50 JAMES AND POTOMAC ARCHEOLOGY [ethnology 



At the begiimiug of the secoud zone, 20 feet from the center, on 

 tlie northern side, were 3 skulls almost in contact and lying on a few of 

 the longer bimes which were much decayed and broken. Two feet from 

 these were 2 others under the same conditions. For several feet on 

 each side and toward the center from these skulls every stroke of 

 the pick uncovered human bones, most of them soft as wet ashes. 

 Northeast of the center, mostly in this zone but partly in the outer 

 one, was a thin layer of pine bark charcoal with some small oak sticks 

 or limbs, apparently spread with some care over the surface of the 

 mound as it stood at this stage. Below it the earth showed no marks 

 of fire; but resting on and coextensive with it was a stratum of 

 burned earth having considerable variation in thickness. A similar 

 but smaller deposit was near the skulls above mentioned. 



Sixteen feet south of the center were the remains of a young buffalo, 

 consisting of a skull with the nubs of the horns, a portion of the lower 

 jaw, some cervic-al and dorsal vertebrae, the latter with the ribs still 

 attached, the pelvic bones, and a few caudal vertebme. No trace of 

 limbs or scapuhe were present, though all the bones found were in 

 their proper relative positions, the ribs extending into the earth above 

 as if the body of the carcass had been thrown on the ground and 

 covered with earth during the construction of the mound. On the sandy 

 subsoil a few inches west of these bones, and 8 or 10 inches lower, 

 was a folded human skeleton. The tet^th were much worn, the bones 

 slender but long, the femur measuring 18 inches. 



On the eastern side was a cart load of bowlders covering an extended 

 skeleton, with the head toward the north; near the hips were 5 small 

 triangular quartzite arrowheads with indented base, and a knife of 

 similar pattern of green flinty stone. The stones extended over the 

 northern end of a hole of very irregular outline a foot deep, G feet long, 

 and 2 to 3 feet wide, the bottom burned red to a depth of 2 to 3 inches, 

 and covered with an inch of pine charcoal, on which lay a lot of decayed 

 bones, certainly the remains of more than one body; with them, at the 

 southern end, were a triangular knife and 2 triangular arrowheads of 

 (piartzite. The hole had been filled to the general level with earth, a 

 space 1 by 2 feet covered with an inch layer of crenuited human bones 

 and other bones, showing no trace of fire, deposited on tliem. 



Toward the center, with only a few inches of earth intervening, was 

 a similar excavation, the northern end oi)posite the middle of the first, 

 which it duplicated in construction and contents, with the addition 

 of 4 large columellas. 



Just above and west of the stone pile began a bone bed extending 

 14 feet from north to south and reaching to within 10 feet of the 

 center. The dei>osit was irregular, the bottom varying a foot or more 

 from a horizontal plane, not holding the same level more than a few 

 inches at any part. In places the decayed b(uie formed a stratum 

 5 or 6 inches in thickness with scarcely any included earth; in others 



