TEE MIS 80 VBI MO VND B VILDERS. 21 



dition. The claim to their great antiquity is further strengthened by the 

 fact that out of three humeri found, two of them contained perforations at 

 the inferior extremity, and from the evident great preponderance of the 

 muscular over the intellectual development. 



The question as to the purpose for which the mounds were erected is 

 one of difficult solution. Whether the stone chambers described are merely 

 an improvement on chambers of similar construction made of sun-dried 

 bricks, built in the mounds destitute of stone chambers, every vestige of 

 which has been effaced by the great lapse of time since their construction, 

 is a problem yet to be solved, but this is rendered highly probable by the 

 facts presented in Mound ]N"o. 3. Supposing all the mounds to have contained 

 chambers differing only in the material used, the question still remains to 

 be answered — were they covered, and, if so, how were they covered? That 

 there was not a covering of wood is evident from the fact that no appear- 

 ance of decayed wood is found in the mounds, except the decayed roots oi 

 trees, which have grown upon them since their construction. JSTor could the 

 covering have been of stone, or vestiges of it would be found in the mounds. 

 If . covered at all, and it is highly probable that they were, the covering 

 must have been of the brick clay of which they are composed, and which is 

 well adapted to the purpose, made into a stiff mortar and arched over the 

 chamber like a bake oven, with an opening for the escape of smoke at the 

 top J or else made of the skins of animals, enveloping the top in the shape 

 of a tent. Are we justified in considering the chambers dwelling places as 

 well as places of interment? Many reasons seem to justify such a conclu- 

 sion. The doorway in all the chambers opening to the south, the great 

 thickness of the ash heaps on the floor of the chambers, the intermingling 

 of bones with the ashes, and the size of the chambers themselves, which 

 are so unnecessarily large for mere places of sepulture — are all significant 

 facts. The depth of the mingled ash heaps in mounds two and five pre- 

 cludes the idea that they could have been accumulated by any ordinary 

 funereal rites, even though protracted for weeks. The ashes in mound 

 number three precludes the idea, in like manner, that they could have been 

 accumulated without a chamber having been constructed in it. That there 

 was not a succession of interments and funereal rites is manifest from the 

 fact that the strata overlying the ash heaps had not been disturbed, there 

 being no evidence whatever of successive openings, except for the intrusive 

 burial mentioned in mound number two. The invariable existence of the 

 doorway, the number of skeletons found, and the thickness of the bed of 

 ashes, preclude the idea of a single interment, and the undisturbed upper 

 strata precludes the idea of successive interments made at different periods 

 of time. 



The first idea of a distinctive home for shelter and protection from the 

 aggression of enemies, probably was suggested to man in the infancy of the 

 race by the natural caverns so often encountered on the earth's surface. To 

 render this more probable, we find on this continent, as well as on the con- 



