ABORIGINAL SITES IN LOUISIANA AND IN ARKANSAS, 11 
As this ridge was under cultivation at the time of our visit, and as its position 
above the surrounding level made any considerable digging in it undesirable. 
in view of the oncoming flood (April, 1913), we were restricted in our research. 
Various trial-holes showed the ridge, so far as we could determine, to be differently 
composed. Presumably, when of much less extent. the ridge, made up of midden 
material, including many broken shells. mostly Rangia cuneata (a clam), had 
been enlarged by the addition of clay. Consequently one had to dig but a short 
distance down in what had been the original ridge to reach the midden débris. 
while where the slopes had been and quantities of clay had been added to bring 
them to a general level, it was necessary to dig for several feet through clay before 
reaching the midden débris of the original slope. 
Over the surface of the ridge lay shells, mostly in fragments. According 
to Mr. Miller, the owner of the place, much of the ridge, until recently, had been 
covered with a mass of these shells, which. later, had been towed away in 
barges to pave the town of Franklin on Bayou Teche. Mr. Miller said also 
that, when cultivating the ridge, many human bones had been plowed up, and 
in point of fact in all directions could be seen on the surface fragments of such 
bones. According to Mr. Miller. no artifacts had been found with the bones. 
Several of our trial-holes came upon inconsiderable parts of skeletons, 
greatly scattered, which presumably were disturbances. 
One trial-hole, that made in the highest part of the ridge, reached the upper 
surface of a burial at a depth of 14 inches. This burial was a deposit of bones, 
including one skull. In the same hole, 5.5 feet down, a skeleton of a young 
child was reached, with which was part of the skeleton of an adult, in anatomical 
order, of which the skull, and the bones of the arms and of the lower extremities 
below the knees, were missing. 
On the surface of the ridge were found: various fragments of pottery, some 
marked with the imprint of a wooden stamp,’ of a kind shown in Fig. 1; an 
Fic. 1.—Fragments of earthenware with stamped decoration. (Full size.) 
We forwarded a fragment selected from a number bearing this decoration, from this region, 
to Prof. William H. Holmes, who kindly writes of it as follows: 
