212 



PREHISTORIC FISHING. 



presents the form of a fish, in which ichthyologists have recognized the sun-fish 

 (Pomotis), an inhabitant of the Mississippi River. Its distinctive features are 

 said to be rendered with sufficient faithfulness to permit identification. The 

 neck of this interesting piece of pottery, which consists of grayish clay with a 

 slight admixture of pounded shells, measures a little more than an inch in 

 height; its lower part is rounded like that of a bowl, and terminates in a flat 

 base on which the vessel can stand. The height from the bottom to the rim of 

 the neck is exactly four inches. The other clay vessels of this form on exhibition 

 in the National Museum likewise seem to be intended to represent the sun-fish ; 

 but they are less expressive in character than the object here figured. 



FIG. 356. Clay vessel made in imitation of the sun-fish. Arkansas. (7293). 



earth was needed, to procure which Mr. Pillow commenced removing the material from what turned out to have 

 been the site of an ancient cemetery of great extent. Hundreds of human skeletons of all ages and both sexes 

 were exhumed, and generally some article of pottery was found near each skeleton. The bodies had been buried 

 in a sitting posture, and were found from three to ten feet below the surface, the bones being in all cases in a 

 perfect state of preservation. Trees from three to five feet in diameter were growing near the human remains, 

 and, as indicative of the antiquity of the burial-place, one of the trees particularly noted and described by Mr. 

 Pillow was a sassafras-tree, which, having attained the diameter of five feet, had passed from maturity into natu- 

 ral and gradul decay, until withered and wasted away : only its roots were then sound. 



" There had been no previous knowledge or record of this ancient cemetery ; but a legend of the early set- 

 tlers had located at or near this spot the camp in which De Soto wintered in ascending the Mississippi. It is the 

 highest elevation of land for many miles along the river. 



" Mr. Pillow secured at least fifty perfect specimens of pottery, of which I procured several which are now in 

 the Smithsonian Institution. Some of the finest of the vessels I could not obtain. One of them, in the shape of 

 a quadruped, and of a capacity of several quarts, was of great interest to me, because I had seen a similar vessel 

 taken from a grave in Egypt." 



