684 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1928 



erecting many of the larger works. Some when examined show a 

 thick stratum of sand, artificialy colored red or a pinkish hue by 

 the admixture of red oxide of iron, deposited over the entire group 

 of burials before the superimposed mass of earth and sand had been 

 added. This must necessarily have been a long and tedious under- 

 taking and reveals the care with which they toiled when providing 

 a resting place for their dead. 



More than a century and a half ago the large works near the banks 

 of the St. Johns River, Fla., attracted the attention of travelers, and 

 the name Mount Royal was applied to a large mound just below 

 Lake George in the present Putnam County. It rose 16 feet above 

 the original surface and had a circumference of some 555 feet. It 

 was an interesting work, and to add to the great importance of the 

 site an avenue extended from the mound to Lake George, a distance 

 of about a half mile and was from 12 to 20 yards in width, bordered 

 on each side by an embankment about 214 feet in height. The mound 

 was examined and many burials were discovered, but nothing of 

 European origin was encountered. This must have been an impor- 

 tant center of population before the Spanish conquest of the penin- 

 sula, where interesting scenes were enacted within the parallel 

 embankments leading from the great artificial mound to the shores 

 of the lake. 



It is quite evident and easily conceived that many, if not a great 

 majority, of the large mounds encountered along the low, marshy 

 coast, were raised by the occupants of the region to serve as elevated 

 sites for habitations and other structures of the native villages. This 

 is clearly indicated by a passage in the narrative of the De Soto 

 expedition. When that daring leader and his numerous party entered 

 Tampa Bay early in the year 1539, they discovered the Timucua 

 village of Ucita on the shore of the bay where several large mounds 

 had been erected. On the summit of one stood the temple, probably 

 a structure covered with a thatch of palmetto, and surmounted by a 

 carved figure of a bird with " gilded eyes." Habitations had been 

 reared on other near-by mounds. Ucita may not have differed in 

 appearance from many native villages then standing throughout the 

 peninsula. 



Rather low spreading mounds of sand often standing near the 

 larger structures, appear to have been the burial places for the dead 

 of the village. Instances have been recorded in the vicinity of Tampa 

 Bay, and elsewhere, of the discovery of two forms of burial in the 

 same mound revealed in distinct strata, suggesting that the site had 

 been occupied during two or more periods by tribes whose manners 

 and ways of life differed. Such sites are worthy of the most careful 

 study. 



