ARCHAEOLOGICAL DISCOVERIES. (AMEEIOA.) 



15 



made pottery, of an ornamental character, re- 

 sembling in type that of the Missouri graves, 

 bat of better finish ; stone implements, not in 

 large numbers, but including some very fine 

 and interesting chipped and polished speci- 

 mens; implements and ornaments made of 

 bone; terra-cotta and shell beads, and a clay 

 pipe with an ornamental bowl, and an elabo- 

 rately carved stone pipe, representing a man 

 holding a cooking-pot, which formed its bowl, 

 were found in the graves. At one point in the 

 cemetery, vestiges were found of the log-floor 

 of a building that had been destroyed by fire, 

 under circumstances indicating that it was of 

 the period of the stone graves. Similar mounds 

 have been opened under the direction of the 

 Bureau of Ethnology in Caldwell County, N. 0. 

 The " Nelson Mound," which is on the farm of 



it from the bottom of the hole, converging, 

 after a height of four feet was reached, so as 

 to be covered at the top by a single soapstone 

 rock of moderate size. On the top of the head 

 of the skeleton were found several plates of 

 silver mica, which had evidently been cut with 

 some rude implement. The closeness of the 

 dirt around the bones indicated that the flesh 

 had been removed before burial, and the vault 

 filled up with dirt as it was built up. Other 

 skeletons, the positions of which are marked 

 in the engraving, some in a sitting or squatting 

 position, some lying horizontally, some inclosed 

 with a wall, some uninclosed, were found in. 

 the mound. The faces of all the squatting 

 skeletons were turned away from the standing- 

 central one. At one point was found a quan- 

 tity of black paint in little lumps, which ap- 



THE NELSON MOUND, AFTER EXCAVATION. 



the Rev. T. F. Nelson, near the Yadkin river, 

 was almost a true circle in outline, thirty-eight 

 feet in diameter, but not at any point exceed- 

 ing eighteen inches in height. The builders of 

 the mound had first dug a circular pit, with 

 perpendicular margin and of the full diameter 

 of the mound, then deposited their dead, and 

 afterward covered them over, raising a slight 

 mound over the pit. The central figure in the 

 cut is a stone grave or vault standing exactly 

 in the center of the pit. A circular hole, a 

 little more than three feet in diameter, extend- 

 ing down three feet below the bottom of the 

 large pit, had been dug; in it the body or 

 skeleton had been placed perpendicularly upon 

 its feet, and the wall had been built up around 



peared to have been molded in the hull of a 

 nnt ; at another point a cubical mass of water- 

 worn bowlders, bat with no bones, specimens 

 of art, coal, ashes, or indications of fire on or 

 around it. But some of the stones of the 

 vaults and the earth immediately around them, 

 and some of the bones of the inclosed skele- 

 tons, were fire-marked. Mr. Putnam and his 

 co-laborers have recovered large quantities 

 of interesting relics from the mounds and ab-- 

 original works near Madisonville, and on the 

 Little Miami river, in Ohio. At Madisonville, 

 where are the remains of a large cemetery, fin- 

 ger-rings of copper were discovered, still on 

 the finger-bones. The Turner group of thirteen 

 mounds and two earth circles, inclosed by two 



