370 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 182 



sembles that of the Tollifero and Clarksville sites: At the earlier 

 site, approximately one-fourth of the skeletons were those of persons 

 under 21 years of age ; at the later site, 61 percent of the population 

 failed to reach adult life. Part of the later increase in juvenile 

 mortality may be attributable to the tripling of infant mortality; 

 but the remainder suggests a nearly doubled death rate during child- 

 hood and adolescence. 



At Hiwassee Island, Lewis and Kneberg attribute the doubling of 

 the juvenile death rate in their Dallas site to the introduction of 

 diseases with the coming of the Europeans, citing among other refer- 

 ences, Harlot's remarks in 1587 about the effects of English contact 

 on the natives of Virginia : 



There was no towne . . . but that within a few dayes after our departure 

 from every such Towne, the people began to die very fast, and many in short 

 space, in some Townes about twentie, in some fourtie, and in one sixe score, 

 which in trueth was very many in respect of their numbers. This happened in 

 no place that we could learne, but where we had bin, . . . (Hakluyt, 1907, p. 191 ; 

 cited by Lewis and Kneberg, 1946, p. 157). 



Although the introduction of European diseases goes far to explain 

 the marked increase in deaths among the juveniles and young adults, 

 both of the Dallas and Clarksville people, there is still the problem 

 of explaining the sex differential in the earlier populations. Unless 

 one accepts the milikely hypothesis that sexual differentiation was so 

 slight in these populations as to lead independently to such strikingly 

 similar errors in sexing, the sex distributions will have to stand as 

 given. Snow's (1942, p. 448) suggestions of more careful burial of 

 the males (and children) is inadequate, unless one is willing to assume 

 the existence of separate cemeteries for the females outside the limits 

 of the areas excavated, and that none of the archeologists concerned 

 found these burial grounds. 



The observed sex ratios in the earlier populations are obviously 

 biologically abnormal, suggesting that some factor has intervened to 

 alter them. The ratio of juveniles to adults is also suspiciously low. 

 It would appear that at the Tollifero site, only 24 percent of the 

 population died before 21 years of age. Comparable figures for rural 

 Whites dying in 1924-26 are 28 percent ; for rural Negroes, 32 percent ; 

 and for Mohave and Chemehuevi Indians, 49.2 percent (Clements, 

 1931, p. 401) . How closely, it may be asked, do the observed distribu- 

 tions of ages at death, and sex, correspond to the actual distributions ? 

 Has the same factor which has modified the sex ratios in these popu- 

 lations also modified the ratio of juveniles to adults? 



The Tollifero people, like other preagriculfural groups, probably 

 were hunters and gatherers. It is likely therefore that they were 

 seminomadic, spending only part of their time at the site where the 

 majority of their cultural and skeletal remains were found. If the 



