THOMAS.] MOUNDS NEAR MADISONVILLE, OHIO. 49 
a large pieee of what I suppose to have been an ornamented dress. It was covered 
with copper beads} which were struug on a buckskin string and placed on four layers 
of the same skin. It was found 8 feet below the original surface of the mound and 
in extremely hard, dry dirt which had never been disturbed. 
From the figure and the description we can have but little doubt that 
this was a buckskin hunting-shirt, which gives support to Colonel Nor- 
ris’s Suggestion. 
Recently some interesting burial mounds near Madisonville have been 
carefully explored by Dr. C. L. Metz in the interest of the Peabody 
Museum. Only partial notices of these explorations, which are not yet 
completed, have been published, but we deem these of sufficient impor- 
tance in this connection to quote freely from them,! so far as they serve 
to illustrate the modes of burial and construction of burial mounds of 
this region. 
Speaking of one of the mounds of a group situated in Anderson 
Township, Professor Putnam remarks : 
Mound 21 of Group C was about 4 feet high and 50 in diameter. It proved to 
be made entirely of the sandy loam of the immediate vicinity. The remains of five 
skeletons were discovered at different points in the lower portion of the mound. The 
bones were nearly ali reduced to dust, and only a fragment here and there could be 
saved. There was not a single relic found with the skeletons, and a few flint chips 
and a broken arrow-head were the only artificial objects found in the earth compos- 
ing the mound. The condition of the bones showed considerable antiquity, but their 
advanced decay and friability were probably largely due to the character of the soil 
in which they were enclosed. ‘The position of the skeletons rather goes to show that 
the several bodies were buried at different times, and that the mound was gradually 
constructed as the burials took place. For the present we are inclined to consider 
this mound, with some others in the valley, as a place of sepulcher by tribes of a 
more recent time than the builders of the earthworks of the Turner group. 
Mound No. 22_proved to be of a more interesting character than the last. This 
mound was 14 feet high and about 100 in diameter. It was composed of pure clay, 
except in the central portion. Five feet from the top there was found a hard mass 
of burnt earth and ashes, 7 feet deep and a little over 9 feet in width and length. 
Resting on top of this, about in the center, and covered in part by the overlying clay, 
lay a large stone celt. A foot below this, in the burnt material, was a stone imple- 
ment perforated atitsupperend. Below this, at points several feet apart, in the burnt 
mass, were three holes or pockets, each of which contained the remains of portions 
of human skeletons, surrounded by a thin layer of clay. Near the bones in the lowest 
pocket were three spear-heads or chipped points. A few potsherds and several flint 
chips were found throughout the burnt mass. Under it was a circular bed of black 
soil and ashes, 13 inches thick in the center and 14 feet in diameter, beneath which 
was a Jayer of fine sand and gravel, 3 inches thick, which covered another circular 
bed of black soil and ashes, 14 inches thick in the center and 15 feet in diameter. Di- 
rectly under the center of this lower layer was a pit 4 feet deep and 10 feet 4 inches 
long, 4 feet wide at the endsand 3 feet5 inches wideat thecenter. This pit probably 
had contained a wooden structure, as its sides showed rough striations, as if large 
logs had once rested against them. The pit had been dug in the drift gravel upon 
which the mound was built, and was neariy filled with soft, spongy ashes mixed with 
a reddish substance. Extended at full length at the bottom of the pit was a human 
skeleton, with the head to the west. Among the bones of the neck a single shell bead 

‘See 17th Report Peabody Museum, pp. 339-347. 
5 ETH—4 
