404 MOUNDVILLE REVISITED. 
the base of a vessel, but which proved to be not the case. At the back of the 
skull was a bone pin, round in cross-section, about 7 inches long; and bits of sheet- 
copper. Nearby was another pin about the same length, stained with copper and 
having bits of sheet-copper in association. These pins probably fitted into orna- 
ments of sheet-copper intended for use in the hair, of the kind found by us in 
Mound H at our first visit to Moundville. About one foot from the skull was a 
pendant of sheet-copper. 
Burial Number 44, in the field west of Mound R, a skeleton of an adult 
extended on the back, had a small “celt” at the right elbow. Small shell beads 
were at the neck. At each side of the head were sheet-copper ear-plugs with bone 
pins, which have been described by us elsewhere in this report. Along the humerus 
were seven piercing implements of bone. Although these implements lay parallel 
one to another, their points were not all in the same direction. With the bone 
implements lay two small stone “ celts,’ one of which is double-bladed. 
In the ground south of Mound D, 1 foot 8 inches from the surface (in the made 
ground), was a pot-shaped oven of clay, burned hard to a thickness of about one 
inch. The diameter of the oven was 1 foot 6 inches; its depth, 7 inches. In it 
lay a large part of a cooking pot, covered with soot. 
It is our belief that Moundville was at one time an important religious center 
and that the great mounds within the circle (which are too large, we think, to have 
been merely domiciliary) were connected with the cults held sacred at that place. 
Prominent among these cults, presumably, was the worship of the sun. We 
know from Charlevoix, from du Pratz, and from Chevalier Tonti, that the worship 
of the sun still obtained in their time in regions not remote from Moundville, and 
that the divinity had temples and priests, and that sacred fire perpetually burnt as 
an emblem of the sun. 
According to Tonti, the sun was the deity most commonly adored throughout 
all that region. 
To the eastward of Moundville, in earlier times, the cacique Vitachuco told 
the Spaniards under DeSoto that they were “sons of the devil and not of the sun 
and moon, our gods; " ' and in the Moundville region itself a follower of Tuscaloosa 
at Mauvila spoke of the sun and moon as deities.? 
If then, Moundville was a religious center and heliotry was prominent among 
its cults, we would naturally expect the engraved designs on the earthenware to 
bear witness to the fact, since religion so Miis finds expression in the art of primi- 
tive peoples. 
Let us consider the designs found on both our visits to Moundville,—the 
plumed or horned serpent ; the eagle; the woodpecker; the six world-“ quarters;”’ etc. 
IR p Florida del Inca." Garcilaso de la Vega (Madrid, 1722) Second Book, First Part, Chapter 
XXI, p. 5 
"Pid: Book Third. Chapter XXVI. Page 149. 
