CERTAIN ABORIGINAL REMAINS, BLACK WARRIOR RIVER. 151 
At 52 and 56 inches from the surface, respectively, were a bunch of loosely- 
spread bones, including one skull, and a skull lying alone. With the bunch was a 
small quantity of mica. | 
Vessel Хо. 6 lay in fragments іп the wall of the excavation and presumably 
belonged to human remains that had been removed. Pieced together, the vessel 
proved to be a truncated cone in shape (Fig. 25). 
FIG. 26.—Ceremonial axe of stone. Mound C. (Length 6.5 inches.) 
When the great excavation, in the northeastern part of which lay the burials 
and relics we have just described, had reached a depth of 6.5 feet, a change in the 
material of which the mound was composed was noted, the upper part having been 
brown and red-brown clay with an admixture of sand and organic matter here and 
there. While there had been more or less stratification in places in the upper part, 
the material in the main was homogeneous. Below this level of 6.5 feet from the 
surface, the mound was more stratified, and the clay contained much less sand and 
was of various shades of gray. It became evident that we had reached a level 
which, at an earlier period, had been part of a summit plateau of the mound. Con- 
firming this view, various pits were discovered, each extending from this lower 
level several feet down into the mound. In two of these pits were human remains. 
In one, 4.5 feet below this lower, or original plateau, were crowns of teeth and a 
line of bones in the last stage of decay. Іп another pit, 5 feet across and 54 inches 
down from this former summit plateau, teeth and a line of decayed bones again 
were present. А number of similar pits were noted by us, but either the bones 
had entirely disappeared through decay or the fragments were so small that they 
were thrown back before the presence of the pit was discovered. Опе pit, with a 
layer of decayed bark along its base, was disturbed by our men while we were 
absent from that part of the mound. In this instance bones may have been 
present, but if so their fragments were too minute to attract attention in the dirt 
thrown out. | 
In the clay taken from the excavation at a depth of about 8.5 feet from the 
second, or present, summit plateau of the mound, or 2 feet below the lower level, 
was an imitation in wood copper-coated, of a canine of a large carnivore, with a 
perforation at one end for suspension. This ornament, 24/5 inches in length, had 
been wrapped in matting, some of which remained. 
