THOMAS. ] ARCHEOLOGICAL DISTRICTS 11 
the Ohio district. Such are the numerous stone pipes, the altar-like 
structures found in some of the mounds, and the presence of mica plates 
with the skeletons. But the peculiar features are the mode of burial, 
the absence of pottery, and the numerous polished celts and engraved 
shells found in the mounds. 
Although it is probable that there are at least three districts in the 
southern portion of the United States, they appear to pass from one into 
the other by such slight changes in the character of the works as to 
render it exceedingly difficult to fix the boundaries between them. I 
therefore mention the following, provisionally, as being those indicated 
by the data so far obtained. 
(6) The Middle Mississippi area or Tennessee district, including south- 
east Missouri, northern Arkansas, middle and western Tennessee, south- 
ern and western Kentucky, and southern Illinois. The works of the 
Wabash valley possibly belong also to this district, but the data ob- 
tained in regard to them are not sufficient to decide this point satis- 
factorily. This district, like the others of the south, is distinguished 
from the northern section by its larger mounds, many of which are 
pyramidal and truncated and often terraced, and which were, beyond 
question, used as domiciliary mounds. Here we also meet with re- 
peated examples of enclosures though essentially different from those of 
Ohio; also ditches and canals. From the Lower Mississippi and Gulf 
districts, with which, as we have said, it is closely allied, it is distin- 
guished chiefly by the presence of the box-shaped stone cists or coffins, 
by the small circular house-sites or hut-rings, and by the character of 
the pottery. This is pre-eminently the pottery region, the typical forms 
being the long-necked, gourd-shaped vase and the image-vessels. In 
this district the carved stone pipes are much less common than in the 
Illinois, Ohio, and Appalachian districts. 
(7) The Lower Mississippi district, including the southern half of Ar- 
kansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi. There are no marked characteristics 
by which to distinguish it from the Middle district; in fact as we move 
southward along the Mississippi from the mouth of the Illinois river, 
the works and their contents indicate a succession of tribes differing 
but slightly in habits, customs, and modes of life, the river generally 
forming one natural boundary between them, but the other boundaries 
being arbitrary. For example, the Cahokia region appears to have 
been the home of a tribe from which at one time a colony pushed 
northward and settled for a while in Brown and Pike Counties, Illinois. 
The extreme southeastern counties of Missouri were probably the seat 
of another populous tribe which extended its borders into the western 
part of southern Illinois and slightly into northeast Arkansas, and 
closely resembled in customs and art the ancient people who oceupied 
that part of the Cumberland valley in middle Tennessee. This subsec- 
tion is principally distinguished by the presence of the small circular 
house-sites, which are slightly basin-shaped, with a low ring of earth 
