404 SOME ABORIGINAL SITES. 
ABORIGINAL DWELLING-SITE AT HALE’S POINT, LAUDERDALE County, TENN. 
The well-known aboriginal site at Hale’s Point, where Mr. Hall spent con- 
siderable time making part of the fine collection of pottery now in the possession 
of the Davenport Academy of Sciences, Davenport, Iowa, has been washed 
away by the Mississippi, sharing the fate of Pecan Point, Ark., somewhat below 
it on the river, where much investigation was carried on by the Bureau of Ameri- 
ean Ethnology, and later by ourselves. 
A field on Hale’s Point, separated from the river by a narrow patch of woods, 
belonging to Mr. S. C. Forsythe, living nearby, is covered with about one foot 
of comparatively recent alluvial deposit which, while enriching the place from 
an agricultural point of view, somewhat interferes with the discovery of aboriginal 
burials which are present in the field. "The site has been prodded over and dug 
by the Indian Crowfoot, who has done so much work in the St. Francis river 
region, Ark., and elsewhere, with the view of discovering Indian pottery for the 
market. 
Our investigation at Hale's Point was carried on during three days in the 
field described, on a low, short ridge parallel to, and a few yards from, the woods. 
During this time water from the river in flood was seeping into our digging, 
making our work hard to carry on to advantage. 
Fifty-four burials were encountered, as follows: of adults, 33; of adolescents, 8; 
of infants and children, of which one was an urn-burial and two others partaking 
of the nature of urn-burials, 13. 
'The adult and adolescent burials, some of which had been disturbed to some 
extent by intersecting graves, were extended on the back, with one exception, 
four of the skeletons having the feet crossed at the ankles. 
A skeleton found in the utmost disorder near a refuse pit presumably had 
been disturbed when the pit was dug. 
No burial except the disturbance, which was somewhat more, was deeper 
than 4 feet 4 inches from the present surface, which, as stated, is on a com- 
paratively recent deposit about one foot in depth. The deeper burials, below 
the level of the river at the time, were removed with difficulty from regular bogs 
of mud and water. 
Skeletal remains at this place were in fairly good condition, eleven skulls 
with most of their skeletons, one of these including a united fracture of a left 
radius, being obtained for the National Museum. 
Reminiscent of the urn-burials found at Hale's Point by Mr. Hall, our Burial 
No. 4 consisted of an earthenware pot, undecorated, 14 inches in height and 
about the same in maximum diameter, having two solid projections for handles 
on each of two opposite sides. 
In this vessel were most of the bones of a child, on the bottom being the 
pelvis, ribs, phalanges, one os calcis, but no vertebra. Laid across irregularly, 
but in the same general direction, were the bones of the arms. Above these 
again were the long bones of the lower extremities, parallel, in an oblique position, 
