iiioMAs.] THE TENNESSEE DISTRICT. 581 



ceutral and highi'st part of the moiiud three or four rauges. The oUl- 

 est and lowest graves were of the small square variety similar to the 

 well known type found near Sparta, thought at first to be pigmy graves, 

 and like them containing detached bones or bundled skeletons, while 

 those on or near the summit were of the natural length and width of 

 the inclosed skeleton. The lids of the upper stone cists were so placed 

 as to form a uniformly rounded sloping rock surface. In one of the 

 graves of this mound was an inner compartment containing the bones 

 of a child. 



A uiound inside the inclosure near Lebanon, in Wilson couuty, Ten- 

 nessee, presented a different mode of construction, the graves being- 

 arranged about the oiiter portion of the mound in' the form of a hollow 

 square in two or three irregular rows and in three tiers. In this mound, 

 as in the one near Nashville before mentioned, one body was found 

 buried witlumt a cofliu. Pottery, I'elics of copper and stone, and pieces 

 of mica^were found in these graves. 



Another method of .arranging the stone cottins was by placing them 

 with the heads to the center, the feet extending toward the circumfer- 

 ence of the mound like the radii of a circle. Stone graves disposed in 

 this manner have been found in a mound in Davidson county, Tennes- 

 see, on the bank of the Cumberland river, opposite Nashville. It^tlie 

 center of the mound, the point from which the sarcophagi radiated, 

 was a large vase or basin-shaped vessel compo.sed of clay and pulver- 

 ized river shells. It still retained the impression of the basket or cloth 

 in which it was molded. The rim was a true circle and was covered 

 an inch thick with ashes from some incinerated matter. There were 

 two rows of stone coflins ranged around this central basin, the circle 

 of graves being constructed with great care and all the bodies orna- 

 mented with beads of bone and shell. 



\ mound iu Williamson county, Teunessee, on the West Hai-peth 

 river, and another in Sumner county presented the same arrangement 

 of stone graves like the spokes of a wheel. 



A number of mounds discovered in TJuiou couuty, Kentucky, show 

 a renuxrkable blending of different modes of sei)ulture which is worthy 

 of notice. For instance, in one mound of the Lost creek group, oppo- 

 site Wabash island, some of the earlier burials were without stone cof- 

 fins and unaccompanied by relics of any kind, while others were cov- 

 ered by stone slabs set up " roof shaped " over the bodies. In the later 

 burials the bodies wera arranged in the form of a wheel, with the heads 

 to the center and accompanied by clay vases or pots. With one body 

 were found two copper bells. In this mound, at a depth of 6 feet from 

 the summit, was a circular pavement of limestone, and a foot above 

 this a layer of clay. Bones were found in all parts of the mound. 



Another mound in the same (county contained a number of stone 

 graves and two layers of bodies without the stone coffins, but having 

 pots buried with them. Tiic stone grave burials appeared to be more 



