BDSHNBLL] NATIVE CEMETERIES AND FORMS OF BURIAL 125 



brae of the neck and spine, without their processes, and one instance 

 only of the bone which serves as a base for the vertebral column. 

 The sculls were so tender, that they generally fell to pieces on being 

 touched. The other bones were stronger. There were some teeth 

 which were judged to be smaller than those of an adult; a scull, 

 which, on a slight view, appeared to be that of an infant, but it fell 

 to pieces on being taken out, so as to prevent satisfactory examina- 

 tion; a rib, and a fragment of the under- jaw of a person about half 

 grown; another rib of an infant; and part of the jaw of a child, 

 which had not yet cut its teeth. This last furnishing the most de- 

 cisive proof of the burial of children here, I was particular in my 

 attention to it. It was part of the right half of the under jaw. The 

 processes, by which it was articulated to the temporal bones, was 

 entire ; and the bone itself firm to where it had been broken off, which, 

 as nearly as I could judge, was about the place of the eye-tooth. Its 

 upper edge, wherein would have been the sockets of the teeth, was 

 perfectly smooth. Measuring it with that of an adult, by placing 

 their hinder processes together, its broken end extended to the penul- 

 timate grinder of the adult. This bone was white, all the others of 

 a sand colour. The bones of infants being soft, they probably decay 

 sooner, which might be the cause so few were found here. I pro- 

 ceeded then to make a perpendicular cut through the body of the 

 barrow, that I might examine its internal structure. This passed 

 about three feet from its center, was opened to the former surface 

 of the earth, and was wide enough for a man to walk through and 

 examine its sides. At the bottom, that is, on the level of the circum- 

 jacent plain, I found bones ; above these a few stones, brought from 

 a cliff a quarter of a mile off, and from the river one-eighth of a 

 mile off; then a large interval of earth, then a stratum of bones, 

 and so on. At one end of the section were four strata of bones 

 plainly distinguishable; at the other, three; the strata in one part 

 not ranging with those in another. The bones nearest the sur- 

 face were least decayed. No holes were discovered in any of them, 

 as if made with bullets, arrows, or other weapons. I conjectured 

 that in this barrow might have been a thousand skeletons. . . . 

 Appearances certainly indicate that it has derived both origin and 

 growth from the accustomary collection of bones, and deposition 

 of them together ; that the first collection had been deposited on the 

 common surface of the earth, a few stones put over it, and then a 

 coA'ering of earth, that the second had been laid on this, had covered 

 more or less of it in proportion to the number of bones, and was then 

 also covered with earth; and so on." (Jefferson, (1), pp. 103-106.) 

 From the statement by Jefferson it is evident the mound 

 had been greatly reduced by the plow at the time of his ex- 

 amination, and the reduction of several feet in height, as indicated. 



