482 PROCEEDINGS OF UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 
Some caves were used as burial-places. The human remains, together 
with the objects accompanying them, ought to be carefully preserved, 
and every fact calculated to throw light on the mode of burial carefully 
noted.* 
Graves.—Various modes of interment were in use among the North 
American indigenes, and the graves are either isolated or grouped to- 
gether, forming cemeteries. The so-called st6ne-graves—rude cists con- 
structed of stone-slabs—usually occur as such. Other graves are mere 
pits, in which the dead were buried in a squatting posture, and there 
are ossuaries containing the bones of many individuals brought together 
for final burial. 
The explorer will do well to note every circumstance relating to the 
situation, form, dimensions, and direction of the grave or graves. Itis 
important to know whether the body was stretched out or doubled up, 
and in the former case it should be stated what point of the compass 
the head faced. It also has to be ascertained, it possible, whether the 
body (or bodies) or only the bones were buried. In some graves the 
latter are promiscuously mingled: If, as is often the case, manufact- 
ured objects—such as implements, ornaments, earthenware, &c.—were 
buried with the body, their position with regard to the latter ought to 
‘be ascertained before they are removed. The presence of manufactures 
derived from the whites (glass beads, objects of iron or brass, &e.) de- 
notes, of course, that the intérment took place after the colonization of 
the country. ; 
The explorer, it hardly need be said, should collect the human re- 
mains and all articles found with them. 
Mounds.—Many of the mounds scattered over a large portion of the 
United States are of a sepulchral character, and these differ much in 
form, size, and the disposition of theircontents. The shape and dimen- 
sions of the mound to be explored have to be ascertained by careful 
measurement, and, if it belongs to a group, its relation to neighboring 
mounds, embankments, &c., shown in a plan, which should be made as 
correct as circumstances permit. In such a case a regular survey alone 
will satisfy the requirements of absolute accuracy. The ordinary method 
of opening a mound consists in sinking a square shaft of suitable dimen- 
sions from the apex to the bottom, as the human remains and their ac- 
companiments are usually found in the centre on a level with the origi- 
nal surface of the soil, and sometimes even below it. They constitute 
the primary burial, which caused the erection of the mound; but many 
mounds, more especially large ones, served for later or secondary burials, 
the body usually being deposited a short distance below the apex or in the 
*There have lately been discovered in New Mexico artificial caves or chambers 
scooped out in rows in mountain-sides. They served as dwellings. Details will soon 
be published by the Bureau of Ethnology. 
