40 



ANTIQUITIES IN TENNESSEE. 



in the manner indicated, and several parts of the skeleton were wanting, thus 

 showing that the skeleton, or rather its component parts, had been deposited in 

 this grave after the flesh had been separated from tlie bones. 



The occipito-frontal arch of this cranium is quite perfect, but its general outline, 

 when viewed from the base or the vertex, is irregular. The occiput is but slightly 

 flattened, and is divided into two distinct portions by a well-marked suture running 

 directly across from the inferior angles of the parietal bones. Below this suture 

 the occiput presents a well-marked protuberance, which is. as far as my observation 

 extends, uniformly absent from the crania of the stone graves. In addition to the 

 division of the occiput into two distinct portions, we observe five other intercalated 

 bones; three upon the left border, and two upon the right border of the occipital 

 bone. This skull had evidently been subjected to little or no compression during 

 its early growth in infancy and childhood, and pressure was evidently not the cause 

 of these divisions of the occiput. Both the facial angle and the internal capacity 

 are below the maximum of the crania of the stone grave race of Tennessee ; the 

 frontal and parietal diameters are less, and the occipito-frontal arch is greater 

 than the average measurements. Thus: facial angle, 78°; internal capacity, 79 

 cubic inches; longitudinal diameter, 7 inches; parietal diameter, 5.2 inches; 

 frontal diameter, 3.9 inches; vertical diameter, 5.8 inches; intermastoid arch, 14.7 

 inches; intermastoid line, 4.6 inches; occipito-frontal arch, 15.2 inches; horizontal 

 periphery, 19.5 inches; diameter of face and head, 7,4 inches; zygomatic diameter, 

 5 inches. 



Frequently an earthen vessel, composed of a mixture of shells and clay, was laid 

 under or by the side of the head, or about the middle of the stone cist opposite 

 the pelvic bones. In a large long grave of a young man, whose jaw-bones contained 

 the wisdom teeth still encased, a small dark vase with two small holes in the rim, 

 and with two animals resembling a beaver and a fish raised on the side, was exhumed. 

 This small vase or cup was probably worn suspended from the neck, and had been 

 apparently placed in the hand of the skeleton, the crumbling bones of the fingers 

 surrounding it. The measurements are: 4 inches in the long diameter, and 3.2 

 inches in the short diameter. Figs. 1 and 2 present a general outline of the top 

 and side of this specimen. 



Fig. 1. 



Pig. 2. 



Fig. 1, front view : Fig. 2, side Tiew, of a sm.nll v.Tse composed of cl.ay and crushed shells, from a stone coffin at 

 Colonel Overton's, near Nashville, Tennessee. About one-fourth the natural size. 



