282 ABORIGINAL SITES ON TENNESSEE RIVER. 
course. The remainder of the island, high ground and fertile soil, has a ridge, 
probably largely natural, extending through it longitudinally, easterly and 
westerly, somewhat in from the northern side of the island. On this ridge has 
been a dwelling-site for the aborigines, whose occupancy, no doubt, contributed 
somewhat to its height. 
Along the middle part of the ridge are various sites once occupied by wigwams, 
all circular so far as we could determine, except one which was square. The 
sites were marked by depressions and had been surrounded by small embank- 
ments, but as the ground had been under cultivation in the past, exact measure- 
ments were not obtainable. Putnam! describes sites of this kind, “circular 
ridges of earth,” which were investigated by him in middle Tennessee and which, 
unlike ours, contained objects of interest. Graves of children only were found 
by him in these sites. 
One of our circular depressions, 32 feet in diameter, was 11 inches below 
the surrounding level, which perhaps included part of the original embankment. 
Digging in this site disclosed a fireplace, about centrally situated made up of 
three layers of burnt clay showing the level of the fireplace had been raised from 
time to time. Another circular site, 24 feet across, also had a fireplace in the 
center, approximately, as did still another depression 30 feet in diameter and 
1 foot 9 inches deep. 
The largest site, 52 feet square, was 1 foot 8 inches below the level around 
it, part of which was made up by the surrounding embankment, which was 10 
inches in height, so that the actual depth of the site below the general level was 
also 10 inches. In none of the sites was any burial encountered; nor in the 
largest one, though carefully dug over, was any fireplace discovered, but it is 
possible that what was sought is beneath a large tree growing about centrally 
in the depression. 
In the square depression, about 8 inches below the surface and having the 
shape of a wide ellipse of very irregular outline, 25 inches by 27 inches, was an 
arrangement made up of a single layer of comparatively small slabs and masses, 
some limestone, some quartzite, all placed in contact one with another.  Pos- 
sibly bones of an infant had decayed away. 
On the ridge we have described no mound remained, but the outer part of a 
low one, which had been perhaps 2 feet in height, had been left by previous 
diggers, who had piled a number of slabs on the surface. In one spot remaining 
from the wreck we found scattered bones of a child below slabs of stone. These 
slabs did not belong to an arrangement made for covering a particular burial, 
but formed part of what seemed to have been a general arrangement in the cen- 
tral part of the mound, perhaps covering all the burials in it. 
1 Eleventh Rep. Peabody Mus., p. 347 et seg. Tidings have come to us at this stage of the 
printing of our report, of the lamented death of our old friend Prof. Frederic Ward Putnam, which 
occurred at Cambridge, Mass., August 14, 1915. Professor Putnam expressed much interest in this 
report on the antiquities of a state in the archseological investigation of which he was so noted а 
pioneer. 
