336 ABORIGINAL SITES ON TENNESSEE RIVER. 
reaching undisturbed soil, though the black earth filled with fragments of shell, 
of which the site was composed, was seldom deeper than 5 feet. 
But three burials were encountered, all considerable distances apart and at 
varying depths, hence it is possible that the makers, who must have occupied 
the site a long time, however, were buried here and there throughout all its extent 
and that their remains could be reached only by long-continued digging which, 
under the circumstances, would not be wise to undertake. 
The burials were not in graves the limits of which could be traced, but prob- 
ably had been interred in rather shallow ones dug into the homogeneous deposit, 
which were filled by the return of the material taken out. The unusual depth 
of two of them can be accounted for by the probability that the growth of the 
site continued long after the burials were made. 
Burial No. 1, a child, 6.5 feet deep, having at the neck four well-preserved 
shell beads, the largest of which, an oblate sphere, was .75 inch in diameter. 
Burial No. 2, partly flexed to the right, lay at a depth of somewhat more 
than 2 feet, the pelvis resting in a good-sized fragment which had formed part 
of a large vessel of earthenware. The skeleton lay on the midden soil, earth 
blackened by admixture of organic matter, and having a considerable proportion 
of shell, but was covered at the sides and on top by a deposit of sand, 10 inches 
deep above the skeleton. On this sand, above the lower part of the trunk of the 
skeleton, three slabs of limestone had been placed, the largest 19 inches by 
17 inches, and 2.5 inches thick. The others, much smaller, had been arranged, 
one partly beneath the large slab, the other beside it. 
At the neck of the burial had been two large, tubular beads of sheet-copper, 
much of which had corroded away. 
Near the head and shoulders of the skeleton was a placement of slabs of lime- 
stone in the form of a rude semicircle, consisting of a floor of slabs laid flat and 
surrounded on the peripheral part by other slabs, set vertically, whose upper 
surfaces, however, were far from being at a uniform level. The floor of this 
combination of slabs was not on a plane with the burial, which was considerably 
above it, at about a level with the top of the vertical slabs. The open part of 
the placement was away from the burial. 
This placement, which had a basal diameter of about 2 feet and was 2 feet 
9 inches across at the top, had a depth of about 10 inches. It contained no 
evident sign of a burial, though on part of its base was a dark deposit that may 
have been all that remained of the skeleton of an infant. We think it doubtful 
that this placement had any connection with the.burial near which it was. 
Burial No. 3, a child, lay 7.5 feet down on brown sand. Above it for 2.5 
feet was sand similar to that on which the burial lay, but having a slight sprink- 
ling of shell. Above this was the black soil and shell of the midden deposit. 
This burial must have been made at an early stage in the occupancy of the site. 
Throughout the digging, apart from burials, were: a vessel of earthenware 
having two loop handles, and knobs at considerable distances apart, somewhat 
