382 SOME ABORIGINAL SITES ON MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 
has been worked away through cultivation by at least that number of feet on one 
side. 
Although, as the reader is aware, digging into the flat tops of domiciliary 
mounds is seldom productive of positive result, occasionally burials are found in 
these plateaus or in parts of them. 
Trial-holes in the summit-plateau of the mound in question came upon several 
vessels of earthenware, all near the surface. Consequently it was decided to dig 
completely through that part of the plateau (about three-quarters of its present 
area) where indications of graves were found. 
Human remains were encountered but twice and consisted of some crumbling 
teeth of a child, 1.5 feet down, and the left humerus of an adult, 2 feet below the 
surface. In both instances these remains were accompanied with deposits of pot- 
tery, extending some distance from them, and evidently were all that was left of 
entire burials. | 
In other instances artifacts were present, singly and in groups, where no burials 
were apparent, though beyond question they had been present but had disappeared 
through decay. 
There came from this mound, in addition to vessels of earthenware: several 
polished pebbles, evidently smoothing-stones for pottery; a discoidal stone roughly 
shaped from a pebble; a flat pebble chipped toward one end, on two opposite sides, 
probably to facilitate attachment to a handle; a small quantity of powdered hema- 
tite used for paint, of which Dr. H. F. Keller says it “is an impure, ferruginous 
clay. It is very red on the outside, but yields a red-brown powder on grinding 
which turns brick-red on ignition. It contains 72.5% silica, showing that the clay 
is mixed with considerable sand.” 
Associated with pottery, and lying side by side, were two cylinders of yellow 
clay material, crumbling and in many fragments, varying from .8 to 1.1 inch in 
diameter. These cylinders had been decorated with longitudinal parallel lines, 
placed near together. It seems as if possibly the cylinders had been compressed 
in molds, as a small longitudinal ridge is evident on one side. We were unable to 
determine the length of these cylinders, which fell into many fragments on removal, 
but the deposit, as it lay in the ground, was 15 inches in length. We could not 
learn if this was the length of a single cylinder or included part of one pro- 
jecting beyond the other. Each of these cylinders possessed one rounded end 
which came from opposite extremities of the deposit. Тһе character of the end 
opposite the rounded one we were unable to determine, though we think it likely 
that the objects had been what is known as spade-shaped implements and that their 
upper parts had crumbled away. | 
Thirty-five vessels of earthenware Were scored by us as coming from this 
mound, though the count was of necessity imperfect as only two whole vessels were 
encountered, the surface of the mound having been dug into and ploughed in a way 
to break most of the pottery contained in the graves. 
The ware from this place contains little if any shell tempering. It is fairly 
