394 ANCIENT MOUNDS IN UNION COUNTY, KENTUCKY. 



ne^ro man, who desired to be buried there. In digging tlie grave, 

 skeletons were discovered and also three or four earthen vessels. 

 These mounds are on the lands of Mr. Burbank, about IJ miles west 

 of the group ou Diagram No. 1. No examination was made of the 

 country lying immediately between these groups. 



The Lindsay mound. — This is an isolated mound, there being no other 

 nearer than half a mile. It is situated on the low hills which form the 

 margin of the flat lands on Buffalo Creek, a tributary of Cypress Creek, 

 of the Ohio, about four miles in the rear of Ealeigh, Union County, 

 Kentucky. It terminates a low point of a low ridge and is about 33 feet 

 in diameter. It was examined in 1854 and many skeletons discovered, 

 with specimens of pottery 5 with three skulls. The latter were forwarded 

 to the Smithsonian Institution at that time. This examination having 

 revealed the character of the mound, I determined to explore it thor- 

 oughly. The work was begun on the west side (the lowest) and the 

 whole examined by trenches from 4 to G feet deep. 



Ou the west side bodies were found covered with six feet of earth, 

 forming there about five separate layers. Tbe bones of the lowest layer 

 were so tender that they could not be removed, and deeper digging 

 was not made. It is therefore not known whether the lowest bodies 

 in this mound were reached. It would appear that the general plan of 

 burial was to scrape the surface free from all vegetable matter, and de- 

 posit the body on its back, with the head turned to the left side. The 

 bodies at the bottom of the heap, so far as could be ascertained by the 

 examination, were buried without weapons, tools, or burial urns, (pots.) 

 No traces of vegetable matter could be found in the fine siliceous earth 

 with which these deeply-buried bodies were covered. To the depth of 

 three feet from the surface, some of the bodies had with them burial 

 urns. They were found near the bodies of infants and young persons, and 

 it was with difficulty a single fragment of the bones could be pro- 

 cured by caving in the face of the digging. The bones of old and 

 adult persons were well preserved in the siliceous loam, but very imper- 

 fectly in clay. Three or four tiers of skeletons, of later burials, were 

 covered with clay. It is probable that as many as three hundred 

 • bodies, infant and adult, were buried in this mound. All the flints 

 and other works of art found entire were packed in the four barrels and 

 box No. 2 sent. The pressure of the roots of the trees growing upon 

 and around the mound had broken many of the burial urns. Sev- 

 eral of these, of unusual form, were sent without any attempt at 

 restoration. No bodies were buried exactly in or near the center of the 

 elevation, but they appear to have been arranged in a circle, head in- 

 ward for the first layer, and extended toward the margin by an addi- 

 tional circle or more of bodies. Adults and children were buried together, 

 the latter lying between the former. Toward the margin of this mound 

 on the east side, there was some irregularity in the burials. Three bodies 

 were found head outward, three or four lying nearly at right angles 



