560 PREHISTORIC VILLAGES IN TENNESSEE [ETH. ANN. 41 
In the center of the building on this polished floor was found an 
altar which was similar to the altar shown in Plate 100. 
The walls of the building were made of cane stems, with the leaves 
still attached, which had been woven in and out between the upright 
posts supporting the roof and plastered with earth. Traces were 
found of the fine cane matting which had been hung as a decorative 
wall covering on the interior. In some way this building was 
destroyed by fire. Earth was thrown on the remains in time to 
smother its still glowing embers. This produced a large amount of 
powdery charcoal containing fragments of cane stems with the leaves 
attached. It also contained minute portions of the charred cane- 
matting wall covering. 
After this building was burned the mound was again raised 14 
feet or more in height. All traces of its last use had been destroyed 
by 85 years of cultivation. 
The low mound, No. 3, on the south side of the town square, was 
used for burial by these flexed-burial people. 
The tall oval mound, No. 1, on the north side of the town square, 
is 180 feet across the base and 25 feet in height. It is the most 
conspicuous mound in the group. Lack of funds prevented its exca- 
vation. 
House circle No. 6 was one of the group of buildings, Nos. 6, 10, 11, 
whose functions were closely interwoven. No. 6 contained in its 
center a fine altar or fire-bowl. 
There was evidence that this town had either been taken by an 
enemy who burned it, or the ancient inhabitants, forced to flee, had 
burned their homes to prevent their falling into the hands of the 
invader. 
House circle No. 17 (shown in pl. 136, b) was probably a typical 
dwelling. Its floor was of hard-packed clay. The fire-bowl was 
sunk in the center of the Moor, and not raised above the floor, as was 
customary at Gordon town and in several other middle Tennessee 
towns. At this fire bowl a puzzling burial was unearthed. A child, 
about 12 years of age, was buried by the side of the upright stone 
slab seen in Plate 136, b, with its head resting just within the edge of 
the fire bowl, whose rim had been cut away at this point to admit 
the top of the child’s head. The fire bow] was found still filled with 
ashes. These ashes covered the top of the child’s head, which 
showed not the faintest trace of the action of fire. 
The graves of two other children were also found in the floor of 
this house. The highest of the upright stone slabs of one of the 
coffins can be seen to the right of the feet of the woman. 
At both the Gordon and the Fewkes groups, every piece of bone 
and every fragment of pottery was carefully saved and location 
within certain limits noted. These thousands of fragments have 
