114 



SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. jS 



into plazas. All these plazas yielded traces of earth lodges and other 

 evidences of former buildings. On the edges of the terraces were the 

 earth lodges of the common people. See map, figure io8. The larger 

 mounds had probably supported important public buildings and the 

 lodges of leading personages. 



All the buildings unearthed appeared to have been destroyed by fire. 

 A line of wall-post holes and fragments of the charred poles used for 

 wall posts in the large building, A, can be seen in figure 112. 



Under the fallen-in walls of this building the charred remains of 

 woven cane-matting wall hangings were found and carefully pre- 

 served. The woven design could still be discerned. 



Fig. 112. — Wall post holes and fragments of charred wall posts of building 

 A, Great Mound Group. 



There is some evidence that this group of important buildings 

 aroimd five separate plazas and in different parts of the town very 

 probably indicates that the population was made up of what had once 

 been four or five separate groups of kindred peoples. These groups 

 had probably formerly been autonomous. Here in their later home 

 each group had gathered around their own public square in their own 

 section of the town and thus preserved at least some of their old 

 ceremonials and held together in some fashion their old organizations. 



It is impossible to determine even approximately the number of 

 inhabitants, but the large number of the buildings and the long extent 

 of the walls to be manned required a population of several thousand. 



