﻿200 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. yS 



basketry, matting, objects of stone, wood, bone, horn, shell, human 

 and dog hair, and hammered nuggets of native copper. No pottery 

 was made by the ancient occupants of the upper Columbia valley, nor 

 were utensils or bowls of wood discovered. This seems strange when it 

 is noted that other objects shaped from driftwood occur in the graves 

 intact ; also many ornamental objects formed from jade, dentalium, 

 haliotis, soft slate, and lead inlay, all of which must have been brought 

 from the Pacific coast. British Columbia, or Alaska. It would appear 

 from this that the burials at Wahluke are of a date ]:)receding that of 

 the wood-working tribes of the lower Columbia. 



ARCHEOLOGICAL WORK IN LOUISIANA AND MISSISSIPPI 



Mr. Henry B. Collins, Jr., assistant curator of ethnology, U. S. 

 National Museum, was engaged from the middle of April to the latter 

 part of June in archeological field-work in Mississippi and Louisiana 

 for the Bureau of American Ethnology. The greater part of this 

 period was given to investigations along the Louisiana Gulf Coast, 

 a region which was practically unknown from an archeological stand- 

 point. This section of Louisiana is but slightly above sea level and 

 consists for the most part of great stretches of marsh, habitable only 

 along the narrow ridges of comparatively high land that border the 

 many lakes and bayous. It is not a region which might be expected 

 to have supported either a large or a very highly developed aboriginal 

 population, and yet unmistakable evidence was found that in pre- 

 Columbian times Indians had lived here in considerable numbers, 

 and that some of them possessed a culture closely allied or identical in 

 general to that found throughout the widespread mound area to the 

 east and north. 



The investigations were begun at Pointe a la Hache, on the Mis- 

 sissippi River about 40 miles below New Orleans. About five miles 

 southwest of Pointe a la Hache was found an important group of 

 mounds, nine in numl)er, the largest of which was between 40 and 50 

 feet high, over a hundred feet in diameter, conical in shape, and 

 with a flat top. The other mounds were lower but were of considerable 

 basal diameter and were all covered with an almost impenetrable 

 growth of palmettos, vines, briars, and other vegetation. These 

 mounds had been built on a ridge of land at the very edge of the 

 marsh and their location was known to only a few fishermen and 

 trappers. 



From Pointe a la Hache, Mr. Collins proceeded to Houma, in Terre- 

 bonne Parish, and examined a number of mounds and shell heaps. 



