ANTIQUITIES IN TENNESSEE. 



CHAPTER I. 



BURIAL CAVES. 



By the first settlers of Tennessee, manv of the caves which abound in the lime- 

 stone formation were found to contain human bones in abundance, which had been 

 deposited by the race formerly inhabiting this country. The Avorking of these 

 caves for nitre during the revolutionary war, the Indian war, the last war with 

 Great Britain, and the recent civil war of 1861-1865, has resulted in the removal 

 and destruction of these human remains. I have visited several caves which are 

 known to have contained human bones in former times, without obtaining any of 

 these ancient relics. As far as my observations extended, the caves containing the 

 human remains were always located in the vicinity of fertile valleys and plains in 

 the neighl)orhood of some river or never-failing spring of water. Large mounds 

 were generally found in the same localities, and the condition of the former 

 inhabitants was evinced by the numerous fragments of pottery, arrow-heads, and 

 other stone implements. 



Numerous stone graves containing human remains are, at the present day, found 

 along the banks of the rivers and streams, in the fertile valleys, and around the 

 cool springs which abound in the limestone region of Tennessee and Kentucky. 

 These ancient repositories of the dead are frequently surrounded by extensive 

 earth-works, which inclose imposing monumental remains. 



Tn these remains we have proof that this country, in common with other por- 

 tions of the great valley of the Mississippi, was inhabited in ancient times by a 

 comparativdy dense population, which subsisted on the products of husbandry as 

 well as by the chase. 



It is important, in the first place, to examine the testimony of the earlier ex- 

 plorers and writers upon the deposits of human bones in caves. 



The early pioneers and hunters discovered everywhere in the more fertile regions 

 of Middle Tennessee marks of the ancient inhabitants, and they described the 

 caves which they visited at that time as " full of human bones." Haywood^ relates 

 that, in the spring of the year 1811, the remains of two human beings were found 

 in a copperas cave in Warren Coimty, in West Tennessee, about fifteen miles 



^ Natural and Aboriginal History of Teimessee, pp. 1G3-166. 



March, 1876. ( 1 ) 



