ABORIGINAL SITES ON TENNESSEE RIVER. 245 
the original thickness of the dwelling-site and rested upon the yellow, undis- 
turbed clay. Around the mound all this midden soil had been washed away 
by rain after cultivation, thus rendering the mound higher than it originally 
had been. 
The following burials were encountered in the main excavation. 
Burial No. 1. About one foot down was a skeleton extended on the back, 
badly decayed, having at the left side of the skull a small bowl of a size usually 
found with burials of children, having had four rude handles, one of which is 
missing, and a double row of indentations below the opening. Near the bowl 
was a small knife of flint. 
Burial No. 2, two feet from the surface, was the remainder of a skeleton 
consisting of traces of the skull and of the thigh-bones, which were at a distance 
from the skull such as to indicate that the skeleton had been extended and that 
intervening parts of it had decayed away. Along the space where the trunk 
had been was a layer of pure clay about 2 inches thick. About 2 feet from the 
shoulder was a double-bladed, agricultural implement of shale, 11 inches long 
and 4.3 inches wide (Fig. 28), possibly having belonged to another burial which 
had entirely gone. 
Burial No. 3, remains of a skeleton extended on the back at a depth of 5 feet 
3 inches, the skull resting in a drinking-cup wrought from a conehshell (Busycon). 
At the left of the skull was a small deposit of clay about 6 inches in diameter. 
On the thorax lay a mass of galena (lead sulphide) about ten pounds in weight, 
under which were a few discoidal shell beads, badly decayed. 
Burial No. 4 also was extended on the back, at the same depth as the pre- 
ceding burial. On the upper part of the thorax rested a mass of galena, 2.5 
inches by 2 inches by 1 inch thick, flat and showing considerable grinding, as 
did nearly all the galena found in this mound. At the feet of the burial was a 
small mass of pure clay. 
Burial No. 5, not far from the center of the base, was a grave, oblong, 7.5 
feet in length and 2.5 feet wide, extending through the midden soil below the 
base and entering the undisturbed, yellow clay to a depth of about 2 inches. 
In this grave lay a skeleton, extended on the back, having, at each side of 
the head, a well-preserved, spool-shaped ear-ornament of copper. On the 
upper part of the pelvis was a reel-shaped, ceremonial ornament of copper ( Plate 
V, Fig. 1), the longer axis of the body of the ornament with its two perforations 
lengthwise, corresponding in direction to that of the skeleton. At the foot of 
the grave was a mass of pure clay. 
The reel-shaped, ceremonial ornament of copper, to our knowledge, has 
been but once previously described. Thruston' figures one of these objects 
and speaks of it as probably used as a pendant or breast ornament. | It was 
found, he says, in a mound in Marshall County, Tenn. (This county 1s about 
south from Nashville, midway between the Cumberland and Tennessee rivers.) 
1 Ор. cit., Plate ХУА, p. 352]. 
