessels of pottery, beautifully ornamented with etchings and 

 tracings, and in one or two specimens figure decorations were attempted. 

 If these vessels were filled on their interment, their contents had long 

 been removed and afterwards replaced by soil. It they originally 

 contained food, all traces of the absence of such could be easily ac- 

 counted for, as the mound was occupied by numerous ant colonies and 

 other insects; or the contents might have been removed, and then re- 

 placed with soil by the water which after every rain percolated the 

 mound. Thinking if the vessels had been filled with food, and if birds 

 or fish had been an article of diet, most probably bones would remain, 

 I subjected the contents to analysis, but under a 400 power microscope 

 no trace of organic remains was to be seen. 



Baldwin asks, "What but time could have caused these skeletons to 

 dissolve and become as dust, as all the circumstances attending their 

 liurial were unusually favorable to their preservation? The earth 

 around tliem has been invariably found to be wonderfully compact and 

 dry." The condition of the bones cannot always be used as an accu- 

 rate measurment of time, as here were remains found surrounded by 

 very unfavorable circumstances for their preservation. 



Squier and Davis claim to have found a skull belonging incontesta- 

 bly to the Mound Builders taken from a mound situated in the Scioto 

 Valley, four miles beloAv Chilicothe; but Foster says (p. 291), "Any 

 comparative anatomist on referring to their plate will instantly recog- 

 nize it as of the Indian type." Foster says that our knowledge of the 

 Mound Builders' crania is exceedmgly scant, as we have found but few 

 specimens which were incontestibly of that race. In regard to the 

 bones I disinterred tliere can be no question ; the surrounding circum- 

 stances prove them to belong to them beyond a doubt ; the positions of 

 the skeletons, and pottery, and other contents of the mound, clearly 

 prove they could belong to no other race. 



The work upon the various vessels made of pottery would indicate 

 that the Mound Builders had attained a high degree of skill in the 

 plastic art, and this race must have been far in advance of those living 

 in the Stone and even Bronze Age of Europe, as Sir John Lubbock 

 says that "■few of the British sepulchral urns belonging to the ante- 

 Roman times have upon them any curved lines. Representations of 



