24 ANNUAL. REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1940 



Nebraska and adds materially to the geographic range of the cultures 

 involved. 



Dr. T. Dale Stewart, associate curator of physical anthropology, 

 continued systematic excavations at the site of the Indian village 

 located in Stafford County, Va., visited by Capt. John Smith in the 

 summer of 1608 and described by him under the name of Patawomeke. 

 Indications were that it had been a stockaded village. Among the 

 details of the town plan that remained undiscovered at the close of 

 the 1938 season were the main entrances, the location of the dwellings, 

 and the manner of their construction. The cultural objects obtained 

 during this work, as well as those found previously by Judge Graham, 

 showed considerable uniformity, and thereby suggested a relatively 

 short occupancy of the site. Nothing thus far gave indication of the 

 presence here of cultural elements differing from those apparent on 

 the surface. Nevertheless, a further development of the town plan 

 in itself was deemed of sufficient importance for continuing the inves- 

 tigation in 1939. Constant presence at the site permitted the employ- 

 ment of a somewhat different technique from that used last year. 

 Trenches 10 feet broad were extended across undisturbed parts of 

 the site. This increased exposure, in contrast to the previous short 

 5-foot trenches, clarified the picture considerably. The initial 

 trenches were run in the field to the east that had been under culti- 

 vation last season. Here it was hoped to find an entrance to the 

 stockade, but none was found. As elsewhere about the site, the post 

 holes are so numerous, presumably as a result of replacements and 

 relocations, that the details are obscured. Some time was devoted 

 also to trenching the accumulated refuse along the bluff overlooking 

 the creek. In places these deposits reach 4 feet in depth, but give 

 evidence of having received accretions from the plow. 



Attention was distracted from these features toward the close of 

 the season by two important finds of a different nature, a deep pit, 

 containing a type of pottery unlike that prevailing on the surface, 

 and an ossuary. The finding of the ossuary offered the opportunity 

 to expose the bones from above in order to show their arrangement. 

 Circumstances usually do not allow time for this procedure. In the 

 present case a good record was made of about one-third of the burial 

 pit before heavy and prolonged rains interrupted. A typical method 

 of contracting the body appears to have been that in which the lower 

 legs were flexed forward unnaturally at the knees so that the feet 

 came to touch the abdomen. Two other features of the ossuary are 

 of interest : At one place there was a mass of charred bones, the re- 

 mains perhaps of a deliberate cremation or sacrifice. In connection 

 with some of the skeletons there were great numbers of shell beads, 

 and in one of these cases the largest beads had been placed within 

 the skull, obviously at the time of burial. 



