248 BULLETIN 183, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



Since basion is missing so often in this collection, I have given the 

 porion-bregmatic height where these landmarks are preserved. It 

 has been possible to use the Schwartz stereograph to project porion 

 and bregma into the same plane for measurement. 



SKULLS 



MOUND SERIES (HOPEWELLIAN) 



Condition of specimens. — The 22 specimens of this series that are 

 of use in this study are listed in table 14. Here it will be seen that 

 the majority come from three mounds: Babcock B, Pearl C, and 

 Young 1. The skulls for the most part are incomplete, being repre- 

 sented often by merely the frontal bone or skull cap ; only eight are 

 relatively complete. Three that had been exposed to fire could be 

 restored sufficiently for stud}^, but many such fragments have been 

 discarded. Incidentally, no burned bones seem to have been recovered 

 from Babcock mound B. 



In half the specimens rodent tooth marks are quite evident at such 

 places as the orbital margins and zygomatic processes.^ Occasionally, 

 broken edges of the skulls show similar tooth marks. With the excep- 

 tion of one loAver jaw, the burned bones are free from this type of 

 destruction. Since, as a rule, rodent marks are seen only on bones 

 from caves and like open burial chambers, I have assumed that in the 

 present case these animals had access to the bones before the stone 

 vaults collapsed and not afterwards. If we assume furthermore that 

 the rodents were attracted to the bones only when the latter were 

 relatively fresh and contained organic matter, which seems reasonable, 

 then the gnawed broken edges may mean that some of the skulls were 

 broken at the time of burial. This in turn would be consistent with 

 the disarticulated state of the skeletons and the signs of burning. 



Pathology. — Three skulls exhibit major pathological changes, aside 

 from those associated with the teeth: (1) The skull known as "Ship- 

 pee C" is roughly scarred about the glabellar and nasal regions (see 

 pi. 45) ; (2) the upper jaw of skull 379100 shows a lesion of the palate 

 that has apparently reached the stage of perfection; (3) skull No. 

 379109 has three old depressed scars near the midfrontal region, other 

 similar scars, partly confluent, about each parietal bone, and a recent 

 periostitis on the right malar (see pi. 46). In view of findings on the 

 long bones to bti mentioned later, it is not impossible that in all cases 

 these lesions may be attributable to syphilis. 



- In the statement by Hrdlicka quoted on p. 246 he uses the expression "marks resembling 

 knife cuts." Again in an earlier publication (1907, pp. 90-91) he makes quite a point of 

 these "cuts made by some sharp implement wielded by human liands." I am unable to dis- 

 tinguish between marks made by a knife and by rodents' teeth and prefer to attribute all 

 of them to the latter source. 



