PAPERS RELATING TO ANTHROPOLOGY. 683 



MOUNDS IN CARROLL COUNTY, ILLINOIS. 



By James M. Williamson, of Thomsoyi, III. 



In the town of York, Carroll County, Illinois, is a group of five very 

 remarkable mounds. They are situated on the bluffs, 300 feet above 

 the bottom-lands on the east side of the Mississippi River, from which 

 they are distant about 2J miles. They are built upon a high ridge of 

 ground running in a due line from southwest to northeast. The first 

 mound on the southwest is about 50 feet in diameter, and they grow 

 smaller until the last one of them is only 10 feet across. 



In September, 1882, I procured help and opened the first one by dig- 

 ging a trench directly through, beginning on a level with the base of 

 the mound. After trenching about. 8 feet we came to some fragments 

 of burned clay, the pieces being as hard as burned brick, and resem- 

 bling it very much in color. On digging in a little farther we came to 

 fragments of rotten bone and teeth, but soon met with other bones in a 

 better state of preservation. Digging in still farther we presently came 

 to a perfect charnel-house of bones, most of them well preserved. We 

 took them out as carefully as we could, and procured twenty-two 

 crania, some of them very large indeed, and many of them in a good 

 state of preservation and well shaped. All the other bones were in a 

 fine state of preservation, and I have no doubt that this mound yet con- 

 tains the skeletons of one hundred or more of the ancient mound build- 

 ers of Carroll County. 



The next mound opened was the last of the five on the northeast end 

 of the ridge and is the smallest of the number. In this, at the depth of 

 6J feet, we came upon another mound or cist of burned clay, 3A feet 

 wide at the base, 7^ feet long, and 20 inches high, this being so hard 

 that it was almost impossible to j)enetrate it; but by slow work we tore 

 it to pieces and found that it contained the remains of a body which had 

 been burned. I brought away many of the bones ; they are charred and 

 very hard. Fragments of the skull are as tough as the thickest pot- 

 tery. Over this mound of burned clay were ashes to the depth of nearly 

 two inches, intermixed with charcoal. The body had evidently been 

 laid on the surface of the ground, and the clay packed around and over 

 it, after which the fires were kindled. This inside mound could have 

 been taken out whole if we had exercised forethought. The other three 

 mounds I have not opened yet, but shall do so in early spring. I ex- 

 pect from them some rich developments; they are all covered with 

 heavy timber and hard to get at, as many of the roots from the oaks 

 penetrate the skulls. Inside of the burned cist I found many fragments 

 of pottery and flint implements, convincing me that the class of mound- 

 builders inhabiting Northern Illinois broke all their implements, uten- 

 sils, ornaments, «&c., at the time of burying their owners, for in all my 

 mound opening in this section I have never found a whole piece of pot- 

 tery and but few whole stone implements or ornaments, but vast quan- 

 tities of broken ones. 



