BUSHNELL] NATIVE VILLAGES AND VILLAGE SITES 99 
“The ‘hut rings’ or small circular depressions surrounded by 
slight earthen rings . . . are scattered irregularly over the wooded 
portion of the inclosure, the number exceeding 100. They vary in 
diameter from 20 to 50 feet, and in depth from 1 to 3 feet and are 
often but a few feet apart.’ (Thomas, (1), pp. 155-159.) 
Another site described by the same writer stands in Brown County, 
Illinois, about 3 miles west of Perry Springs Station. Here (p. 119) 
“the dwelling sites vary considerably in size, some being as much as 
70 feet in diameter, and some of them 3 feet deep in the center after 
fifty years of cultivation.”’ These may have become greatly spread 
and otherwise modified as a result of the long-continued plowing of 
the surface. 
Undoubtedly some of the groups of circles just mentioned are the 
remains of clusters of structures which resembled those of the Man- 
dan, Pawnee, and other Upper Missouri Valley tribes. But it is also 
known that similar dwellings were erected in the Mississippi Valley, 
¢ 
and in 1682 Tonti mentioned the Taensa village, in the present Tensas 
Parish, Louisiana, where the houses were “‘plac’d in divers rows . . . 
being all made of Earth,” which evidently referred to structures of 
wattlework, a mass of earth over a frame of poles. These were nec- 
essarily smaller, although they must have resembled the winter 
houses and town houses of the Chickasaw and Cherokee. 
While the great majority of village and camp sites are now indi- 
cated by the occurrence of bits of broken pottery and objects of dif- 
ferent materials scattered over the surface, which has remained at 
practically the same level as before it was occupied, nevertheless in 
some parts of the South, usually near water courses, are elevations 
which have resulted from long-continued occupancy of a restricted 
area. Such sites may cover an acre or less, and are formed by the 
accumulation of shells, charcoal, and general camp refuse which 
gradually increased to a height of several feet. Such elevations are 
usually classed as mounds, but it will be readily understood that 
they were accidental and not the intentional work of man. 
CONCLUSION 
In reviewing the many references presented on the preceding 
pages, it is interesting to observe the characteristic features of the 
habitations and other structures erected by the native tribes who 
formerly occupied Eastern United States. It is quite remarkable 
that in the North, where the long winters were most severe, the 
dwellings were covered with barks or rush mats, which often fur- 
nished many openings through which the winds could enter. Very 
different were the winter houses of the Muskhogean tribes of the South, 
as well as those of the Cherokee. These great earth-covered struc- 
tures, the largest buildings erected by any of the eastern tribes, were 
