14 ABORIGINAL SITES IN LOUISIANA AND IN ARKANSAS. 
occupancy, as it was composed largely of black soil containing ashes, charcoal, 
fragments of mussel-shells, remnants of fish- bones and of deer-bones, with 
occasional fragments of pottery. In the soil was found also a bone identified 
by Prof. F. A. Lueas as the penis-bone of an otter. Some of the holes were 
extended to the base of the platform, through this midden material without 
interval of any kind. On the other hand, in places, layers of clay, several inches 
in thickness, were present, locally, and dadais had been placed in connection 
with burials, as these layers were sometimes found in the neighborhood of 
some of the skeletal remains; other burials, however, were without such 
strata. 
The platform apparently was crowded with burials (nearly all our holes 
reaching them), and at all depths, some beginning one foot from the surface, 
while one in the high, western part of the platform was only 12 inches above 
undisturbed clay, which there was found 7.5 feet down.' 
It was impossible to define the limits of the grave-pits, which seemingly 
had been dug at different stages in the growth of the platform, as the material 
of which the platform was made was nearly uniform in color, and the clay layers, 
when present, did not entirely cover the burials as a rule. These burials, 
which, with two exceptions, were great deposits of bones mingled and spread 
and of course out of anatomical order, sometimes connected on the same level, 
or, at times, layers of bones somewhat below others were dug into when soil 
was being thrown out to facilitate the removal of upper deposits. 
Burial No. 1 was the skeleton of an adult, at full length on the back. 
Burial No. 2, adult, lay closely flexed on the left side, the upper part of the 
skeleton being more than 3 feet from the surface. The skull and some of the 
other bones of this skeleton were saved. 
The remaining burials, for reasons aforesaid, were not separately enumerated 
The bones belonging to them included two hundred and sixty-eight skulls, two 
being of adolescents and five of children. Sixteen crania that were in condition 
to preserve, including the skull belonging to the single burial referred to, were 
sent as a gift to the United States National Museum and are described by 
Dr. Aleš Hrdlička in a paper at the close of this report. 
At least two of the skulls from this place, when unearthed, were filled with clay 
very light in shade and entirely differing from the soil in which they were found. 
This fact indicates a reburial, strong evidence of which we found also in the 
Mayes Mound at Lake Larto, which is described in this report. 
We know that reburial was practised to some extent, at least, throughout 
this region. Of the Chitimacha,’ who lived in various villages throughout this 
part of Louisiana, we are told? “One year after the death of a head chief, or of 
! Probably our measurement of the height of the platform was taken from made-ground 
about 1.5 ig above undisturbed clay. 
? Jo . Swanton, “Indian Tribes of the Lower Mississippi Valley and Adjacent Coast 
of the Gulf of Mexico, " р. 337, et seq., Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 43. 
5 Шиа. p. 350, quoting Gatschet. 
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