280 ABORIGINAL SITES ON TENNESSEE RIVER. 
proved to be in deposits about one foot in thiekness, below which was midden 
soil to an inconsiderable depth. We were unable to find at this place any burial 
or artifact, with the exception of part of a burial near the surface, the rest of 
which doubtless had been plowed away. 
DWELLING-SITE ON THE FOSTER PLACE, MARSHALL County, ALABAMA. 
Along the bank of the river, in a cultivated field forming part of the property 
of Hon. A. M. Ayers, living near Guntersville, Ala., is a small camp-site having 
some midden debris on the surface, and in places restricted areas where shells 
were visible. In that part of the site on which shells were not apparent, digging 
soon reached undisturbed soil and no burials were encountered. 
Numerous holes in the shell deposits came upon the burials of three adults 
and a child, the former in flexed positions. 
Burial No. 3 was an adult flexed on the right, lying at the bottom of a grave 
28 inches deep, filled with shells to the surface. These shells were without 
any admixture of midden soil such as we found with the shells in the general 
deposit. 
Burial No. 4, an adult in the same position as the other, lay in a grave 14 
inches deep, also filled to the top with shells only. | 
The burials at this site were widely scattered; in all events careful digging 
failed to find any in groups. 
Thirty inches below the surface was a slab of limestone of irregular outline, 
2 feet long and 1 foot wide, approximately. Under this slab and extending 
beyond it in places, was a deposit of shells," unmixed with midden debris, having 
a maximum thickness of 5 inches, made up of some musselshells (Unio) with 
an unusual proportion of univalves in addition, the musselshells in many instances 
still having the two valves in apposition. Below this deposit no burial was 
found. 
One of our trial-holes came upon a large pit which had become filled with 
refuse, part-way up in which, as though lost there, was a celt of sedimentary 
rock, 9 inches in length. 
DWELLING-SITE ON THE PENNEY PLACE, MARSHALL COUNTY, ALABAMA. 
On the Penney Place, the property of Mr. J. E. Penney, of Birmingham, 
Ala., in full view from the river-bank, did not trees intervene, is a small ridge 
having considerable midden debris on the surface. At each end, though not 
occupying the entire extremities of the ridge, is a small rise containing shell 
in considerable quantity in places. These rises, which are 25 yards apart, 
contained all the thirteen burials found in the place, with one exception, a de- 
posit of fragments of cremated bones 13 inches by 8 inches by 5 inches in maxi- 
mum thickness, found 1 foot 3 inches below the surface in the ridge. | 
1 А selection of shells from this deposit included the following: Unio gibbosus, U. incrassatus, 
Dromus dromus, Pleurobema clava, Truncilla perplexa, Quadrula pyramidata, Obovaria circulus, Cam- 
peloma ponderosum, Pleurocera filum, P. ungulatum, Р. nobile. 
