MOUND BUEIAL— TENNESSEE. 19 



tabled 60 human skeletons, each in a carefully-made stone grave, the 

 graves being arranged in two rows, forming the four sides of a square, and 

 in three layers. * * * The most important discovery he made within 

 the inclosure was that of finding the remains of the houses of the people 

 who lived in this old town. Of them about 70 were traced out and located 

 on the map by Professor Buchanan, of Lebanon, who made the survey for 

 Mr. Putnam. Under the floors of hard clay, which was in places much 

 burnt, Mr. Putnam found the graves of children. As only the bodies of 

 adults had been placed in the one mound devoted to burial, and as nearly 

 every site of a house he explored had from one to four graves of children 

 under the clay floor, he was convinced that it was a regular custom to 

 bury the children in that way. He also found that the children had been 

 undoubtedly treated with affection, as in their small graves were found 

 many of the best pieces of pottery he obtained, and also quantities of shell- 

 beads, several large pearls, and many other objects which were probably 

 the playthings of the little ones while living.* 



This cist mode of burial is by no means uncommon in Tennessee, as 

 they are frequently mentioned by writers on North American archaeology. 



The examples which follow are specially characteristic, some of them 

 serving to add strength to the theory that mounds were for the most part 

 used for secondary burial, although intrusions were doubtless common. 



Of the burial mounds of Ohio, Caleb Atwaterf gives this description : 



"Near the center of the round fort * * * was a tumulus of earth 

 about 10 feet in height and several rods in diameter at its base. On its 

 eastern side, and extending six rods from it, was a semicircular pavement 

 composed of pebbles such as are now found in the bed of the Scioto Elver, 

 from whence they appear to have been brought. The summit of this 

 tumulus was nearly 30 feet in diameter, and there was a raised way to it, 

 leading from the east, like a modern turnpike. The summit was level. 

 The outline of the semicircular pavement and the walk is still discernible. 

 The earth composing this mound was entirely removed several years since. 



*A detailed account of this exploration, with many illustrations, will be found in the Eleventh 

 Annual Report of the Peabody Museum, Cambridge, 1878. 

 t Trans. Amer. Antiq. Soe., 1820, i, p. 174 et scq. 



