Hojme and Bass] SKELETAL REMAINS 383 



did not occur during excavation is seen in the grave goods that 

 accompanied this individual. In Miller's description of this burial 

 (p. 211), he notes the presence of a saucer-shaped Busy con gorget, 

 Avristbands of shell beads, two necklaces of shell beads, and shell 

 disks. The most reasonable interpretation of this pattern of damage 

 is that it occurred when the flesh was stripped from a relatively fresh 

 cadaver, and that the remains, still articulated by ligaments, were 

 subsequently buried. The skm may or may not have been replaced, 

 but it appears that the shell ornaments were put back in their cus- 

 tomary positions on the arms and neck. 



The burial treatment of the body, as inferred from the Clarksville 

 skeletons, may be outlined as follows: The skin may have been re- 

 moved. Then the corpses were eviscerated, probably by cutting 

 through the chest and abdominal wall, and the thoracic and pelvic 

 cavities then cleaned, probably by picking at bits of adherent flesh 

 with knife points. Evidence for this is seen in the sagittal cuts on the 

 sternum, and the scratches and gouges found occasionally on the inner 

 surface of the rib cage and pelvic canal. To remove the flesh from 

 the limbs and trunk, there seems to have been a variable amount of 

 hacking, which cut through the flesh to the bone; gouging, which 

 occasionally penetrated to the marrow cavity ; stripping, in which the 

 removal of the flesh and periosteum appears to have pulled off the 

 surface of the bone also ; and scraping or cutting off chunks of flesh, 

 taking off anj^ underlying bone in the way of the scraper. The skull 

 and face, and the outer and inner margins of the mandible show 

 these marks. The hands and feet were stripped, leaving marks on 

 the dorsal, ventral, medial and lateral surfaces of the bones. Most of 

 the finger bones remain, but the smaller of the toe bones appear to 

 have been lost when the skin of the foot was removed. The ankles, 

 and especially the heels, seem to have received special treatment: 

 Many of the calcanei have been cut nearly in half longitudinally, and 

 holes 2 or 3 centimeters in diameter have been bored through them. 

 Occasionally the adjacent tarsal bones show similar holes. 



Both adults and children seem to have received tlie full treatment, 

 but small infants show less damage. Even so, their long bones are 

 usually marked. Wliether this was because of their lesser importance 

 in the community, or whether their smaller size made the treatment 

 more difficult, or less necessary, can only be guessed. The severity of 

 the marking suggests that the cadavers were relatively fresh when 

 this work was done, for while advanced decay would probably have 

 made the flesh easier to remove, it might have made it more difficult 

 to separate the skin. The remaining skeletons, still held together by 

 ligaments, were then buried, usually semiflexed or extended, in indi- 

 vidual pits. Whether the skeleton had any sort of covering is hard 



568192— G2 26 



