378 SOME ABORIGINAL SITES ON MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 
the stem (Fig. 3). The celt and the pipe, Mr. Wood informed us, were found by a 
colored man at Church Hill, a short distance from Gum Ridge, and probably were 
uncovered by the plow. 
MOUND NEAR OAK BEND LANDING, WARREN County, Miss. 
A few feet from the water’s edge at Oak Bend Landing, is a mound of irregular 
outline, about 50 feet and 60 feet in basal diameters, and 3 feet high, approximately. 
Persons long resident in the neighborhood report the mound, which they say once 
was considerably higher, to have been graded to serve as a foundation for a house, 
and subsequently to have suffered additional loss in height through wash of water. 
The house had disappeared at the time of our visit, but a cistern, which no doubt 
had belonged to the house, was present in the mound. 
Trial-holes in this mound came at once upon human remains, and two days 
were devoted by us to the investigation of what probably had been a small burial 
mound. 
Unfortunately much digging into this mound had been done by others, as there 
was great disturbance of bones and of artifacts, in places, and numerous corroded 
nails of iron were found in the course of our digging, which presumably had been 
left on the surface of the mound at the time of the demolition of the house, and had 
been introduced into the mound through various excavations. 
Owing to all this disturbance and to the advanced state of decay in which the 
skeletal remains were found; the exact score of burials and their classification were 
hard to determine. Twenty-eight burials were noted by us, mostly belonging to 
the bunched variety, but a few burials of adults extended on the back, and the 
skeletons of several children also were present in the mound. ` 
Three individual burials had the skulls covered by inverted bowls which fitted 
the skulls like caps. 
Some of the bunched burials were extensive, one having no fewer than thirty 
skulls (many in fragments) and a great quantity of other bones, though we were not 
in a position to say whether or not the full complement of bones for the number of 
skeletons represented by the skulls was present. The skulls of the bunched burials, 
as а rule, were heaped together at one side of the burial. 
In most instances singularly few artifacts lay with the bunched burials, when 
the number of individuals these burials often represented is taken into account. For 
instance, the burial we have cited (which included with the rest the skulls of two 
adolescents and of three children) was accompanied with a single vessel of earthen- 
ware. This, however, was an extreme case, other bunched burials having been 
somewhat more liberally provided. For instance, Burial No. 7, a large, bunched 
burial with many skulls, had associated with various parts of it: twelve earthen- 
ware vessels; fragments of corroded sheet-brass or copper; glass beads; a rude disk 
of bituminous coal, about 2.5 inches in diameter; powdered hematite in two places. 
A feature of this burial was the presence of several toy vessels of earthenware, 
put in near bones of children. 
