388 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 182 



for a while, and that the semiflexed burials had been cleaned and 

 buried while fresh. As will be noted later, most of the Tollifero 

 bundle burials were found with other skeletons. There is no indica- 

 tion, from the grave goods or from other evidence, as to why these 

 persons should have received the treatment they did. 



The evidence at the Clarksville site leads to somewhat different 

 conclusions. Apparently the cleaning of bones was by this time the 

 regular procedure, since virtually all of the burials showed markings. 

 It would appear that the skeletons had been buried shortly after the 

 bones had been cleaned, and that, therefore, there had been no attempt 

 to keep the remains for any length of time. One can only speculate 

 as to whether this was the remnant of a former custom, the practical 

 purpose of which had been forgotten ; or whether changed conditions 

 at the site rendered the survivors unwilling, or unable, to do more 

 than prepare the bodies in the customary manner and bury them. 



OANNIBALISM(?) 



One possible reason for removing the flesh from the bones is 

 cannibalism. There is both positive and negative evidence for this 

 practice in the bones from these two sites. 



In three of the Tollifero burials, the bones were found broken and 

 piled in a heap. The bones of one of these individuals, an adult male, 

 were discarded in the laboratory, so that reexamination is not possible. 

 The other two individuals were a child about 12 (USNM 380890) and 

 an infant less than a year old (USNM 380896). In the foimer, the 

 pattern of damage to the bones (pi. 105) suggests deliberate breakage 

 to remove the marrow. The skull, too, was broken before burial, as 

 indicated by the knife marks on the inside of the skull (pi. 104), 

 probably to remove the brain. These seem to have been the only in- 

 dividuals treated in this fashion, for the remaining secondary burials 

 were bundle burials interred with recently deceased persons. Some 

 of the other burials, of course, bear knif emarks on the bones, but such 

 evidence is far less conclusive than the evidence from the broken 

 bones. 



At the Clarksville site, a number of the bones show small holes, 

 about a centimeter in diameter, which had been bored through the 

 cortex (pi. 106), possibly to allow one to suck out the liquid marrow. 

 Here again this is the only direct evidence in the matter. 



That the flesh was removed from the bones seems quite clear. 

 Cannibalism, however, does not seem an adequate explanation for 

 most of the cases. The motives for cannibalism are generally either 

 ritual or to obtain food in severe famine. Ritual cannibalism, how- 

 ever, is quite selective: Only certain individuals are accorded this 

 dubious honor, only certain parts of the body are consumed, and 



