162 CERTAIN ABORIGINAL REMAINS, BLACK WARRIOR RIVER. 
the lobes of the ears, held these ornaments in place, were not found, hence it is pre- 
sumed they had been entirely of wood. 
With some fragments of badly decayed bone was a ceremonial axe of copper, 
with part of the wooden handle still remaining upon it in fairly good condition, the 
wood maintaining a rounded surface. The length of this axe is 5.75 inches; width 
of blade, 2 inches. The blade projected .25 of an inch behind the handle (Fig. 
28 F). Above this implement was a copper-coated bead of shell, somewhat broken. 
А ceremonial axe of 
copper fell with caved mate- 
rial. Length, 7.8 inches; 
width of blade, 3.2 inches 
(Fig. 28 С). In the neigh- 
borhood from which the axe 
fell were fragments of what 
had been a large breast-piece 
of sheet-copper. Unfortu- 
nately the badly corroded 
state of the metal precluded 
any chance of recovering this ornament save in very minute fragments. 
Somewhat below scattered fragments of bone in a pit, with bits of much de- 
cayed skeletal remains, were parts of what probably had been a hair-ornament of 
sheet-copper, similar to one to be described in connection with Burial No. 37 in 
this mound. With the fragments of this ornament was what Prof. Ғ. A. Lucas 
kindly has identified as a strip of bison-horn. This material readily eould have 
taken the place of a pin of bone. А similar strip of bison-horn lay with the hair- 
ornament near Burial No. 37. 
Near the ceremonial axe and the breast-piece, but not with them, occurred a 
dark line in the soil, probably all that remained of a human skeleton. On this 
line was a ceremonial axe of copper, about 9.6 inches long and 2.25 inches across 
the flaring blade (Fig. 28 B). On the cutting edge is a series of nicks, or tally- 
marks, similar to those so often found on ceremonial objects. If farther proof 
were needed to assign these copper axes to the ceremonial class, these notches along 
the edge of the blade certainly would supply the deficiency. 
Vessels Nos. 19 and 20, small, undecorated, broad-mouthed water-bottles, lay 
together, with no bones remaining in association. 
A small deposit of fragments of calcined human bone lay 18 inches from the 
surface. 
We now come to Burial No. 37, a most noteworthy one. Forty inches below 
the surface was a dark line, doubtless marking the former presence of a skeleton. 
Near the eastern extremity of this line were a few human teeth and part of a lower 
jaw. Assuming that this black line was almost the last trace of a skeleton that 
once lay at full length on its back, heading eastward (an assumption borne out by 
the position of the jaw and by finding the lower ends of the tibia and fibule at a 
Fig. 40.—Wooden ear-plugs, copper-coated. Mound C. (Full size.) 
