38 JAMES AND POTOMAC ARCHEOLOGY [Ithnolooy 



form, 30 feet in diameter, which was tilled from tlie top to fully 2 feet 

 below the level of the original surface with skeletons and bone-beds in 

 the utmost confusion. There was scarcely a cubic foot of earth in which 

 human remains of some description were not discovered. Sometimes a 

 single skeleton, perhaps that of a very young infant, would be found, 

 the few bones remaining being in their proper position, with many 

 beads around or among them; again the long bones of several adults 

 would l)e laid closely together, like sticks tied in a bundle. Occasion- 

 ally 5 or skulls would be in contact, with not a lower jaw near <'nough 

 to have been deposited with any of them; or an entire skull would 

 be in a niass of bones many of Avhich belonged to some other skele- 

 ton. Cremated human bones were found in little deposits by them- 

 selves, or under the bundled skeletons of one or more individuals, or in 

 the middle of a strjitum of bones a foot thick showing no evidence of 

 incineration. 



When the southeastern trench reached the bone deposits it had a width 

 or face of 18 feet. At the western side of this, a foot above the bottom 

 of the mound, were the bones of an infant with a large number of 

 {MarjjineUa) shell beads. Six feet from the latter, at tlie same level, was 

 a skull on which lay the frontal bone of anotlier. These weie at the 

 edge of a bone pile a little less than 3 feet across, containing 10 skulls, 

 some of them burned to cinders. Among them was a black steatite 

 pij)e, and above thein, with an interveinng layer of earth from S to 10 

 inches thick, was a thin and very uneven stratum of charcoal. 



Just at the middle of the face was a hole G inches deep; in the 

 bottom lay a skeleton, doubled, with :i lot of Mavfiindla shells among 

 the bones of the head and neck. Above this was a bone bed 3 

 feet thick containing 14 skulls; in it were a drill an<l a kliife of black 

 flint and o bone needles. Two feet nearer the center were piled about 

 a peck of small fragments of bones, some of which were calcined. 



Four feet farther from the eastern side of the face, a foot from the top, 

 began a mass of bones which reached in an unbroken layer for 10 feet 

 north and south, with fully half that width at the middle, and in some 

 places more than a foot thick; among them were a rough slate gorget, 

 a perforater of deer bone, and G triangular arrowheads. They were 

 packed so closely together that the earth could not settle between them. 

 Under them lay the bones of a very small chihl in their ])ro]>er position 

 with the head toward the northeast; many il/^rf>7//»r//r< shells were scat 

 teredfrom its head to its knees. Within a few inches, and parallel, 

 were the remains of another infant, also in position ; with it also were 

 a number of Marghuila shells and 12 rather long columellas. A little 

 farther toward the center was the skeleton of a third infant, near which 

 were found half a pint of Marat i> ell a shells, as well as 38 columellas of 

 various lengths. 



Under these, its outer margin 18 feet from the center, was a burial 

 pit a foot in depth, 10 feet long, and from 3 to 3i feet wide, the longer 



