326 ABORIGINAL SITES ON TENNESSEE RIVER. 
mound, above which the mound had been built of the same material but consid- 
erably mingled, as would be expected when it was gathered from the field around. 
This mound, which would have been of great interest had the aborigines 
who made it been endowed with a more liberal spirit in respect to their dead, 
had been built over a shallow grave containing a burial below the base of the 
mound. Some burials apparently had been deposited on the base, while others 
had been placed in the body of the mound, most of these being in grave-pits, 
some clearly let down from the surface, others being traceable some distance 
up, but not all the way. 
In all, thirty-six burials were found, no account being taken of bones scattered 
by the previous digging, by the sinking of pits in aboriginal times, by the roots 
of a tree which grew well up on the mound, or of small portions of skeletons buried 
by the aborigines themselves, some of which, probably similar to interments 
found in other mounds, were bones that had dropped away from skeletons 
previous to the time of burial and later were gathered and interred. 
In the case of Burial No. 30 in this mound, an interesting example of the 
aboriginal interment of fragmentary remains is shown. 
The grave below the base of the mound (Burial No. 36), to which reference 
has been made, was 7 feet 10 inches to the bottom of its pit from the level of 
the summit of the mound, the pit itself cutting through the 6 inches of midden 
soil marking the base and entering the undisturbed, red clay a distance of 1.5 
foot, the limits of the grave being very clearly defined in the raw clay. The 
depth of the original midden deposit on the field, of which we have spoken, was 
conclusively proved by the presence of the red clay around the sides of the grave 
which had been thrown out when it was dug and had not been used in filling 
the grave. This red clay lay over the 6 inches of surface midden debris on 
which it had been thrown. 
The grave, which was 6 feet 8 inches long by 3 feet 2 inches wide, began 
about 4.5 feet from what we considered to be the center of the base of the mound, 
radiating from it, the head of the grave nearest the center, as shown by the 
presence of a fragment of skull about one inch square, which was the only part 
of the skeleton found, even no teeth being present, though the entire contents of 
the grave was removed with a trowel. 
Over this grave, as stated, having the red clay that had been removed in 
its making spread for a considerable distance around it, the mound had been 
built, its inception being presumably at the time of the interment, since the 
grave was filled, not with the clay that had been taken out, but with the midden 
material of which the mound was made. 
Practically on the center of the base of the mound was a deposit of calcined 
human bones, 3.5 feet by 1 foot 9 inches and 3 inches in maximum thickness. 
These bones, reduced to fine particles, bore no trace of order and were in the 
vicinity of no sign of fire. This deposit (Burial No. 35) is classed as one burial, 
though it is probable that the remains of two individuals were present, side by 
ULT AE a E———— ÁN 
