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An Indiana Shf.t.t. Mound 



By W. S. Blatchley. 



Some six or seven years ago while loolviug up the road materials of 

 Martin County, Indiana, I noted on the northwest quarter of section 30 

 (ii N. — 4 W.) of an old county map which I had in hand the words "shell 

 mound." I asked my comi>anion, a resident of the town of Slioals, if there 

 was a mound at the place so marked. He did not know but proposed that 

 we drive out and ascertain. As our afternoon's work took us near the 

 place, on returning we drove in a gateway and along a i)rivate road which 

 followed the bank of White River for half a mile or more. While so doing 

 we met the owner of the land, one Thomas Ghormley of Shoals, who re- 

 turned with us and led us to the site of the so-called mound. It was on 

 the crest of a sandstone bluff on the south side of White River and one 

 hundred and twenty feet above the water. Here, on a level tract of sev- 

 eral acres, the surface nearest the brink of the bluff was a few feet higher 

 than that back of it and through the soil was here and there protruding 

 a broken shell of a Unio or fresh water mussel. One or two small open- 

 ings had been made by some superficial investigator which showed the 

 shells to be closely massed a foot or so below the surface. Having no tools 

 for digging I at that time made no farther observations, but resolved to 

 return for a thorough investigation. 



The next summer, accompanied by James Epperson, State Mine In- 

 spector, I spent two days at the place and found it to be, an extensive 

 kitchen-midden or refuse heap of some ancient race. They probably had 

 their village site on the level tract to the south or back of the shell heap 

 and had dumped the shells, after the animals had been extracted, on the 

 edge of the bluff. The area co^ered by the shells and other remains was 

 found to be one hundred and seventy-feet in length from east to west by 

 sixty-five feet in width from north to south, the edge nearest the bluff 

 being curved or in a half circle. Over most of that area the shells were 

 from three and a half to four and a half feet in thickness and covered 

 with one to one and a half feet of sod and soil, through which in many 

 places the shell fragments had worked to the surface. At several points 



