﻿96 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. ']J 



and Etowah, near Cartersville, Georgia. This dominating mound is 

 here designated the Acropolis. 



Dr. Fewkes made trial pits in various other mounds of the Weeden 

 cluster and among other elevations found a low mound of sand in 

 which grew a few trees and scanty plants but showed no considerable 

 number of shells. It gave promise of a much greater reward and to 

 it the main work was devoted through the winter and early spring 

 of 1923-24. It was found to be a burial mound concealing numerous 

 human skulls, much pottery, and other objects of various kinds. The 

 most striking specimens were secondary burials of human bones, of 

 which 440 bunches were found. 



These remains followed the almost universal aboriginal burial 

 customs among people of the Gulf States. After death the bodies were 

 allowed to decay and the flesh removed from the skeleton by " bone 

 pickers " after which the large bones and crania, done up in bundles, 

 were in due time placed in heaps and covered with earth, forming 

 a mound over a dune of coral sand. 



According to contemporary writers, one custom of the ancients in 

 preparing the " bundles " for burial after flesh had been removed 

 was to paint the skulls w^ith vermilion. Dr. Fewkes verified this 

 custom at Weeden Mound, for he found the paint, now in some 

 instances dry dust, and readily removed from the bones with a brush. 

 The skeletal material was in a very fragile condition and fell to 

 pieces almost at the least touch. 



It was noticed that a cross section of the mound exposed by a 

 trench through it, revealed a stratification composed of two marked 

 layers of finest sand through which are darker narrow seams of 

 black or dark brown color. The difference between these layers is 

 mainly indicated not by the color but by the contained pottery. The 

 upper layer is capped by a thin superficial covering of sand which 

 represents the modern deposit. Below it is the thick upper stratum 

 in which were found specimens of decorated pottery, either in frag- 

 ments or whole pieces, the latter in one or two instances cached. Two 

 views of a fine bowl are shown in figure 108. a and h. The whole 

 pieces are invariably artificially pierced by an irregular opening in 

 the bottom by which the bowl or jar was " killed," evidently to allow 

 the escape of the breath body or life of the bowl. In a lower layer, 

 the pottery is coarse, undecorated, and scattered. It contained also 

 a few implements and utensils made of shell. It would appear that 

 the lower layer was used as the burial place of the archaic Floridian 



