Il6 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 76 



the surrounding region in the valley of the Cumherland in middle 

 Tennessee. 



Several of the potsherds found in this mound were decorated with 

 fabric impressions which throw new light on the clothing of some of 

 the southern mound-builder women and reveal important differences 

 between some of the customs of the builders of the Denny mound 

 and those of ancient man in the adjoining states. 



The burial customs, pottery fragments, pipes, implements of bone 

 and antler, copper ornaments, and other artifacts brought to light in 

 this excavation were of great interest as they furnished intertwin- 

 ing clues which led to tracing out a cultural relationship between manv 

 widely scattered important ancient sites occupied by prehistoric man 

 in the upper valleys of the Tennessee River in eastern Tennessee, 

 northwestern North Carolina, the Shenandoah Valley, the upper val- 

 leys of the Potomac, the valleys of the New and the Kanawha, the 

 central and lower Scioto valley, a site in the suburbs of Cincinnati, 

 certain sites in the southern peninsula of Michigan, and in southern 

 Wisconsin and elsewhere in our central northern states. 



Probably the most interesting contrilmtions to knowledge brought 

 to light by the exploration of the Denny mound were the clues which 

 led to determining what modern Indians are the descendants of the 

 ancient mound-builders who erected this old Tennessee mound. A 

 study of the material cultures aided by the scanty written records and 

 traditions regarding the localities where cultures have been found 

 somewhat similar to that of the Denny mound brings out the fact that 

 the little outlying settlement of ancient people who lived at the Denny 

 mound belonged to a culture group w'hose remains are found at vari- 

 ous points in eastern Tennessee, northwestern North Carolina, south- 

 western Virginia, Shenandoah Valley, the upper Potomac valleys, 

 the valley of the Kanawha, southern and central Ohio, southern Wis- 

 consin, the southern peninsula of Michigan, and possibly in other 

 sections. This culture group appears to have belonged to the Algon- 

 quian stock. The many interlocking evidences render it probable that 

 the Denny mound and some of the other culturally related sites here 

 mentioned were at some time occupied by the Shawnees or people 

 closely akin to them. 



REMAINS IN LINCOLN AND MOORE COUNTIES, TENNESSEE 



]\Ir. Alyer also visited Lincoln and Moore Counties, in the southern 

 part of Tennessee, where he studied several ancient sites and surveyed 

 and mapped a large and hitherto undescribed mound group on Elk 



