4 
ABORIGINAL SITES IN LOUISIANA AND IN ARKANSAS, 37 
feet in height, but has been under cultivation for many years. The owner of 
the plantation, Mr. Bowman, informed us that it was cleared by his father in 
1844 and that the mound in question at that time was some feet higher than it is 
at present. While this mound can never have rivaled the others in size, it no 
doubt was an important landmark and probably was the nucleus of what was 
intended to be a much larger mound. 
If this mound be taken in conjunetion with the other three, we find a diamond- 
shaped figure with mounds at the four angles, which angles are directed toward 
the cardinal points of the compass, or nearly so. In the ease of the southern 
mound it was, of course, impossible to determine the center, owing to the partial 
demolition referred to. 
Still further, if lines be drawn connecting the centers of opposite mounds 
(the center of Mound D being to a certain extent assumed), a eross will be formed 
whose arms point approximately toward the cardinal points—a cross of the four 
directions. 
Mounds A and С in comparatively recent years had been devoted to pur- 
poses of burial, Mound A being the cemetery of the Bowman family. In- 
vestigation of these mounds, of course, was out of the question. 
Mound B, used as a place of refuge for stock in flood-time, had a summit- 
plateau whose soil presented a dark appearance. Ten trial-holes, a number of 
which were afterward greatly enlarged, were put down with a feeling of consider- 
able confidence, which later was justified by the discovery of eight burials. 
Some of these burials presented an interesting feature. While five of them 
were comparatively superficial, ranging between 10 inches and 2 feet in depth, 
and had been put down from the surface, three other burials were from 4.5 to 
5 feet in depth. These burials were not in pits extending from the present surface, 
as was shown by the presence of unbroken strata above them, but lay in soil 
darkened by the presence of organic matter, with which were mingled midden 
débris and remnants of fireplaces. This deposit of soil evidently marked an 
earlier stage in the growth of the mound when it had served as a place of abode 
prior to its increase in height." Soil of a much lighter color and undisturbed, 
as we have said, lay between the upper and the lower dark layers, and this, no 
doubt, had been brought when the increase of the mound was decided on. We 
shall describe each burial in detail. 
Burial No. 1, a bunched burial one foot in depth, measured from its upper 
surface, included eleven skulls, badly decayed and broken, as were all the 
human remains from this mound. One of the skulls was that of a child. 
The bunched burials in this mound were not symmetrically piled as such 
burials sometimes are, but, though limited in width, extended considerable 
distances. 
Burial No. 2, bunched bones with two skulls, was 20 inches down. 
‘A notable instance of this was found by us in one of the great mounds of the group at 
Moundville, Ala. 
3 JOURN. ACAD. NAT. SCI PHILA., VOL. XVI. 
