THOMAS. ] BURIAL MOUNDS OF SOUTHERN OHIO. 47 
which overlaid the wooden sarcophagus “ were so well preserved that 
the ends showed the axe marks, and the steepness of the kerf seemed 
to indicate that some instrument sharper than the stone axe found 
throughout the West had been employed to eut them.” 
“In another of these mounds a large number of human bones, but no 
other relics worthy of note, were found:”! 
In a mound situated in Clear Creek Township, Ashland County, a 
stone coffin or cist was discovered, constructed of flat stones set up 
edgewise. It contained six or eight skeletons, ‘neatly cleaned and 
packed, in a good state of preservation.” ” 
A statement worthy of notice in this connection is made by Mr. H. 
B. Case in the Smithsonian Report for 1881.2 -The Delaware Indians 
formerly had a village in the northern part of Green Township, Ash- 
land County, which was still occupied by them when the white settlers 
reached there in 1809. An examination of their graves in 1876 brought 
to light the fact that in some cases the dead were buried in stone cists ; 
in others small, round, drift bowlders were placed around the skeletons. 
One of the most satisfactory and most important accounts of Ohio 
burial mounds will be found in a “Report of Explorations of Mounds 
in Southern Ohio,” by Prof. E. B. Andrews, published in the Tenth 
Annual Report of the Peabody Museum. Speaking of the George Con- 
net mound, in Athens County, he says: 
This is a low mound about 6 feet high with a broad base perhaps 40 feet in diame- 
ter. It has for years been plowed over and its original height has been considerably 
reduced. My attention was drawn to this mound by the burnt clay on its top. A 
trench 5 feet wide was dug through the center. On the east side much burnt yellow 
clay was found, while on the west end of the trench considerable black earth ap- 
peared, which I took to be kitchen refuse. 
About 5 feet below the top we came upon large quantities of charcoal, especially on 
the western side. Underneath the charcoal was found a skeleton with the head to 
the east. The body had evidently been enclosed in some wooden structure. First 
there was a platform of wood placed upon the ground, on the original level of the 
plain. On this wooden floor timbers or logs were placed longitudinally and over 
these timbers there were laid other pieces of wood, forming an enclosed box or coffin. 
A part or this wood was only charred, the rest was burnt to ashes. The middle part 
of the body was in the hottest fire and many of the vertebrie, ribs, and other bones 
were burnt to a black cinder, and at this point the enclosing timbers were burnt to 
ashes. The timbers enclosing the lower extremities were only charred. 
T am led to think that before any fire was kindled a layer of dirt was thrown over 
the wooden structure, making a sort of burial. On this dirt a fire was built, but by 
some misplacement of the dirt the fire reached the timbers below, andat such points 
as the air could penetrate there was an active combustion, but at others, where the 
dirt still remained, there was only a smothered fire, like that in a charcoal pit. It is 
difficult to explain the existence of the charred timbers in any other way. There 
must have been other fires than that immediately around and above the body. and 
many of them, because on one side of the mound the clay is burned eyen to the top of 
the mound. In one place, 3 feet above the body, the clay is vitrified. 


' See, also, Smithsonian Report 1881, p. 596. 
*Smithonian Report 1877, p. 264. 
3Page 598. 
