SOME ABORIGINAL SITES ON MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 369 
Mounds or groups of mounds, all of considerable size, were found by us between 
Vicksburg and Greenville as follows: 
Near Henderson, East Carroll Parish, Louisiana. 
Near Chotard, Issaquena Co., Mississippi. 
Near Transylvania, East Carroll Parish, La. 
Near Longwood, East Carroll Parish, La. 
Near Mayersville, Issaquena Co., Miss. 
Near Pilcher’s Point, East Carroll Parish, La. 
Near Harwood, Chicot Co., Arkansas. 
Unfortunately, between Vicksburg and the Blum mounds, though considerable 
work was done by us, neither bones nor artifacts were discovered. 
De Soto's followers saw mounds in use as dwelling-sites for chiefs. who lived 
upon the mounds, with their people on the level ground about them, and long inves- 
tigation in recent times has shown that many mounds! were of this domiciliary 
class and apparently were not constructed primarily for burial purposes. 
Some of these large, flat-topped mounds which had every appearance of having 
been domiciliary, were dug into superficially by us, while others had so suffered by 
wash of rain that the making of excavations in them seemed useless, in view of the 
fact that in the rare cases when domiciliary mounds contain burials, such burials 
are near the surface. 
A few mounds in use as modern cemeteries were closed to us. 
Though there is but little hope of the discovery of relics of any kind in domi- 
ciliary mounds, they nevertheless are of great importance in an investigation, since 
they mark former centers of aboriginal life, and. as life and death go hand in hand, 
the presence of these mounds indicates where cemeteries are or have been. 
As the reader of that part of this report describing the more northerly sites 
investigated by us will learn, aboriginal burials there were found by us in level 
ground, in rises, and in ridges, on the surface of which almost invariably lay various 
indications of former aboriginal life, in the shape of fragments of pottery, bits of 
flint, and remnants of human bones, etc. 
Though elaborate search was made by us and some digging was done in the 
ground surrounding the mounds between Vicksburg and Greenville, no indication 
whatever—superficial or interior—of the presence of aboriginal cemeteries was 
found; nor was there any reliable history of the finding, at any of these sites, of 
anything indicating the presence of aboriginal burials. 
It is our belief that this absence of cemeteries from the region under discussion 
lies in the fact that the long cultivation to which the land has been subjected has 
destroyed all aboriginal burials that formerly were there, and that this occurred at 
a time beyond the remembrance of those now alive and when general interest in 
archeological matters was so slight that the discovery of human bones and of arti- 
facts was allowed to pass unrecorded. : 
1 We would explain that in the use of the word “mounds” reference is made to symmetrical 
mounds or to those that seem to have been such, and not to rises of the ground, or ridges, or flat, 
elevated areas that have grown up under occupancy, which often contain burials. 
47 JOURN. А. N. 8. PHILA,, VOL. XIV. 
