200 | ABORIGINAL SITES ON TENNESSEE RIVER. 
The surface material differed from some we have seen on sites along Tennessee 
river in that no pottery was present; nor was a single shell to be seen. Moreover, 
no pottery fragments were found in the digging. Abundance of fresh-water 
shells were mingled with the soil, none, however, being within 18 inches of the 
surface, though this upper soil was as dark as that below it and evidently had not 
been brought there to increase the height of the site, but had grown under occu- 
pancy, like the rest. Evidently, then, during the latter part of the occupancy 
of the site, shell-fish were not in use as an article of diet. 
An excavation carried from the highest part of the elevation to which reference 
has been made, went through nearly 6.5 feet of midden soil before reaching 
underlying, undisturbed ground. ‘The first 18 inches, as stated, contained no 
admixture of shells. Then came about 4 feet having in the upper part numerous 
shells, the number growing fewer until in the last foot they were encountered 
at rare intervals. The final foot of the excavation, however, had many shells 
scattered through it. 
Apparently those inhabiting this dwelling-place had buried where they lived, 
though no regular cemetery was encountered by us. Four skeletons were found 
as a result of considerable digging, at depths ranging between 10 and 39 inches, 
lying closely flexed, one on the right side and three on the left. The heads 
respectively, were directed N., N. by W., NW., N. 
These burials, which were unenclosed, had no associated articles, with the 
single exception that with the deepest one had been placed a musselshell contain- 
ing a small amount of red oxide of iron in powder. 
MOUNDS AND DWELLING-SITE NEAR DIXIE LANDING,’ HUMPHREYS 
County, TENNESSEE. 
On property of Mr. J. H. Pearl, who resides there, within sight from Dixie 
Landing, on high ground somewhat back from the river, is a mound, once quad- 
rangular with a level summit-plateau. The mound, 8.5 feet in height, measured 
from the east, where it adjoins a great level field, seems of much greater altitude 
on its other sides, which in appearance are heightened by sloping ground on which 
they rest. The basal diameters of the mound, whose sides face the cardinal 
points and whose longer ones are parallel to the river, are 188 feet N. and S. and 
125 feet E. and W. The summit-plateau is 112 feet and 50 feet in the same direc- 
tions, respectively. The mound has been under cultivation. 
As is well known, large, flat-topped mounds in southern United States very 
rarely contain objects of interest, having served, as arule, for purposes other than 
those of burial; yet as interments sometimes were made in superficial parts of 
such mounds, it is well for the investigator to sink trial-holes into them super- 
ficially at least. In the mound under description trial-holes soon reached raw 
clay having no trace of interments. 
1 There is another place of this name a few miles above this one, also in Humphreys County, 
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