36 ANTIQUITIES IN TENNESSEE. 



CHAPTEE III. 



MOUNDS, FORTIFICATIONS, AND EARTHWORKS. 



Numerous mounds of various dimensions are found on the banks of the Cumber- 

 land, Big Tennessee, Little Tennessee, French Broad, Hiawassee, Elk, Harpeth, 

 Duck, and Stone Rivers, and on the streams Avhich empty into the Mississippi, 

 running from the dividing ridge between that river and the Tennessee. 



As a general rule, these mounds have been erected upon rich alluvial bottoms, 

 and are either surrounded by extensive earthworks or are located in the neighbor- 

 hood of the fortifications which mark the sites of ancient towns. 



The mounds vary in number and dimensions with the extent and richness of the 

 valleys and the size of the earthworks. The smallest are not more than a few 

 feet in height, and about thirty feet in diameter; whilst the largest attain a height 

 of seventy feet, and cover from one to two acres of ground. 



Many of the smaller mounds were used for the burial of the dead, others for 

 purposes of religious sacrifice and for the burning of the dead, whilst the largest 

 pyramidal mounds were most probably the sites of the temples and council-houses 

 of the aborigines. 



Extensive fortifications several miles in extent, inclosing two systems of mounds, 

 and numerous stone graves, lie along the Big Harpeth River about sixteen miles 

 below Old Town, at Mound Bottom, and on Osborn's Place. Within these extraor- 

 dinary aboriginal works, which inclose the sites of two ancient cities, are found 

 three pyramidal mounds about fifty feet in elevation, and each one exposing about 

 one acre on its summit; and, besides these, are numerous lesser mounds. 



Such structures must have required the labor of a considerable population for a 

 series of years ; and the erection of these earth pyramids must have been slow and 

 tedious, as the aborigines were without beasts of burden, and the immense masses 

 of earth must have been carried by hand in baskets and skins. 



The old road or trail which connected tliese ancient aboriginal towns can still 

 be recognized in tlie forest, the well-worn and compact path being in some places 

 a foot or more lower than the general surface of the surrounding soil. 



Similar fortifications and mounds are found higher up on the same river, at Old 

 Town, near Franklin; and it is evident, from these facts, that a chain of fortified 

 towns extended in former times all along the Valley of the Big Harpeth. From 

 careful excavations, examinations, and measurements, together with comparison of 

 the crania, I am convinced that the mounds and fortifications of the Big Harpeth, 

 Cumberland, and other rivers of Tennessee, were erected by the same extinct 

 aboriginal race. 



