410 ARCHEOLOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS—II [PTH, ANN. 44 
shaped object,” containing “something which rattled when you 
shook it, like a baby’s rattle”; probably a sleigh bell or hawk beil. 
All of these finds were made at or near the surface. 
Both these mounds are of two periods of construction. The upper 
half of each is yellowish, sandy soil like that in the level field near 
by; the lower half is reddish material containing more clay, like the 
upland soil. Woodward dug only a small hole on the side of his 
mound, near the top. He says the two strata were separated by “a 
layer of soft black stuff.” Both parties state that the lower half was 
“mixed earth like that above, only of a different kind.” This may 
mean that the mounds were originally only about 4 feet high and as 
much was afterwards added to them; the “soft black stuff” being 
charred or decayed remains of vegetation that had sprung up on top 
of the part first constructed and either burned before the second 
deposit was piled on it or covered by it and allowed to decay. 
North of Pineville, which lies on the opposite side of the river from 
Alexandria, house mounds may be seen for a distance of 2 miles on 
both sides of the road leading to Camp Beauregard. They are in 
uncleared land, so the number can not be estimated; but there are 
certainly several hundred of them. 
Vicinity or MarksvILLE 
This region is so far to the eastward that, although it is in the Red 
River drainage area, the low lands are inundated when the Missis- 
sippi is at flood stage. 
There is a small group of house mounds 3 or 4 miles from Echo, on 
the Marksville road; and another near Belledeau, on the road to 
Echo. Only a few can now be seen; but it is said that many in each 
group have been destroyed by cultivation. These are the only mounds 
of this class to be found here, and they seem to mark the eastern 
limit of such remains. 
Four miles northeast of Marksville, on land belonging to a Negro 
church, is a mound fully 20 feet high from the most elevated point 
at its base, but much higher from other directions as it is built on a 
narrow point between two ravines. One slope runs down to a bayou 
in which there is water all the year. It is on cemetery ground, 
although no one is buried on it except the first white owner, and it 
has never been defaced. A short distance from it is a conical burial 
mound now reduced by cultivation to a height of 2 feet. 
On Saline Point, 13 miles east of north from Marksville, near Red 
River, are two mounds, one on Louis Clavrie’s land, the other a mile 
east of it. Both were excavated by Moore. 
On N. A. Couvillion’s land, 9 miles north of Marksville, outside of 
the levee, and less than a fourth of a mile from the present bank of 
