ннн А ea 
ABORIGINAL SITES ON TENNESSEE RIVER. 295 
near the so-called Onatonabee Serpent Mound, Peterboro County, Ontario. 
The shell described by Professor Montgomery is a regular Cypraa moneta, or 
money cowry of Africa and the East, and not a California shell. This shell, 
which, by the way, is not pierced for stringing, is probably one from the Hudson's 
Bay Company stock. We do not think the sale of cowries to Indians in the 
North at a comparatively late date by the Hudson's Bay Company indicates a 
relatively recent origin for the Roden mounds, for, at a period when the supplies 
of the Hudson's Bay Company could have reached the makers of the Roden 
mounds, articles of European make could have got among them from all directions 
and the mounds presumably would have been well supplied with glass beads, 
brass, iron, and other things obtained from European sources which, as we see, 
was very far from being the case. 
Burial No. 47, the skeleton of a child, comparatively well-preserved, having 
with it an oblong section of looking-glass, glass beads, a few beads made from 
marine shells, a small discoidal stone, an undecorated shell gorget about 3 
inches in diameter. 
As this burial, having some objects obtained from Europeans, was but 1 
foot 8 inches from the surface of the mound, we consider it intrusive and by no 
means fixing the period when all other burials in the mound were made. No 
other burials were in graves except those beneath the base of the mound, while 
the shallow grave containing this comparatively modern burial was clearly 
traceable from the surface. 
Burial No. 51. This grave was dug into before its nature was determined, 
it having been filled with clay removed from below the base when the grave 
was dug, and contrary to the usual eustom this material had been used to fill 
the grave rather than the dark midden soil of which the lower part of the mound 
largely was composed. Near fragments of skull was a reel-shaped ornament 
of sheet-copper, about 5 inches square, which in part lay over a copper celt, 
5.4 inches in length and 1.9 inch across the cutting edge. 
This grave was within a very short distance from where our original ex- 
cavation ended, as were all other burials in this mound detailed from now on. 
Had our excavation been made slightly larger, we would have found everything 
of interest present in the mound, though it took us forty-six hours' steady digging 
with eight trained men to find this out. 
Burial No. 52. Extending below the base of the mound was a small grave 
which evidently had been that of a child, though all trace of bone had disappeared. 
The grave was filled with very dark midden soil including small fragments of 
pottery. Cutting into this grave, but not going through it, was another grave 
containing the remains of a skeleton at full length on the back, at whose right 
thigh was a large marine shell (Cassis tuberosa) in fragments, which may have 
been a drinking-cup, though not enough of the shell remained to determine 
the fact. 
Burial No. 53, traces of a skull on the base and nearby a small mass of what 
