18 MOUND BURIAL— TENNESSEE. 



that in one chamber he found the remains of 5 skeletons and in another 13. 

 With these skeletons there were a few flint implements and minute frag- 

 ments of vessels of clay. 



"A large mound near the chambered mounds was also opened, but in 

 this no chambers were found. Neither had the bodies been burnt. This 

 mound proved remarkably rich in large flint implements, and also contained 

 well-made pottery and a peculiar "gorget" of red stone. The connection 

 of the people who placed the ashes of their dead in the stone chambers 

 with those who buried their dead in the earth mounds is, of course, yet to 

 be determined." 



It is quite possible, indeed probable, that these chambers were used for 

 secondary burials, the bodies having first been cremated. 



In the volume of the proceedings already quoted the same investigator 

 gives an account of other chambered mounds which are, like the preceding, 

 very interesting-, the more so as adults only were inhumed therein, children 

 having been buried beneath the dwelling-floors : 



" Mr. F. W. Putnam occupied the rest of the evening with an account 

 of his explorations of the ancient mounds and burial places in the Cumber- 

 land Valley, Tennessee. 



"The excavations had been carried on by himself, assisted by Mr. Edwin 

 Curtiss, for over two years, for the benefit of the Peabody Museum at Cam- 

 bridge. During this time many mounds of various kinds had been thor- 

 oughly explored, and several thousand of the singular stone graves of the 

 mound builders of Tennessee had been carefully opened. * * * Mr. Put- 

 nam's remarks were illustrated by drawings of several hundred objects ob- 

 tained from the graves and mounds, particularly to show the great variety of 

 articles of pottery and several large and many unique forms of implements of 

 chipped flint. He also exhibited and explained in detail a map of a walled 

 town of this old nation. This town was situated on the Lindsley estate, in 

 a bend of Spring Creek. The earth embankment, with its accompanying 

 ditch, encircled an area of about 12 acres. Within this inclosure there was 

 one large mound with a flat top, 15 feet high, 130 feet long, and 90 feet 

 wide, which was found not to be a burial mound. Another mound near 

 the large one, about 50 feet in diameter, and only a few feet high, con- 



