ARCHAEOLOGY. (AMERICAN.) 



23 



have leveled a ledge of rock before construct- 

 ing the embankment. Frequent tires seem to 

 have burned during the construction; and in 

 one place so many people had been gathered 

 that the clay was beaten like a floor. The spot 

 has since become covered by a foot of soil. In 

 nter of the elliptical mound that formed 

 the reptile's head was once a pile of stones 

 that had been brought up from the creek; they 

 had been blackened by long-continued fires. 

 No sign was observed that the serpentine em- 

 bankment was ever used for burial purposes. 

 but an oval mound was found near by in which 

 nine skeletons were discovered one of them 

 so near the surface that a plow had broken 

 down the stones that formed the coffin and 

 carried away a part of the pelvis. Seven feet 

 below the surface, and lying transversely under 

 the first skeleton, was another resting on a 

 stone floor, over which huge stories had been 

 so piled that the bones were crushed almost to 

 dust. Underneath the stone floor was a stra- 

 tum several feet thick of black ashes, evidently 

 of burned corn, in which lay a skeleton over 

 six feet in length and of massive proportions. 



Origin of the Ohio Mounds. The evidence ob- 

 tained through the explorations of the United 

 States Bureau of Ethnology are regarded by 

 Dr. Cyrus Thomas as indicating that the typ- 

 ical ancient works in Ohio the circles and 

 squares, and other works of that type, to- 

 gether with the mounds pertaining to them, 

 or appearing to be built by the same people 

 were constructed by the ancestors of the Chero- 

 kees. Another class of structures walls, in- 

 closures. and defensive works in the northern 

 part of the State, and also in eastern Michigan 

 are attributed to some branch of the Iro- 

 quois or Htiron-Iroquois stock ; the box-shaped 

 stone graves, to the Delawares and Shawnees. 

 Certain stone mounds and mounds containing 

 stone vaults or graves of a peculiar type, in- 

 dicating "a savage life, and fierce warfare 

 with beasts of prey," are difficult to account 

 for, and are probably the work of a tribe that 

 has become extinct. The effigy-mounds, of 

 which only a few are known in Ohio, but 

 which are compared with similar works in 

 Wisconsin and with the bird-effigies of Geor- 

 gia, also " present a problem difficult to solve." 

 Fortifications of the type of which Fort An- 

 cient is an example are attributed to the Chero- 

 kees; while the work named presents some 

 indications of the influence of the white man. 

 '' Omitting the last from the list," says Dr. 

 Thomas, " there remains clear and satisfactory 

 evidence that the ancient works of the State 

 are due to at least six different tribes." 



The Rev. S. D. Peet finds in some peculiar 

 features of the earth-works of the Scioto val- 

 ley, evidences of the existence of a clan-system 

 among the builders. Among these features is the 

 formation in circles and squares of areas varying 

 from twenty-seven to fifty acres. Such works 

 are generally regarded as village-sites, and are 

 accompanied by fortifications and signal- 



mounds on the neighboring hills, with covered 

 or walU-d ways to the river- bank. In some 

 there are graded roads through the ter- 

 to the iuc: - :it Newark. Piketon. 



and Marietta. The villages are situated at in- 

 tervals, showing that the people dwelt in dif- 

 ferent centers, and there are very few works 

 between these centers. 



inst the supposition that the mound- 

 builders of these villages were the Cherokees. 

 Dr. Peet argues that these works are entirely 

 different from those found in Tennessee, south- 

 ern Kentucky, and northern Georgia, the habi- 

 tat of the Cherokees in historic times ; and the 

 relics found in the Cherokee country differ 

 from those in the Ohio mounds. The works 

 in the Cherokee country are large rectangular 

 inclosures without circles, while many of the 

 pipes called duck - pipes are found there. 

 There are very few pipes with curved stems, 

 and none of the variety of sculptured animal 

 figures seen on the Ohio pipes; and no effigies 

 of any kind, which are common in Ohio, and 

 more common in Wisconsin, are to be seen in 

 Tenne- 



Pi-eviration of indent Monuments. The com- 

 mittee of the American Association for the 

 Advancement of Science for the preservation 

 of archaeological remains on public lands re- 

 ported to the Buffalo meeting of the Associa- 

 tion that it would be well if the following 

 remains of early America could be preserved : 

 Chaco Cafion, from the forks of Escavoda 

 Cafion, for a distance of eight miles up, also 

 one mile back from the brink of the canon 

 walls on each side ; Canon de Chelly, Cafion 

 del Muerto, Walnut Cafion. the ruin on Fossil 

 creek on the east branch of the Rio Verde and 

 about fifteen miles south of Camp Verde mili- 

 tary reservation ; the ruin in Mancos Cafion, 

 the round towers situated on the flat valleys 

 of the lower Mancos; the cavate lodges in the 

 cinder-cone about eight miles east of Flag- 

 staff, Arizona Territory. Besides these groups 

 of ruins and dwellings, there are isolated re- 

 mains in the territories of New Mexico. Arizo- 

 na, and Utah, numbering over forty, which de- 

 mand preservation. The Pueblos, which are 

 not in treaty reservations or grants, and the 

 old Mandan and Arickaree village on the Fort 

 Berthold Indian reservation, Dakota Territory, 

 to be preserved when they shall cease to be in- 

 habited by Indians. 



The committee has caused a bill to be intro- 

 duced in Congress providing for a reservation 

 in New Mexico for the purpose of archaeolog- 

 ical study. 



Peruvian. A Peruvian object, of a unique 

 character and hitherto nndescribed, in the 

 Ethnographical Museum of the Trocadero, in 

 Paris, has been brought to notice by Dr Ver- 

 neau in "La Nature." It is a hollowed cylin- 

 der, of a substance resembling bronze, bearing 

 various ornaments upon its circumference and 

 its upper rim. and measuring sixty millimetres 

 in length and twenty-five millimetres in interior 



