ABORIGINAL SITES ON TENNESSEE RIVER. 177 
with Ohio river, at Paducah, Ky., a distance of 652 measured miles, following 
the course of the stream. 
Tennessee river, which flows through rock and gravel, has not constantly 
changed its course as have some other southern rivers which pass through alluvial 
deposit. 
Though showing ample evidence of aboriginal occupancy along its entire 
course, the Tennessee possesses but few aboriginal sites of importance. Its 
greatest mound (at Florence, Ala.), quadrangular, with flat top, doubtless domi- 
ciliary, is 42 feet in height. No other mound on the river approaches it in al- 
titude. The principal,! and really only notable group of mounds on Tennessee 
river, is on the Battlefield of Shiloh, near Pittsburg Landing, Tenn., where seven 
interesting mounds, most of them quadrangular and probably domiciliary, testify 
to the former presence of an aboriginal town. The highest of these is about 15 
feet, though in a description of the group which has been published, the height of 
this mound, by including part of the river bank, is made considerably greater. 
Beginning at Hiwassee Island in eastern Tennessee, and continuing up the 
river to Lenoir City, a distance of 101 miles by water, in almost continuous 
sequence are groups of mounds, blunt cones in shape, few more than 10 or 11 
feet in height and most much less than that. These mounds, erected for burial 
purposes, in all probability, contain, so far as is known, but few artifacts in con- 
nection with the burials, which are but sparsely encountered in them. They 
have been largely dug into in a limited way, by people having an exagger- 
ated idea of the value of Indian objects, fostered by the presence of traders 
who themselves, or through agents, almost patrol the river? Had anything 
of any consequence been found in all this digging in these mounds, it is cer- 
tain that they all would have been torn to pieces long ago, since Tennessee 
river is thickly populated throughout its length and scarcely a mound on it is 
out of sight of some habitation. 
No aboriginal cemeteries of any considerable size border the river, and sites 
marked by the presence of stone graves are comparatively few and of very 
limited extent. Although common report along the river tells of the great flood 
of 1867 (and of succeeding though less important ones), and describes the fields 
after its subsidence as showing slabs of stone, human bones, and artifacts, and 
although one hears of small groups of stone graves that have been plowed away 
within the memory of present inhabitants, it is unlikely the Tennessee valley, 
at best but the border of the stone-grave people, ever contained anything like 
the number of stone graves formerly found in central Tennessee. Had Tennes- 
see river ever possessed stone-grave cemeteries similar in extent to those found 
farther north, they would have been noted and searched long prior to the great 
1 The group of mounds at Savannah, Tenn., described in the Smithsonian Report for 1870, p. 408 
et seq., has been largely dug away, now being within the limits of the town. 
2 Part way up the river, we were immediately preceded by a dealer; nearly from Chattanooga on 
our downward journey, a trader went ahead of us in a motor boat, seeking to buy Indian relics and post- 
ing notices as to their purchase. Other traders were encountered passim. 
13 JOURN. A. М. 8. PHILA., VOL. XVI. 
