532 



NATURE 



\Oct. 12, 1876 



dations which place large tracts of the surrounding 

 country under water ; indeed it is said that a depression 

 of ten feet would cover the whole of this part of Florida 

 by the sea. 



It is not until the river begins to narrow its channel 

 near Palatka that the shell mounds which form the sub- 

 ject of this memoir begin to appear, and they then con- 

 tinue at intervals along the banks of the river as far 

 south as Salt Lake. They always are, or have been at 

 one time, on the river bank, although the latter has in 

 some places removed from them, and in others encroached 

 so as to totally destroy or cut deeply into their sides, and 

 as is frequently found to be the case with prehistoric 

 fishing habitations elsewhere, the junction of the river 

 with the lagoons was often selected as a place of resi- 

 dence. Most of the mounds are in the form of ridges 

 parallel to the shore, fifteen, twenty, or twenty-five feet in 

 height, flat-topped, and some of them covering several 

 acres of ground ; others are circular ; and others again 

 form shell- fields having their materials more evenly dis- 

 tributed, and not more than two to three feet in 

 thickness. 



They are composed almost entirely of fresh-water 

 shells of three species, viz., Ampullaria depressa, Say ; 

 Paliidtna multiliiieata, Say ; and Unio btickleyi, Lea. 

 Of these the paludina forms by far the largest portion of 

 every mound, and with a few unios the whole of some, 

 but deposits of either of the above species are occasion- 

 ally found alone instead of being promiscuously mixed 





with the others, showing that probably at certain times 

 they had been used exclusively for food. All three species 

 are now found inhabiting the rivers and creeks, and more 

 particularly the lagoons, the bottoms of which are some- 

 times covered with them, and yet they are not now 

 found in such abundance as to suffice for the creation of 

 such large mounds, from which it must be inferred either 

 that the construction of the mounds must have been 

 spread over a long period of time, or what is equally pro- 

 bable from the known habits of shell-fish, that they must 

 have existed in greater abundance formerly. It was also 

 noticed that the ampullarice z.nd^ paludince in some of the 

 shell mounds were much larger than their living repre- 

 sentatives. These observations remind us of similar 

 changes which have been noticed as having place m the 

 size and distribution of the sheU-fish found in the kitchen 

 middens of Denmark. 



The mounds consist solely of refuse heaps of food, and 

 were not thrown up for any other purpose, which is proved 

 by finding hearth-stones with charcoal, and the remains 

 of the bones of animals used for food at different levels 

 throughout the mass. The animal remains consist of the 

 following species, viz. : — bear, raccoon, hare, deer, otter, 

 opossum, turkey, alligator, hard and soft-shelled turtle, 

 box-turtle, gopher, catfish, gar-pike, whiting, and other 

 birds and fish not determinal. No trace of domesticated 

 animals has been discovered, nor does the dog anywhere 



appear in the shell mounds, and there is no evidence that 

 agriculture had been introduced. A few bones of mas- 

 todon, horse, ox, and other animals now extinct in this 

 region have been found, but their condition has led the 

 author to think it certain that they do not belong to the 

 age of the mounds, and may perhaps have been scooped 

 up from the bottoms of the creeks with the shells taken 

 for food. Fragments of human bones found scattered 

 here and there in the mounds, and broken up in the 

 same manner as the bones of edible animals, lead to the 

 inference that the constructors of the shell-heaps were 

 cannibals, which is rendered all the more probable by 

 the known prevalence of this Custom throughout the two 

 continents of America. 



Only one skull of the builders has been found ; this 

 differs from the skulls of the burial-mounds in being 

 longer, with the ridges and processes more pronounced, 

 bat does not afford sufficient data for forming any opinion 

 as to the physical peculiarities of the race. Platycnemism 

 has been found to exist in several of the bones here, 

 as well as in skeletons from Kentucky, Labrador, Michigan, 

 and California, but the author's researches on this point 

 lead him to think that this peculiarity cannot be con- 

 sidered as forming a race-character amongst the Indians, 

 as it exists also amongst the white race, several sections 

 of the tibias of whom, by the side of those of Indians, 

 are given in the work. 



Amongst the relics of human industry discovered in the 

 mounds, stone implements are rare and generally of rude 

 form, consisting of chips, flakes, stone hammers, and a 

 few implements resembling the drift types of Europe, 

 which last may, however, have been unfinished specimens. 

 Arrow-heads of four or five different forms are described, 

 viz. (i), triangular with a straight base, (2) triangular with 

 a notched base, (3) with a stem or tang, and (4) triangu- 

 lar with notched sides ; also a few rude leaf-shaped imple- 

 ments, which may have been used for this purpose. 

 Unfortunately, illustrations of these are not given, but it 

 may be observed that the triangular arrow-head with side 

 notches is a form which is almost exclusively confined to 

 America, being common throughout the United States 

 and in Patagonia. The bone tools consist chiefly of awls, 

 the ulna of the deer being a favourite bone for this pur- 

 pose ; fragments of stag's horn are also found cut round 

 the outside and broken off, and also with longitudinal 

 incisions for the purpose of detaching long pieces suitable 

 for making pins. 



The sheiltoolsaremadeexclusively of marine species, viz., 

 the Strombus gi^as, and two species of Busycon, found 

 abundantly on the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, and known 

 to have been used in prehistoric trade as far north as the 

 great lakes. They appear to have been held in the hand, 

 and are spoken of by Le Moyne and Cabeza de Vaca as 

 implements employed by the Indians for cutting wood. 



Pottery is found only in the later mounds in small frag- 

 ments and is composed of clay mixed with a vegetable fibre; 

 the vessels were all hand-made, and appear to have been 

 formed in irregular curves and of uneven thickness, gene- 

 rally flaring at the mouth, and sometimes ornamented 

 with incised lines. One fragment, of which an illustration 

 is given, appears to deserve more attention than is 

 given to it in the memoir. It is ornamented with a 

 loop- coil clearly but rudely traced, forming a fragment 

 perhaps of the class of ornament known in architecture 

 as the Vitruvian scroll. The distribution of the use of 

 this ornament occupies, so far as we have been able to 

 trace it, a continuous geographical area. It is common in 

 Peru, Mexico, Colorado, Arizona, and amongst some of 

 the tribes of the northern part of South America, and 

 its occurrence here is of interest, as affording perhaps 

 the most reliable evidence of connection with the arts ot 

 the races to the south and westward. 



Like the kitchen middens of Denmark, these shell- 

 heaps were, for many years after their discovery, con- 



