Some Considerations on the Mound Builders. 59 



developed, well rounded. The best authenticated of 

 all, the one discovered by Squire and Davis, and now 

 No. 1,512 in the collection of the Academy of Natural 

 Science of Philadelphia, is the largest and best formed. 

 It has an internal capacity of ninety cubic inches. 



The "frontal bones" of the Kennicott mound may 

 have another origin. The custom of flattening the 

 forehead was common to many Indian tribes. It was 

 the usage of the Choctaws one hundred years ago, and 

 fifty years earlier, Du Pratz says iJ: was the practice of 

 many tribes in the South. No. 1,455, ln tne Philadel- 

 phia collection, a skull artificially flattened, was taken 

 from an intrusive burial in a mound in Alabama, on 

 the shore of Perdido Bay. The mound is thirty feet 

 high. The skull was found near the summit, and a few 

 feet under the surface. 



So far as can be judged from the abstract of Dr. Foster's 

 paper, therefore, the deduction that the frontal bones 

 which he describes are remains of the Mound Builders 

 at all is hasty. The assumption that thev represent 

 the normal tvpe of the skull is wholly unwarranted, and 

 in conflict with established facts. If they really are re- 

 mains of the Mound Builders, the inference would be 

 that they were an abnormal formation, a deformity, or 

 else that some of the Mound Builders, like some of the 

 later Indians, adopted the usage of flattening the skull. 

 Indeed, in the recently published Antiquities of South- 

 ern Indians, by C. C. Jones, there is an account of a 

 skull found in Georgia which undoubtedly belonged to 

 the Mound Builders, which is artificially flattened.* 



*Artilicial compression was not the cause. Dr. Foster says, 

 in his very valuable work, the "Prehistoric Races of the United 



