﻿206 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 78 



Considering the evidence thus obtained by reconnoissance and exca- 

 vation in the Louisiana Gulf Coast region, several points of interest 

 develop. First, there is here found the most southern and western 

 extension thus far recorded of the wide-spread and highly developed 

 mound culture of the Mississippi Valley and Gulf States. The im- 

 mediate cultural affiliations of this southern Louisiana mound area is 

 seen to be toward the east, forming a direct connection along the Gulf 

 Coast with Florida. The strongest evidence for this deduction is found 

 in the pottery, certain types of which are practically identical from 

 Florida to western Louisiana ; these consist of the " checker-board " 

 design, produced by the application of a stamp, and of enlarged rims 

 bearing characteristic incised and punctate decoration. The exact 

 identification of the builders of these Louisiana mounds and shell 

 heaps will, of course, be difficult. The western part of the Louisiana 

 coast, including Pecan Island, was inhabited in historic times by the 

 Attacapa, a cannabalistic tribe of low culture. They could hardly have 

 been the people responsible for either of the two Pecan Island cul- 

 tures. However, they may have left behind some of the shell heaps 

 here described, although the shell heaps cannot as a class be separated 

 culturally from the earthen mounds. Further to the east were the 

 Chitimacha, much more advanced than the Attacapa, and if the 

 descendants of the prehistoric mound-building tribes of southern 

 Louisiana are to be sought nearby, the Chitimacha might well fit into 

 the role. The undoubted cultural connection with the coastal regions 

 of Mississippi, Alabama and Florida, however, suggest the strong 

 possibility that there may have been a direct tribal movement in one 

 direction or the other. 



The Louisiana work was completed about the middle of June, when 

 Mr. Collins proceeded to Marion County in southern Mississippi and 

 located seven ancient Indian village sites. From there he went to 

 eastern Alississippi and succeeded in locating the sites of two old 

 Choctaw villages, which were described by French and English ex- 

 plorers as early as 1729, but the present locations of which were 

 unknown. These villages were Chickachae in Clarke County and 

 Okatalaya in Newton County. The potsherds from these village sites 

 were of the same type as those found on other historic Choctaw 

 sites in 1925. This is a ceramic type which is restricted to compara- 

 tively recent Choctaw sites and which is quite different from the 

 earlier mound pottery 



On July I Mr. Collins proceeded to Philadelphia, Miss., to con- 

 tinue the anthropometric studies of the living Choctaw begun in the 



