496 PREHISTORIC VILLAGES IN TENNESSEE (ETH. ANN. 41 
Excavations showed the walls of these buildings to have been made 
of small upright posts or poles, from 2 to 6 inches in diameter, placed 
firmly in the ground. In this line of posts was interwoven a wattling 
of cane stems, with leaves still attached. In some of the houses the 
wattling was plastered over with clay and the surface smoothed with 
a trowel. The roofs of the circular houses were probably either con- 
ical or dome shaped. The roofs of the four-sided structures were 
probably round arched. 
Lack of funds permitted the examination of only the central mound 
and 6 of the 87 house circles. These six yielded so much information 
in regard to the life of these people that it is probable the thorough 
exploration of the entire site would procure a fairly correct view of 
their everyday life. It would also shed much light on their religious 
beliefs and sacred rites. 
Beyond question the causes of the selection of this site were the 
two large bold springs indicated on the map (pl. 95), the fertility of 
the soil, and the natural adaptability of the site to fortification. 
INDIAN REMAINS IN CENTRAL TENNESSEE BASIN 
This town was situated in the finest portion of the celebrated blue- 
grass region of the central Tennessee Basin. The soil owes its 
extreme fertility to the weathering of its phosphate-bearing rocks. 
The beauty of this region, which contains the remains of the ancient 
Indian towns at Gordon farm and Traveler’s Rest, is brought out in 
the photograph shown in Plate 96. The fertility and beauty of this 
important section of the basin has appealed to all the successive 
waves of peoples which have come within the borders of what is now 
Tennessee. It has always been the thickest settled and the richest 
as well as the dominant section of the State. 
Probably more important Indian remains are to be found within 
60 miles of the Gordon site than in any other portion of the southern 
United States. Within this area are located the following: The great 
mounds at the junction of Dog Creek and Harpeth River, and the for. 
tress at the junction of Harpeth and Cumberland Rivers in Cheatham 
County; the fortified Indian town at the junction of Duck and Piney | 
Rivers in Hickman County; the Fewkes group and the De Graffen- 
reid and Old Town ruins in Williamson County; the Greenwood 
group, the Cottage Home group, and the mummy burial cave in 
Wilson County; the fortified town at the junction of Dixons Creek 
and Cumberland River in Smith County; the fortified town at Casta- 
lian Springs and the Rutherford-Kiser mounds in Sumner County. 
There are over 200 other more or less important Indian sites within 
this area. 
