400 ABORIGINAL SITES ON TENNESSEE RIVER. 
our excavation being thoroughly cleaned out in a vain search for pits. On the 
base, however, was some charcoal which we at first thought might indicate the 
presence of a burial beneath, but the material lay on the same yellow clay which 
was under the mound. 
One foot from the surface was a skeleton much decayed, lying partly flexed 
to the left. Twenty inches down were some bones disturbed by the previous 
hole in the center. At a depth of 5 feet 9 inches lay a decaying skull alone. 
A skeleton partly flexed on the left lay at a depth of 6 feet 4 inches. 
Two feet down, together, were two bowls of inferior, porous ware, without 
decoration. No human remains were found near this pottery, but possibly 
they were removed during the former excavation. 
Dissociated in the soil was a carefully-smoothed celt, 6 inches in length, 
without a cutting edge. 
Mound D, evidently long under cultivation, having a circular outline of base, 
had a diameter of 100 feet, a height of 6 feet. Regarded from the lower part 
of the slope on which it is, the mound seems considerably higher. As it had 
become evident to us that all the mounds on our list could not be dug into in a 
season's work, an investigation of this mound was not attempted. Around it 
had been an extensive dwelling-site, judging from the dark soil and from some 
midden-debris on the surface, on which several arrowheads and discs of pottery 
and of stone were picked up. Considerable digging in this site came upon one 
skeleton, which lay partly flexed on the right, 21 inches down. 
MOUNDS NEAR VINIARD LANDING, RHEA COUNTY. 
Viniard Landing is about one mile above Cook Landing, and is also on 
property of Mr. M. С. McDonald, whose mounds at Cook Landing have just 
been described. We learned that Mr. McDonald hitherto had objected to any 
digging into his mounds, not desiring to have them disturbed by other than 
scientific exploration. All of Mr. McDonald’s mounds were cordially placed at 
our disposal, a courtesy which the Academy greatly appreciates. 
About one-quarter mile following the road in from Viniard Landing, which 
there traverses a cultivated field, in the verge of woods, all but one visible from 
the landing when foliage does not intervene, are six mounds, three near together 
and forming a triangle (A, B, C), and three others (D, E, F) a short distance 
apart and comparatively near the three mounds just deseribed. About one- 
quarter mile NE. from Mounds E and F are two others (G, H) in a cultivated 
field and having themselves been plowed over and planted upon. 
Mound A, the first visible going upstream and the most westerly of the tri- 
angle, was slightly less than 5 feet in height and 35 feet across its circular base. 
But little previous digging had been attempted in it. 
An excavation 12 feet by 14 feet reached yellow clay at a depth of 4 feet; 
presumably wash of water had removed soil to the depth of a foot from around 
the mound. 
