346 ANTIQUITIES OF THE ST. FRANCIS, WHITE, 
In the present connection it may be said that the so-called hoe-shaped imple- 
ments which some writers had supposed to be ceremonial axes, have been demon- 
strated to be such," inasmuch as a number of these “implements” found by us 
plainly show where and how their handles had been placed; and the soft stone 
from which these objects often have been fashioned and the absence of chipping at 
the cutting-edges clearly indicate their ceremonial character. 
The “celts” of copper, and the long, slender implements of the same material, 
found at Moundville, Ala.,? were all set in handles in a manner similar to that of 
the so-called hoe-shaped implements; and it is our belief that objects of the type 
of those from Moundville, and also the chisel-like implements of stone found by us 
in the mound at Mount Royal, Florida, and at this place, as well as the objects 
generally known as spade-shaped, or spuds, are neither more nor less than cere- 
monial axes. 
To return to the contents of this mound, fragments of much-decayed wood 
stained by copper lay near a burial; while dissociated were half a “celt” of sedi- 
mentary rock and a small flint implement with rounded ends. 
MOUND B. 
About 400 yards in a northwesterly direction from Mound A, in the same 
field, was a mound 4.5 feet in height and 40 feet in diameter of base. This mound, 
largely of clay, had been much plowed away at the sides, so that by the complete 
excavation of the central part, 28 feet by 38 feet in diameter, we demolished practi- 
cally all that had been left of the mound. 
Fragments of bone were met with at intervals throughout the excavation, 
crushed flat and broken into many fragments. 
Pottery was absent. 
Lying with a burial were three lancepoints of flint, the largest 4.25 inches in 
length ; and a handsome monolithic pipe, 7.25 inches long (Fig. 69, vertical and 
cross sections in Fig. 70). | 
With a skull were one shell bead and four perforated pearls, much decayed. 
There came from this mound two boat-stones apart from bones, but which 
doubtless had been interred with them. 
Of the six boat-stones from this place, two are made possibly from a green 
igneous rock, one from a ferruginous rock, one from gray shale, one from earthy 
limonite on which a hard ferruginous coating has formed, and one from rock 
erystal. They range in length between 2.5 inches and 3.7 inches, have no perfora- 
tions or grooves, and but one shows a hollowing out of the base. 
The boat-stone, the use of which is problematical, “found sparingly in most of 
the states east of the Mississippi,” and here met with but slightly west of that 
з 4 The So-called * Hoe-shaped Implement.’” Amer. Anthropologist, July-Sept., 1903. 
“Сенат Aboriginal Remains of the Black Warrior River." Journ. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., 
Vol. XIII, p. 154, Figs. 27 and 28 
“ Handbook of the American Indians.” Bur. Am. Ethn. Bul. 30, Part I. 
