pip. ■jK' 2lT' JOHN H. KERR RESERVOIR BASIN — MILLER 211 



coated disk-shaped beads, the elk teeth showed very little of this 

 deposit and were untouched by decomposition. There were certain 

 black spots which had penetrated the surface of the enamel and were 

 sulliciently deep so that they could not be removed without injuring 

 the outer surface of the teeth. This alteration was queer, for no 

 other teeth encountered, whether animal or human, bore such spots. 

 To the writer's knowledge, this is the first and only instance of the 

 use of elk teeth by the Indians of Virginia either as pendants or beads. 

 Parker (1920, pi. 23, p. 95) illustrates a shell necklace from New York 

 State wliicli has a number of elk teeth as pendants. 



Burial No. 36. — The following objects constituted the grave goods 

 of a semiflexed adult male : Spaced above his head on the same plane 

 were three stone celts and a bone splinter awl. Abutting at a right 

 angle from the right ramus of his mandible w^as the butt end of a 

 steatite pipestem with the bowl portion away from the face. This 

 pipe (pi. 62), of a bluish- black color, is very highly polished. The 

 celts were carefully shaped but none were polished except for the 

 working edge along the blade. The skeleton, very poorly preserved, 

 was placed so that the head pointed to the south-southeast. Measur- 

 ing 41 inches at its longest diameter, the top of the grave was, as far 

 as we could determine, 70 inches below the surface. This depth does 

 not necessarily indicate its original beginning; as we pointed out 

 earlier, both the grave fill and the surrounding sandy soil blended so 

 perfectly that we could not distinguish between them. Possibly 

 the top of the grave came within a foot of the present surface when 

 it was dug. 



Burial No. 39. — Another much dressed-up female, age 25-30 (pi. 79, 

 l>)^ was buried extended in a grave which terminated 5.2 feet beneath 

 tlie surface. The maximum length of tlie grave measured 6.3 feet with 

 a width of 2.1 feet. Its point of origin was picked up shortly after the 

 present hmuus and plowed zone were removed. 



The skeleton was well preserved. Above the head at a distance of 

 0.3 feet lay a necklace composed of various bones from the wings of tur- 

 keys and the mandibles of small rodents which could be either cotton- 

 tails or squirrels. Upon her chest was an extremely large and heavy 

 saucer-shaped shell gorget made from Busy con contrarium, (Conrad). 

 It had no perforations whatsoever and its possible suspension has been 

 described elsewhere (see also fig. 44). Around both wrists were rows 

 of small shell beads and around her neck were two short necklaces 

 composed of sections of marine worm tubes with an imperforated 

 shell disk made from a section of Busy con carica (Gmelin). 



This burial resembles burial No. 3, mound 25, of the Hopewell 

 group, in which each had a large saucer-shaped shell gorget in addition 

 to numerous shells surrounding the forearms (Shetrone, 1926, p. 63). 



