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ABORIGINAL SITES ON TENNESSEE RIVER. 183 
The burial in a sitting position, so often reported by novices, is very rarely! 
encountered, if we may judge from many hundreds of burials noted in our ex- 
perience, provided the idea intended to be conveyed is that of a skeleton placed 
in a sitting posture, upright, in the ground. 
If the skeleton in question lies in the position of one seated, who has been 
pushed over on the side, then it is simply a flexed burial and nothing else, for 
when one is in a sitting position the trunk is vertical. 
Human remains in the mounds and sites along Tennessee river are, as a 
general rule, much decayed and consequently very fragmentary, sometimes 
being indicated only by merest traces. Wishing to avoid repetition of details, 
we have not in each instance described in this report the condition of the remains 
encountered, but where they have been in a fair state of preservation, the fact 
ү”. 
ESS 
COATT 
Ета. 3.—A skeleton closely flexed on the right. Fic. 4.—A skeleton partly flexed on the right. 
The trunk and extremities are in the same plane. The trunk and extremities are in the same plane 
usually has been noted. When the burial is discovered, the depth from the sur- 
face is recorded, and, as given, is to the upper surface of the bones. Consequently 
as the remains usually are crushed, five or six inches added to the given depth 
would represent the maximum depth of the burial. АП skeletons, when enough 
remains were found to permit determination, when not otherwise described, were 
of adults. 
Thirty skulls, in a condition to preserve, with some other bones, were found 
by us and sent as a gift to the United States National Museum, where they have 
been received (accession 58353) and examined by Dr. Ales Hrdlička, curator of 
the Division of Physical Anthropology in that institution. 
Doctor Hrdlička has determined that the erania obtained by us at Leadbetter 
and Prevatt's Landings, two neighboring sites in western Tennessee, are of the 
Algonquin type and differ from others found in our search along Tennessee river. 
It has been considered best that no paper on the erania found by us on Ten- 
nessee river be prepared by Doctor Hrdlieka in connection with this report, it 
1 We are told by a prominent investigator that in all his experience he has never encountered 
bodies buried in a sitting or squatting or crouching position.—Gerard Fowke, “ Antiquities of Central, 
and Southeastern Missouri, ” p. 2, Bulletin 37, Bureau of American Ethnology. Burials of this variety, 
though most exceptional, have been found by Professor Putnam; and by us, as readers of our account 
of the Hampton Place, Hamilton County, Tenn., may see. 
