CHAP. XXI. INDIAN SKELETONS AND RELICS. 5 



skeletons liave been disinterred within twelve months, and 

 the workmen state that many parts of the ground exca- 

 vated in former years were even more rich in such remains. 

 Hundreds of old fire-places, and indications of at least 

 ten or twelve huts or lodges, have also been found, and in 

 a few instances tliese occur over the burial-places, as if 

 one generation had built its huts upon the graves of 

 another. Where habitations have stood, the ground is in 

 some places, to the depth of three feet, a black mass 

 saturated with carbonaceous matter, and full of bones of 

 wild animals, charcoal, pottery, and remains of implements 

 of stone or bone. In such places the black soil is lami- 

 nated, as if deposited in successive layers on the more 

 depressed parts of the surface. The length of time during 

 which the site was occupied is also indicated by the state 

 of the bones and bone implements, some of those in 

 the deeper parts being apparently much older than those 

 nearer the surface. Similar proofs are furnished by the 

 pottery, as well as by the abundant remains of animals 

 used as food found throughout the area. 



All these indications point to a long residence of the 

 aborigines on this spot, while the almost entire absence 

 of articles of European manufacture in the undisturbed 

 portions of the ground, implies a date coeval with the 

 discovery of the country. The few objects of this kind 

 found in circumstances which prevented the supposition 

 of mere superficial intermixture, are just sufficient to 

 show that the village existed until the arrival of Euro- 

 peans. Among the fragments of pottery, pipes, and early 

 Indian art, found in making these excavations, the bone 

 implements are most interesting. Skewers and bodkins. 



