'• MOUND-BUILDERS AND PLATYCNEMISM IN MICHIGAN. 367 



bones of man, generally mucli decayed, and exhibiting other indications 

 of antiquity. From the fragments of burned bones and charcoal found 

 it would appear that in the earlier interments cremation was practiced. 



The UMw present, in an extreme degree, the peculiar flattening or 

 compression pertaining to platycnemic men. In the Fourth Annual 

 Eeport of the Peabody Museum mention is made of this ; some of the 

 relics which I collected from this mound having been given to the 

 museum by the Hon. Eobert 0. Winthrop, to whom I had presented 

 them. The curator, Professor Wyman, says: "Of the tihiw of forty 

 individuals, from the mounds in Kentucky, one-third presented this flat- 

 tening to the extent that the transverse did not exceed 0.60 of the fore- 

 and-aft diameter. The most extreme case was from the mound on the 

 River Eouge, in Michigan, in which the transverse diameter was only 

 0.48. In the most marked case mentioned by Broca, viz, in the old man 

 from Cro-Magnon, France, it was, as deduced from his figures, 0.60." 

 Professor Wyman draws attention to certain resemblances in this bone 

 to the same bone in the ape, addiug : " In some of the tihice the amount 

 of flattening surpasses that of the gorilla and chimpanzee, in each of 

 which we found the short 0.67 of the long diameter, while in the tibia 

 from Michigan it was only 0.48."* 



Subsequent to this (iu 1870) I discovered in adjacent mounds several 

 instances in which this compression of the tibia was exhibited to even 

 a greater extreme. Two remarkable cases of this peculiarity were 

 afforded by tibice taken by me from the " Circular Mound " on the Detroit 

 River. In one of those unique specimens the transverse diameter of 

 the shaft is 0.42, and in the other 0.40, of the antero-;posterior diaoieter ; 

 exceeding, I believe, any platycnemism which has been observed before 

 or since. In communicating these facts to the American Naturalist, not 

 long afterward, I claimed that the last-mentioned case "'may be consid- 

 ered as the flattest tibia on record."t Both of the bones are strongly 

 marked with the saber-like curvature, as are also many others of the 

 tibiw from the vicinity. The majority of the tibim present the flattening, 

 which is an exception to the facts as noted in other sections of the 

 United States, where it is supposed to pertain to " only about one-third 

 of all the individuals observed." 



About three-quarters of a mile to the north and eastward? of the 

 Great Rouge Mound, and only a few hundred feet to the westward of 

 Fort Wayne, being over a third of a mile from the shore of the Detroit 

 River, occurs the monument which I have named for distinction and 

 from its originally symmetrical shape " The Great Circular Mound." 

 This also appears to have been one of a numerous series, many of which 

 bave been removed for various purposes, but the present occupation of 

 the land prevents a satisfactory examination of its character. 



* Fourth Annual Report of the Trustees of the Peabody Museum of Americau Arch^e- 

 clogy and Ethnology. Boston, 1871. 



t American Naturalist, October, 1871, vol. v, p. 663. 



