498 PREHISTORIC VILLAGES IN TENNESSEE [ETH. ANN. 41 
THE TOWN SQUARE 
The nearly rectangular town square, near the center of the town, 
had been made level by cutting down the small slope on the southern 
side. This square was 130 feet from north to south and between 
200 and 250 feet from east to west. Cultivation in the garden pre- 
vented determining its exact eastern limit. It was probably sur- 
rounded on all four sides by buildings or open sheds. The cultivated 
garden likewise made it impossible to determine this point with cer- 
tainty. 
In this town square much of the everyday social and religious life 
of the people centered. It was a convenient place for meeting and 
gossip and play or work. Here visitors of note were received; such 
open air sacred ceremonies as were public were performed; persons 
were tortured; many dances, both sacred and social, were held. 
Many of the open-air games of chance or dexterity were played on 
this square, including the chunkey game, with its polished stone 
biconcave disks, its smooth and level surface making it admirably 
adapted to the purpose. 
The Creek Indians had town squares very similar to that of the 
Gordon site. In the center of the Creek Indian square, during the 
celebration of the busk, was a fire fed by four logs, one log lying 
toward the east, one toward the south, one toward the north, and 
one toward the west. It is possible that the Indians of the Gordon 
site may have had a similar fire during certain rites in the center of 
this town square. 
COOKING AND GRINDING 
On several Indian town sites on the Cumberland Plateau in middle 
Tennessee were found large, moderately flat rocks, some of them 
fully 20 feet in width by as much in length, in which many mortar 
holes had been cut. On these rocks, near the mortar holes, were 
several much-used fireplaces. A fine example of these clustered 
mortar holes and fireplaces was discovered by the author at Win- 
ningham Rock on a cliff overlooking Obey River, near the junction 
with Eagle Creek, in Pickett County, Tenn. Here the women of the 
town gathered to grind and cook, to gossip, and play their games. 
The women at the Gordon site appear to have done their grinding 
and cooking in their own homes, as excavations brought to light a 
metate in each of several dwellings. 
BURIALS 
The ancient inhabitants of Gordon town site apparently buried all 
their dead within the walls of the town. With few exceptions the 
1See diagram of square in Gatschet’s ‘‘Migration Legend of the Creek Indians,’’ vol. 0, p. 186, repro- 
duced and described in Fig. 126 and its accompanying text in this volume. 
