370 SOME ABORIGINAL SITES ON MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 
From Greenville to the point where our season's investigation ended, 295 miles 
by the river, though many sites have been destroyed by cultivation, some still 
remain, and all those where successful work was done by us will be particularly 
described in this report. A number of other sites in this region, however, in which 
our quest was unrewarded, though much work was done in some of them, will not 
be referred to. 
Throughout our season’s work there were found by us sixty-five skulls of the 
aborigines, in good condition, and a considerable number of other parts of the skele- 
tons, all of which were sent as a gift to the United States National Museum. Dr. 
Ales Hrdlicka, Curator of the Division of Physical Anthropology in the Museum, 
will, we trust, describe these remains at a later period. 
That part of the Mississippi river whose aboriginal sites are described in this 
report is included in the Lower and Middle Mississippi Valley regions—geographi- 
cal divisions (among others) made by Holmes’ to facilitate his description of abo- 
riginal pottery, in certain of his exhaustive memoirs on the subject, to which the 
reader of this report is particularly referred. 
The Middle Mississippi Valley region is defined by Professor Holmes as fol- 
lows, in writing of its pottery :* “Apparently its greatest and most striking devel- 
opment centers about the contiguous portions of Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Ken- 
tucky and Tennessee. The area covered is much greater, however, than would 
thus be indicated; its borders are extremely irregular and are not as yet at all 
clearly defined.” 
As a boundary line between the Lower and Middle Mississippi Valley regions 
has not as yet been definitely determined, we would suggest that the Arkansas 
river and an imaginary line extending eastward from its mouth be considered as 
such, not only because the geographical position of the river fits it to serve as the 
basis of such a division, but for the reason that the aboriginal pottery of the Arkan- 
sas river possesses the distinctive features belonging to the ware of both the region 
above and the region below that stream. 
North of the Arkansas river incised decoration on earthenware is comparatively 
seldom encountered, and when it is present among the great number of undecorated 
pieces, it is, as a rule, of inferior execution, often consisting of hardly more than a 
series of parallel lines. Incised decoration, excellent in design and in execution, is 
rarely met with north of the Arkansas river. 
On the other hand, south of that river engraved, incised, and trailed decoration 
on pottery is the rule rather than the exception, and vessels marked by beautifully 
incised decoration are not infrequently found. 
In the Middle Mississippi Valley region, north of the Arkansas, pottery with 
decoration in color—solid red or polychrome—is often found. 
South of the Arkansas, however, the use of pigments for decoration of pottery 
* William H. Holmes. “Ancient Pottery of the Mississippi Valley," Fourth An. Rep. Bur. 
a а Н. Holmes. “Aboriginal Pottery of Eastern United States,” Twentieth An. Rep. 
Bur. Am. Еп. 
* Twentieth An. Rep. Bur. Am. Ethn., p. 80. 
