70 JAMES AND POTOMAC ARCHEOLOGY [IrHNOLOGv 



mound, 15 feet in diameter and 3 feet high, is entirely of stone; this 

 covered a single grave in which nothing was found. The fourth mound 

 is also irregular in form ; ai)j)arently 2 mounds, each about 20 by 25 

 feet and 18 inches high, have been built end to end, in such a way that 

 a line connecting their centers would fall near one side at their junction. 



There is an earth mound at the mouth of Seneca creek, in fertile, 

 sandy bottom laud, from which many well-preserved human bones have 

 been taken. It is reported that they were buried extended under flat 

 stones. 



A small cairn stands at Riddle's store, 6 miles above Upper Tract, 

 and another at Jacob Hammer's, 3 miles above the latter. 



An earth mound, now de^stroyed, stood at McCoy's juills, 2i miles 

 above Franklin, at the mouth of Blackthorn creek. 



Various places liave been reported as the sites of Indian quarries or 

 workshops for the manufacture of arrowpoints and spearheads; also 

 caves which are said to show traces of human occupancy; they present 

 nothing not due to natural causes. As the rocks in this region belong 

 to the Devonian system, caves are frequent, thougli mostly small, and 

 horustone or chert is very abundant. The weathering of the limestone 

 has released the latter m blocks and nodules to such an extent that 

 in many places the surface is completely covered with their fragments. 



CONCLUSIONS. 



The data obtained by the investigations described in the foregoing- 

 pages, and the results of previous explorations so far as can be iudged 

 by the published accounts, justify the belief that the aboriginal remains 

 between tidewater and the Allegbanies, from Pennsylvania to south- 

 western Virginia, pertain to the tribes who lived or hunted within this 

 area at the beginning of tbe seventeenth century. If a more ancient 

 iwpulation existed, all traces of it have been obliterated or else bear 

 such a resemblance to those of a later period that difitereiitiation is at 

 present impossible. 



In the various cemeteries, so far as examined, there is nothing in the 

 methods of burial or the character of attendant works of art that may 

 not be more rationally explained by the known customs in vogue among 

 the Indians of this region than by any arbitrary division into conjec- 

 tural i^eriods of time or stages of culture. Tiie occurrence of objects 

 which could have been obtained only from white traders fixes approx- 

 imately the date of some burial places; others in which these evi- 

 dences are lacking show such resemblance to the first in construction, 

 and such similarity in specimens due to aboriginal handiwork, that any 

 attemi)ted separation of them that Involves the supposition of a differ- 

 ent age or dissimilar people appears to be without sufficient warrant. 



The same is equally true in regard to the mounds. Even if we omit 

 the statement of Jefferson that the one opened by him was visited by 

 a traveling band of Indians, their contents prove them to be ossuaries 

 formed by depositing at intervals, probably irregularly, the remains 



