﻿NO. I 



SMITHSONIAN EXPLORATIONS, I925 



91 



they were finally buried in a promiscuous heap and a mound of 

 earth erected over them This custom was not confined to the 

 Choctaw alone but was quite widespread as is evidenced by the 

 presence of similar mounds or ossuaries in many localities of the 

 eastern United States and Canada. 



Following the excavation of the Crandall mounds, work was 

 begun on a much larger mound of a different type on the property 

 of Dr. B. J. and Mr. R. L. McRae. near the town of Increase. 

 Approximately one third of the mound was excavated by trenching, 

 and while no skeletal material and onlv a few artifacts were found, 



Fu;. 91. — Layer of human bones in small sand mound near Crandall, Clarke 



County, Mississippi. 



the peculiar stratification seemed to warrant as thorough an ex- 

 amination as was made (see fig. 92). This stratification consisted 

 of a series of brilliantly colored sand layers, yellow, brown, orange, 

 hlue-gray, and pure white, from which, at the center of the mound, 

 there suddenly arose a dome-shaped structure of compact yellow 

 clay. This clay dome and the succession of colored sand stiata 

 probably had a ceremonial significance, having been placed on the 

 floor of what had very likely been a temple, the site of which was 

 later covered over with a mound of earth, on the top of which, still 

 later, there probably stood a temple or council house. Colored sand 

 strata in much the same arrangment have also been found in the 

 effigy mounds of Wisconsin. 



