50 



ANTIQUITIES IN TENNESSEE. 



the supposition that some of the stone graves had been made by the aborigines 

 not more than three and a half centuries ago. 



In all my researcli I found no implement of European manufacture within 

 and around the mounds. The only metal discovered was copper, in the form of a 

 thin plate, much corroded, and the thin coatings of the wooden disks, which we 

 have described at length. No implements of iron or of any other metal were 

 obtained. 



It is worthy of note that whatever may have been the offices to which this 

 mound had been applied, it was completed by its builders. Thus, even the ashes 

 upon tlie "altar" had been carefully covered over with fragments of the pottery; 

 and the altar as well as the graves was carefully covered with earth. 



Whilst standing in the midst of these ancient "stone coffin" graveyards I have 

 often been impressed with the belief that some f\ital disease or wide-spread pesti- 

 lence may have had much to do with the extinction of this once populous nation, 

 and the filling of these extensive burying-grounds. 



Across the Cumberland River, below the mouth of Lick Branch, on the same 

 side as the city of Nashville, another mound once stood which has since been 

 levelled in the formation of streets and in building North Nashville. 



I am informed by some of the old citizens that stone graves occupied the base 

 and flanks of the mound, and that various relics, such as vases, and spear- and arrow- 

 heads, were exhumed, and I obtained a large flint instrument shaped like a chisel, 

 which was said to have been taken from a stone grave within the mound. The 

 edges were liighly polished as if it had been used in various mechanical operations. 

 This implement is represented in Fig. 16, reduced to about one-fourth the natural 

 size; its length being 9| inches and its breadth 2 inches. 



Fig. 16. 



FiS- 17. 



Fig. 18. 



Fig. 16. Stone implement from a stone grave in a nionnd in Nashville, Tennessee, one-fourth the natural size. 

 Fig. 17. Disk composed of crushed shells and clay, one-h.alf the natural size, from a stone grave, Nashville. 

 Fig. 18. Knobbed surface of the clay disk. 



The singular disk composed of clay and crushed shells, represented in Fig. 17, 

 with a handle divided into three parts, was said to have closed the mouth of a 

 large clay jug or vase exhumed from the centre of the summit of the mound 

 around which were ranged stone coffins. 



The reverse surface of this and other similar disks was knobbed, as in Fig. 18. 



A large disk of this character, composed of clay and crushed shells, which I 

 found near the mounds on the banks of the Cumberland, opposite Nashville, was 

 furnished with a large handle which could be readily grasped with the hand. 

 The surface was much worn, as if the implement had been used for crushing corn. 



