ABORIGINAL SITES ON TENNESSEE RIVER. 247 
Under the lower dorsal vertebree was a copper celt, 4 inches long by about 2 
inches in maximum width. The preservative properties of the copper carbonate 
on this celt were the only means we had to determine that the skeleton had been 
placed in a prone position, as several of the vertebrae indicating this fact had 
been kept in fairly good condition by the copper salt, the rest of the burial being 
represented merely by traces. 
At the knees was a mass of galena, weighing ten pounds, and at the ankles, 
resting on the clay, was another mass weighing about six pounds. 
Burial No. 7, in the same grave as was Burial No. 6, was the skeleton of a 
child lying in a direction like that of the adult. If the child’s skeleton lay on 
its back, which its condition did not permit us to determine, then the skeleton 
had a side of the grave at its left and the adult burial at its right, the mass of 
clay described lying on the other side of the burial of the adult. Near the skull 
of the child, probably at the neck, was a spherical bead of solid copper, flattened 
at the poles, one inch in diameter. 
Apart from any burial, in the main excavation in the mound, was a small 
mass of lead sulphide. 
We now take up details of the eight trial-holes before referred to, which, 
3 feet by 6 feet each, were put down around the main excavation in the hope 
of coming upon additional graves. These holes were greatly increased in all 
directions when the base of the mound was reached, so that most of it may be 
considered to have been investigated. The result was as follows: 
Burial No. 8, a skeleton extended on the back, lay at a depth of 4 feet 9 
inches, not far from the base, as the mound sloped considerably above where 
the burial had been made. This interment was not in a pit, but had been placed 
in the mound during its construction, as the soil above and around it showed 
no mingling of material other than that of the mound. 
Above this skeleton had been placed an arrangement of slabs, some of lime- 
stone, some of claystone, certain ones, especially those at the ends, being thin 
and of considerable size. The arrangement, 8 feet long by 1 foot 10 inches in 
width, in the main consisted of two layers, but in one place, at least, there 
were three thicknesses of slabs. Below the lower extremities of the skeleton, 
the grave had sunk, the stones above sinking with it, and had become somewhat 
disarranged. The reason for this became apparent when it was found that 
another grave lay under the lower part of Burial No. 8 and that in settling it 
had caused that part and likewise the slabs above, to sink also. 
The only thing found with the burial was a mass of pure clay at the feet. 
It was evident that the makers of this grave had, as generally seems to have 
been the case with stone graves, fulfilled most of their duties when they had 
arranged the slabs. 
At a depth of 40 inches, in soil darker than the material of which this part 
of the mound was composed, the deeper shade probably being the result of decay 
of human remains, was a reel-shaped ornament of sheet-copper, parts of which 
had disintegrated. 
