682 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 192 8 



ward, east of the Black Warrior River near the town of Moimcls- 

 ville, is the most important group of earth mounds south of the 

 Ohio, quite unlike those erected by the Choctaw. Some of the most 

 interesting stone objects yet found in the United States have been 

 recovered from these works, and the question is suggested, Could they 

 have been constructed by a people related to those who reared Ca- 

 hokia and Etowah? Future discoveries at Cahokia may serve to 

 answer this most interesting question. 



The upper Creek towns were eastward from the country of tlie 

 Choctaw and centered about the junction of the Coosa and Talla- 

 poosa Rivers, in the vicinity of the present city of Montgomery, Ala. 

 (PI. 12.) The settlements of the lower Creek,s were in the valley of 

 the Chattahoochee. Mounds, single or in groups of two or more, oc- 

 cur throughout the region, and undoubtedly every such occurrence is 

 proof that a village once stood in the vicinity, and many of the towns 

 were occupied within the last century. It was the custom among the 

 Creeks to erect their town house on the summit of an artificial 

 mound, one raised for that purpose, and a short distance away on 

 another artificial mound stood other public buildings. The space 

 between the mounds, or rather the two sites, likewise belonged to the 

 village as a whole. 



In the south, where the river banks are low and are frequently 

 overflowed, it appears to have been a custom of the people to erect 

 mounds to serve as places of refuge, dry spots in the midst of their 

 inundated villages, and many mounds of this sort are found in the 

 old Creek country. 



Among the Cherokees a single structure was erected in every vil- 

 lage, a town house Avhich stood on the summit of an artificial mound. 

 At the Cherokee town of Cowe, which in 1776 stood on the banks of 

 Little Tennessee River, about the mouth of Cowee Creek, in the 

 present Macon County, N. C, the town house crowned an earth 

 mound some 20 feet in height. The structure rose 30 feet higher, 

 making the peak of the roof about 50 feet above the lowland. In 

 the 3'ear 1761 the town house at Chote, one of the most important 

 Cherokee towns, then standing in the present Monfoe County, Tenn., 

 opposite the ruins of Fort Loudon, occupied the summit of a mound, 

 evidently one of a group examined a few years ago. AVhen this 

 particular mound was excavated, a number of burials were discovered 

 near or resting upon the original surface, and just west of the center 

 was a circular stone wall about 9 feet in diameter and rising about 

 2 feet above the natural surface. Within this inclosure were 12 

 skulls and many disconnected bones. This discovery at once sug- 

 gests tlie traditional account of the ceremonies attending the erection 

 by the Cherokee of mounds to serve as sites for their town houses. 



