586 MOUND EXPLORATIONS. 



THE SOUTHERN SECTION. 



Tliis .sec^tion is limited, as at present arranged, to the Arkansas and 

 Gulf distriets, though it is probable that future investigations will 

 show that it should be further subdivided. 



THE ARKANSAS DIS'I'RICT. 



This district includes the southeastern counties of Missouri, the state 

 of Arkansas, and the northern i)art of Louisiana. The ancient works, 

 however, are confined chietiy to the eastern portion of the area included 

 in these bounds. Although embraced in the district, a large portion 

 of the groups of works and types of pottery of southeastern Missouri 

 resemble those of southern Illinois and the Cumberland valley so closely 

 as to leave no definite marks of distinction between the two classes. 

 This strong resemblance between the works of these sections, which 

 has been repeatedly noticed, possibly indicates the presence for a time 

 in this region of some of the same people who occupied the Tennessee 

 district, though the important characteristic of the latter — the box- 

 shaped stone grave — is wanting here. 



The chief distinction between the archeology of southeastern Missouri 

 and the rest of the district is found in the numerous groups of hut 

 rings marking village sites, often surrounded by earthen walls, usually 

 forming quadrangular inclosures. 



The distinguishing features of the district as a whole, especially 

 when compared with the archeology of the northern areas, are the large, 

 oblong, terraced, pyramidal mounds, and the low, flatfish, domiciliary 

 mounds or lumse sites, which seem to take the place in Arkansas of 

 the hut-rings in southeastern Missouri. Other characteristics are the 

 occasional remains or marks of rectangular dwellings, the forms and 

 ornamentation of the pottery, and the forms of the few pipes which 

 have been discovered. 



A brief notice of the leading types, based almost exclusively on the 

 results of the explorations carried on by the Bureau of Ethnology, the 

 details of which have been given in the preceding part of this volume, 

 is presented here that the reader may judge of the propriety of consid- 

 ering this a separate district. 



The remains of this type consist of low, tlattish mounds, from 1 to 5 

 feet high and from 15 to 100 feet in diameter. In opening them the 

 strata are usually found to occur in the following order: First, a top 

 layer of surface soil trom 1 to 2 feet thick; next, a layer of burned clay, 

 varying from 4 to 12 inches (though usually from 4 to 8 inches thick), 

 and broken into lumps, seldom in a uniform unbroken layer; immediately 

 below this is a layer of ashes and charcoal, in which are usually found 



