202 ABORIGINAL SITES ON TENNESSEE RIVER. 
this place later in the investigation. On this bottle with Burial No. 16 is a 
white coating which is not kaolin, the pigment used on most vessels having a 
decoration in white, but proves to be carbonate of lime. 
Somewhat farther up Tennessee river, with Burial No. 53, Mound A, the 
Roden Mounds, was a small mass of white material which evidently had been 
interred with the burial as an offering. This material was determined to be 
ealeium carbonate, carbonate of lime, and practically the same as found by us 
on the bottle. Referring to the deposit in the Roden Mound, Doctor Keller 
writes: 
“Т have examined the lump of calcium carbonate and find that it is more 
dense and distinctly harder in the interior. Whether the soft, chalk-like layer 
on the outside is the result of weathering or due to the action of heat and sub- 
sequent absorption of carbonic acid is difficult to determine. 
* As there is no sharp line of demarcation I rather incline to the belief that 
the alteration was caused by atmospheric action.” 
To digress a moment, we have spoken, in connection with this burial, of 
ear-ornaments like large pins in form. We are inclined to believe that these 
pin-shaped objects were all ear-ornaments, as we know some of them to have 
been, and that those having long shanks were passed through the lobe of the 
ear, the shank being held in place by masses of hair. These pin-shaped orna- 
ments of shell, of whatever size they may be, are almost invariably found in 
pairs, one at each side of the skull, unless there is evidence of disturbance in 
connection with the burial. Moreover, some of them have a groove immediately 
back of the globular head, which evidently is intended to accommodate the 
lobe of the ear. However, it is possible some of the longest ornaments of this 
shape may have served as pins in the hair, though we have found even this 
form in place at each side of the head of a burial. 
And now to return to the burials. 
Burial No. 17, a child. At the neck and extending down the body were 
ten massive shell beads and one small one, all well preserved, the largest 1.3 
inch in length and 1.1 inch in maximum diameter. Near the skull was a celt 
of indurated shale 4.4 inches in length. 
Burial No. 19, a child. Under the right elbow lay a bicave stone of quartz 
slightly less than 2.5 inches in diameter, having an interesting feature some- 
times noticed in these stones in that each side may be said to have a double 
depression, the main ones having centrally each a smaller one about fitted in 
size to accommodate a finger tip. Probably this stone was rolled by a juvenile 
player in the game of chungkee, as the children of the Wedauan people ‘of 
New Guinea! hurl spears and sharpened sticks at a cocoanut rolled along the 
ground. The course of this chungkee-stone would be slightly erratic, however, 
the stone being somewhat asymmetrical, a fact which might add interest to the 
game, 
1 Henry Newton, “In Far New Guinea,” p. 63. 
