38 ANTIQUITIES IN TENNESSEE. 



slabs, within which were discovered the bones of an infant. Pieces of pottery 

 were found with the bones in the stone coffins, but no entire vase or vessel, or 

 stone implement, or idol, was discovered in this mound. Although great care 

 was exercised, it was found to be impossible to extract the crania entire, owing to 

 the soft, decayed state of the bone. An examination of the crania in situ, after 

 the removal of the surrounding soil, showed that they were all more or less com- 

 pressed in the occipital region into a pyramidal form, having a long transverse or 

 parietal diameter. The jaw bones were massive, with widely diverging rami, and 

 the nasal bones were large and prominent. 



The aborigines of Tennessee scooped out the floor of the tent or wigwam, so as 

 to leave a circular depression with elevated borders. Within the line of the earth- 

 works the circular depressions of the ancient habitations or wigwams were very 

 distinct and easily recognized. Certain low mounds, not more than from two to 

 four feet in height, with depressions in the upper surface, as in the case of the 

 extensive remains on the Big Harpeth, at Osborn's and Mound Bottom, appear to 

 have once formed the floors of large circular wigwams. These hollowed sites are 

 found most generally in regular rows within the line of fortification ; I have, how- 

 ever, in some localities, seen them in great numbers on the banks of the water- 

 courses at considerable distances from the main works, and, in such cases, they 

 occupied favorable positions for a fair and extended prospect or out-look of the 

 lowlands up and down the stream. In many localities the sites of these ancient 

 towns have been cultivated for a number of years, and the marks of the habitations 

 have been, to a great extent, obliterated by the plow-share. 



The Mandans appear to have formed their wigwams in a similar manner, and to 

 have left traces of their encampments. Catlin, who descended the Missouri River 

 from the Mandan Village to St. Louis, a distance of 1800 miles, from the reputed 

 remains of the ancient localities of this tribe, was fully convinced that he had 

 traced them down nearly to the mouth of the Ohio River. From similar appear- 

 ances, which this author observed in the interior of Ohio, he conceived that this 

 tribe had formerly occupied that part of the country, and from some cause or other 

 were put in motion, and continued to make repeated moves until they arrived at 

 the place of their residence at the time of their extinction on the Upper Missouri. 

 Catlin gives a chart of the positions of these ancient towns, and also of the numer- 

 ous fortifications which are now remaining on the Ohio and Muskingum Rivers, 

 in the vicinity of which he believed the Mandans once lived, and refers these 

 works to this tribe of Indians. He expresses his belief that they derived their 

 knowledge of the art of fortification from the Welsh under Prince Madoc or 

 Madawc, who sailed with a colony from North Wales in the early part of the 

 fourteenth century, and is supposed to have settled and mingled with the 

 aborigines somewhere in the Mississippi Valley. According to this original 

 observer of the Indian tribes of North America, the existence of the Mandun villages 

 is known by the excavations of two feet or more in depth, thirty or forty feet in 

 diameter, and of a circular form, made in the ground for the foundations of their 

 wigwams, which leave decided remains for centuries. 



The Mandans always fortified their towns by a strong picket or stockade, and 



