AMERICAN ARCHEOLOGY. 109 



years. Skeletons in the centers of mounds have 

 probably been there from one to two thousand years. 



It is highly probable that a skeleton taken from 

 the depths of a tumulus has been that of a chief or 

 noted personage, for a people could not afford such a 

 laborious burial for a common individual. Ordinary 

 persons of the mound building class were buried in 

 graveyards, some of which are occasionally stumbled 

 upon while excavating building sites, canals, and rail- 

 roads. In some instances the bones are in a good state 

 of preservation. They are generally recognized by 

 their position, which exhibits, horizontal burial, and 

 not the sitting posture conimon to Indians. 



The features of the mound builder's skeleton are 

 not very distinctive. The height of adults was 'mod- 

 erate, though occasionally the bones of a giant are 

 discovered. The skulls are flattened in the occipital 

 region as if compressed in infancy ; and their walls are 

 thick or otherwise savage or semi-civilized. The brain 

 capacity of the skulls is below the average among 

 civilized peoples. The forehead is rather low and re- 

 treating, consequently the intellectual powers of the 

 race must have been medium or below that of ordi- 

 nary men. Evidence of great mental development is 

 nowhere met. The teeth of the Mound Builders 

 show that the possessors lived in part, at least, upon 

 the fruits of agriculture, for they are not worn down 

 in adult life, as are those of savages who are univers- 

 ally given to the chewing of roots, the grit on which 

 grinds away the faces of the teeth. 



In some parts of the country the mound building 

 race buried their dead in graves walled up and covered 

 with stone. In these the skeletons are apt to be toler- 

 ably well preserved, together with the pottery and 



