378 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 182 



ever saw one paralytic amongest them. The gout, I cannot be certain whether 

 they know what it is, or not. Indeed, I never saw any nodes or swellings which 

 attend the gout in Europe ; yet they have a sort of rheumatism or burning of the 

 limbs, which tortures them grievously, at which time their legs are so hot, that 

 they employ the young people continually to pour water down them. . . . 

 [Swanton, 1946, p. 7S9.] 



It is tempting to equate this "rheumatism" with the swollen, bowed 

 tibiae described above, but the necessary evidence is lacking. Indeed, 

 the necessary evidence is lacking for identifying any of the pathologi- 

 cal changes seen in the bones, with the exception of obvious fractures. 

 At present, all that the anthropologist can do is to describe as accu- 

 rately as possible the abnormalities he sees in the skeletons he is work- 

 ing with, adding whatever cultural data seems pertinent, bearing in 

 mind that in other skeletal populations apparently similar abnormali- 

 ties may be due to other causes. Eventually, with sufficiently detailed 

 descriptions, comparisons with clinical reports may make differential 

 diagnosis possible. 



EVIDENCE IN THE SKELETAL REMAINS FOR 

 CULTURAL PRACTICES 



CRANIAL DEFORMITY 



Although a few of the Tollifero and Clarksville crania show slight 

 lambdoid deformity, the absence of severer deformity deserves atten- 

 tion. As Stewart (1940) notes, earlier cranial series in the southeast 

 are usually undeformed, although there is evidence for deformity 

 in the central and northeastern Hopewellian and Adena peoples. The 

 spread of deformity into this area is rather late, but by the time 

 horizon represented by the Peachtree site (Stewart, 1941) and the 

 Moundville site it is rather common. The few instances of slight 

 deformity seen in the series described here, it should be noted, resem- 

 bled in type those shown by Stewart. Only one of the Clarksville 

 skulls suggests more severe deformity. The evidence of this one skull, 

 however, is not too clear, for the specimen consisted only of a partial 

 face with an usually vertical frontal bone ; the remainder of the skull 

 was warped and too fragmentary for restoration. If deformity was 

 present, it was neither frequent nor severe. 



SCALPING 



Three of the Clarksville crania show long, shallow grooves on the 

 frontal and parietal bones suggesting that the scalp had been removed 

 about the time of death. Two of these crania were those of men 

 (USNM 380850 and 380865), the other that of a young woman 

 (USNM 380856). These cuts, shown in plates 102, lower, and 103, 

 cross the frontal bones, roughly midway between the hairline and the 



