MOUNDVILLE REVISITED. 403 
This object, which had undergone injury, probably through disturbance in early 
times, had one end missing. Seemingly it had been intended to represent the shell 
of a turtle. The width was 4.75 inches. Within was a cavity 1.6 inches by 2.25 
inches, containing many small pebbles. Nearby were parts of various small objects 
of thin wood, copper-coated, too fragmentary for identification; also several pearls 
pierced for stringing and a representation of the regular Moundville eye, wrought 
from shell, which apparently had been inset—presumably in the rattle. 
Another copper-coated rattle in small fragments (identified by the presence of 
pebbles) was found later in the investigation. 
Fragments of sheet-copper found with various burials will not be particularly 
noted. i 
ASSOCIATED OBJECTS. 
We shall now deseribe a few selected burials in order to convey some idea of 
the association of objects at Moundville. 
Burial Number 20, the skeleton of an adult, extended on the back, in the field 
west of Mound R, had on the thorax, inverted over another vessel, a bowl with 
the head and the tail of a fish represented on opposite sides. Тһе lower vessel, a 
bowl with a decoration of incised, encircling lines, lay on its side. А head, which 
formerly projected from this bowl, is absent through breakage in aboriginal times, 
the thrifty savages having been quick to utilize for the dead what was no longer 
desirable for the living. Under this bowl was a bone piercing implement. Imme- 
diately beneath the head of the skeleton, with which these vessels were, was the 
bottom of what had been a vessel of coarse, heavy ware. 
In a pit in the same field as the foregoing lay three skeletons of adults. One 
at full length, face down, had a pot at the left shoulder. With the other two— one 
extended on the back, the other partly flexed on the right side—was nothing in 
immediate association. 
Lying together in the pit, apart from the burials, were a vessel in many frag- 
ments; a fragment of sheet-copper; a ceremonial palette of fine-grained stone, 7.5 
inches in diameter, with marginal notches, and incised circles on one side ; part of 
a smoking-pipe of coarse sandstone, to which reference has been made; and an 
incisor of a large rodent, kindly identified by Prof. F. A. Lucas as the left lower 
incisor of a beaver (Castor canadensis carolinensis). 
Burial Number 9, in the field near Mound M, an adult extended on the back, 
had near the knees a water-bottle. Four small, neatly-made arrowheads of chert, 
and a number of small fragments of the same material, to all of which reference 
has been made, were near by. Along the right leg were masses of hematite in a 
condition to use as paint. Above, and about one foot from the pelvis was a water- 
bottle. Shell beads were at the left wrist. Between the left elbow and the ribs 
were a small discoidal stone and a disc of sheet-copper. Near the head were sheet- 
copper pendants in fragments. In contact with the skull was the curious object of 
earthenware shown in Fig. 22, which at first seemed to us to have been made from 
