£42 ANCIENT MONUMENTS. 



chief or distinguished individual, among the tribes of the builders. Some have 

 supposed them to be the cemeteries, in which were deposited the dead of a tribe 

 or a villao-e for a certain period, and that the size of the mound is an indication 

 of tlie number inhumed ; others, that they mark the sites of great battles, and 

 contain the bones of the slain. On all hands the opinion has been entertained, 

 that they were devoted to sepulture alone. This received opinion is not, however, 

 sustained by the investigations here recorded. The conclusion to which these 

 researches have led, is, that the mounds were constructed for several grand and 

 dissimilar purposes ; or rather, that they are of ditierent classes. The conditions 

 upon which the classification is founded are four in number, — namely : position, 

 form, structure, and contents. In this classification, we distinguish — 



1st. Altar Mounds, which occur either within, or in the immediate vicinity of 

 enclosures ; which are stratified, and contain altars of burned clay or stone ; and 

 which were places of sacrifice. 



2d. Mounds of Sepulture, which stand isolated or in groups more or less 

 remote from the enclosures ; which are not stratified ; which contain human remains ; 

 and which were the burial places and monuments of the dead. 



.3d. Temple Mounds, which occur most usually within, but sometimes without 

 the walls of enclosures ; which possess great regularity of form ; which contain 

 neither altars nor human remains ; and which were " High Places " for the perform- 

 ance of religious rites and ceremonies, the sites of structures, or in some way 

 connected with the superstitions of the builders. 



4th. Anomalous Mounds, including mounds of observation and such as were 

 applied to a double purpose, or of which the design and objects are not apparent. 

 This division includes all which do not clearly fall within the preceding three 

 classes. 



These classes are broadly marked in the aggregate, though in some instances 

 it is difficult to determine the character of the mounds which fall under notice. Of 

 one hundred mounds examined, sixty were altar or temple mounds ; twenty sepul- 

 chral ; and twenty either places of observation or anomalous in their character. 

 Such, however, is not the proportion in which they occur. From the fact that 

 the altar or sacrificial mounds are most interesting and productive in relics, the 

 largest number excavated was of that class. Excluding the temple mounds, which 

 are not numerous, the remaining mounds of the Scioto valley are distributed 

 between the three other varieties in very nearly equal proportions. 



These general observations will serve to introduce plans and sections with 

 accompanying descriptions of each of the above classes of mounds. The sections, 

 for obvious reasons, are not drawn upon a uniform scale, nor are the relative 

 proportions of the mounds always preserved ; tliis however will result in no misun- 

 derstanding in any essential particulars. 



