22 



ARCHEOLOGY. (AMEBICAX.) 



cupancy, perhaps by the descendants of palaeo- 

 lithic man, have been found by Mr. Hilborn T. 

 Cresson, in traces of pile-structures in the allu- 

 vial deposits at Naaman's Creek, in Delaware. 

 At two of the structures, or " stations," only 

 argillite implements were found, many as rude 

 as some of the palaeolithic types, with a large 

 number of long, slender spear-points of that 

 material. In a third station, these forms are 

 mixed with implements of quartz, jasper, and 

 other silicious material, with traces of rude 

 pottery. All these discoveries, according to 

 Prof. Putnam, show that man had occupied a 

 portion of North America, from the Mississippi 

 river to the Atlantic Ocean, at a time when 

 the northern part of the United States was 

 covered with ice, and that at that early period 

 he must have been contemporaneous with the 

 mastodon and mammoth. " When we com- 

 pare the facts now known from the eastern 

 side of the continent," Prof. Putnam, con- 

 tinues, " with those of the western side, they 

 seem to force us to accept a far longer oc- 

 cupation by man of the western coast than 

 of the eastern ; for not only on the western 

 side of the continent have his remains been 

 found in zoological beds unquestionably earlier 

 than the gravels of the Mississippi, Ohio, and 

 Delaware valleys, but he had at that time 

 reached a degree of development equal to that 

 of the inhabitants of California at the time of 

 European contact, so far as the character of 

 the stone mortars, chipped and polished stone 

 implements, and shell-beads found in the aurif- 

 erous gravels can tell the story." 



The Construction of a Mound. A careful ex- 

 amination has been made by Mr. Gerard Fowke 

 of one of the mounds in Pike County, Ohio, 

 in order to ascertain the exact method of its 

 construction. The presence of holes showing 

 traces in the shape of the dark mold resulting 

 from the decay of wood of its having contained 

 posts, and arranged in a regular order, indi- 

 cated that the mound was built upon the site 

 of a house. A trench had been dug outside 

 of the house, possibly for drainage. Near the 

 middle of the house, which measured about 

 forty feet from side to side, there had been a 

 large fire, from which the ashes had been re- 

 moved to an ash-bed, which was elliptical, 

 and measured thirteen feet from east to west 

 and five feet from north to south. Near 

 the center of it was a hole a foot deep and 

 ten inches across, filled with clean white 

 ashes, in which was a little charcoal packed 

 very hard. At one end of the ash-bed, and 

 continuous with it, though not apparently a 

 part of it, was a mass of burned animal bones, 

 in equal pieces, ashes, and charcoal. After 

 the fire had burned down, a grave had been 

 dug at the middle of the house, ten feet long 

 from east to west, a little more than six 

 feet broad, and fourteen inches deep, having 

 straight sides slanting inward, with rounded 

 corners. Ashes had been thinly sprinkled on 

 the bottom and a single thickness of bark laid 



upon them, while the sides had been lined 

 with wood or bark from two to four inches 

 thick. Two bodies had been placed side by 

 side in the grave, both extended at full length 

 on their backs with their heads directly west. 

 The space within the grave on one side of the 

 skeletons had been covered with ashes that 

 had been removed from the fire, the thickness 

 of the deposit increasing from a mere streak at 

 the feet to six inches at the head, and extend- 

 ing across the grave nearly in contact with 

 the companion head. The earth removed from 

 the grave was thrown around on every side so 

 as to leave the bodies in a hole nearly two feet 

 deep. No trace appears of any protecting 

 material having been laid over the bodies. 

 They were covered with a black, sandy earth, 

 which had been packed so firmly that it re- 

 quired a pick to loosen it, reached beyond the 

 grave on every side, and was about five and a 

 half feet high. No remains were found in the 

 mound above the grave of the posts which had 

 probably once stood there. The author as- 

 sumes that the great fire near the middle of 

 the house had been made from the timbers 

 composing it ; that the upper timbers had been 

 torn down, and the posts cut off at the surface. 

 Fur the purpose of covering the grave, sand 

 was brought from a ridge a short distance 

 away. There was no stratification. Earth 

 had been piled up first around the black mass, 

 forming the grave-mound, and then different 

 parties had deposited their loads at conven- 

 ient places, until the mound assumed its final 

 conical arrangement. The lenticular masses 

 through almost the whole mound showed that 

 the earth had been carried in skins or small 

 baskets. The completed mound was thirteen 

 feet high and about one hundred feet in diame- 

 ter. Three other skeletons were found within 

 it, two on the original surface of the ground, 

 and one two feet and a half above it. The 

 bones were covered with a dull- red substance, 

 showing a waxy texture under the knife-blade, 

 from which it is supposed that the flesh was 

 removed before burial. No relics were found 

 with any of the skeletons. 



The Great Serpent Mound. With the aid of a 

 committee of ladies of Boston, who secured 

 subscriptions for the purpose of nearly $6,000, 

 Prof. Putnam, of the Peabody Museum of 

 Archaeology, purchased for that institution, in 

 June, 1887, sixty acres of ground, including the 

 " Great Serpent Mound," in Adams County, 

 Ohio, and it was converted into an inclosed 

 park. The mound was restored, so far as was 

 practicable, by replacing the earth and other 

 material that had been plowed or washed or 

 carried away. Trees foreign to the spot are 

 to be removed, and replaced with those that 

 are indigenous, so as to make the park an ar- 

 boretum of native trees. As described by 

 Prof. Putnam, in the American Association of 

 1888, the length of the serpent from tip to tip 

 is about 1,000 feet, and the length, including 

 convolutions, 1,415 feet. The builders appear to 



