i 
SOME ABORIGINAL SITES. 445 
gation was put at our disposal and Mr. Brown’s courtesy to the Academy is 
greatly appreciated by it. 
One hundred and seventy-nine hours, or about twenty-two and one-half 
workings days of eight hours each, with eight men to dig, were devoted by us 
to this interesting site, burials being found in practically all of its available 
extent with the exception of extreme marginal portions, where our work was 
not productive. 
The graves at this place were in the main roughly circular or elliptical. Their 
size, as a rule, was somewhat limited, there being usually but little space in 
them beyond that needed to accommodate the skeletons which, as a rule, were 
closely flexed, purposely, no doubt, for economy of space. 
In depth the burials ranged between one foot and 8 feet 5 inches," many of 
them ending in the yellow sand (some being 2 feet, 3 feet, or exceptionally 
nearly 4 feet in it) on which rested the made-ground composing the Knoll. 
Two hundred and ninety-eight burials were taken out? by us (exclusive of 
many scattered bones), which, so nearly as could be determined, were as follows: 
of adults, 183; of adolescents, 23; of infants and children, 92. 
The adult and adolescent skeletons were: closely flexed, 128; partly flexed, 29; 
extended on the back, 1; aboriginal disturbances, 23; burials to be described 
particularly, 25. 
Burials Nos. 7 and 9 had trunks lying on the back, shoulders elevated, heads 
on chests, humeri alongside the trunks, the elbows at the pelvis of each, the 
forearms closely flexed on the humeri, the femora 
vertical,with the legs closely flexed against them. 
Burial No. 118 lay in a grave-pit, 7 feet 3 
inches from the surface, the deposit of midden 
debris at that part of the site being 4 feet 7 
inches in thickness. Presumably the grave had 
not been dug from the present surface but when 
the surface of the Knoll was at a lower level, 
and this most likely was the case with numer- 
ous burials at this site. 
The skeleton (see diagram, Fig. 5) had been RT m 
greatly bent to accommodate it to the re-  , x at 
stricted dimensions of the grave which, so far f 
. à Fig. 5.—Burial No. 118. “The Indian 
up as 1t was traceable, had diameters, roughly- клоп” The skeleton lies flat on the 
cireular, 23 inches by 25 inches. bottom of the grave. 
! One grave, which partly filled with water during a high stage of the river, may have been even 
deeper than this. 
? In one instance a veritable tangle of burials at considerable depth necessitated great enlarge- 
ment of the area uncovered. This, by several days’ work, had nearly been accomplished when, after 
the close of our working hours, a constant and affable spectator, in the presence of three companions— 
a mule and two bipeds, all intoxicated except the one customarily designated a beast—with the aid of 
a shovel obtained from us ostensibly for another purpose, dug down to the skeletons and removed 
them. 
46 JOURN. A. N. 8. PHILA., VOL. XVI. 
