ETHNOLOGY. 401 



ANCIENT MOUND NEAR CHATTANOOGA, TENNESSEE. 



By M. C. Eead, 



The mound from wliicli tlie specimens sent you were taken is situated on tlie 

 left bank of the Tennessee river, above Citico creek, and about one mile from 

 Chattanooga. It is on the rich alluvial land bordering" the river, and so situate 

 on the outer side of a curve of the stream as to be readily seen by parties coming 

 up or down the river, as well as by any one approaching the valley over any of 

 the hills and mountains by which Chattanooga is surrounded. Directly east of 

 it is the site of an ancient pottery and manufactory of flint arrow-heads, several 

 acres being covered with fragments of broken pottery, burned clay, chippings 

 of flint and arrow-heads, many of them apparently spoiled in the hands of the 

 manufacturer. Broken stone hammers, stone and earthenware pipes, flat circu- 

 lar disks of the size of large checker-men, made of stone, pottery, and occa- 

 sionally of hard, mineral coal, are frequently found. The place where these 

 are found has been for years under the plough, but, on digging to the depth of 

 eighteen inches or more, ashes and coal, amor})hous masses of burned clay, frag- 

 ments of bones, and abundance of broken pottery, are found. This is all of a 

 coarse character 5 the various attempts at ornamentation being rude and inar- 

 tistic. The material used was the earth taken from below the surface and filled 

 with finely comminuted fragments of river shells. The surface is covered with 

 these shells, many of them in a good state of preservation, of the same character 

 with those found more abundantly down the river at Shell Mound and other 

 places, and all identical with tlie species still existing in the river. These facts 

 are of especial interest on account of their bearing upon the relative age of the 

 mound. This one is of an oval form, with a base of 15S by 120 feet ; the larger 

 diameter being upon the true meridian, or as near it as \vg could determine by 

 an ordinary pocket compass. The dimensions of the top, which was substan- 

 tially level, are 82 by 44 feet, and the height 19 feet. 



For purposes of examination, and to provide the gardener of the Sanitary 

 Commission, who had his oflice on the mound, with a place to store vegetables 

 for spring planting, a tunnel was excavated into the mound from the east, a 

 little one side of the centre, and on a level with the natural surface of the 

 ground. When the point directly under the outer edge of the top of the mound 

 was reached, holes were found containing frag«nents of rotted wood, showing 

 that stakes or palisades had been erected here \\ hen the mound was commenced. 

 The sound of the pick indicating a cavity or ditlerent material below, the exca- 

 vation was carried downward about two feet, when two skeletons were uncovered, 

 fragments of which, presei'ved, are marked No. 1. The bones were packed in 

 a small space, as though the bodies were crowded down, without nmch regard to 

 position of hands, into a pit not exceeding three feet in length. One of the 

 ^skulls is of especial interest, as possibly indicating that the remains are those of 

 victims immolated in some sacrificial or burial rites. The side was crushed in, 

 as if witli a club. I have connected together the pieces of the upper jaw, so 

 that they retain tlie position in which they were found, a position which cannot, 

 with probability, be supposed to be the result of the settling of the earth around 

 it, if unbroken when buried. The bones of the bodies, although so friable that 

 they could not be preserved, were entire, in positions indicating that the bodies 

 had not been dismend)ered, and forbidding the supposition that they were the 

 remains of a cannibal feast. 



The excavation was carried forward as indicated on the plat, and on a level with 

 the location of the skeletons first found. It became evident at once that the mate- 

 yial of which the mound was constructed was taken from the immediate neigh- 

 borhood ; it being composed of the same alluvial soil, full of the shells found 

 on the surface, but in a much better state of preservation j but no a^'ow-heuds, 



26 s 67 



