490 SOME ABORIGINAL SITES ON RED RIVER. 
were traceable, though several of the deeper graves (one 52 inches іп depth) 
seemed for part of their depth to be beneath unbroken strata. 
In order to determine the nature of the mound, therefore, an excavation 5 
feet by 9 feet, approximately, was sunk from the summit-plateau to a depth of 9 
feet, when undisturbed soil of a sandy character was reached. 
In this excavation eleven burials were encountered, the deepest 8 feet below 
the surface; most of them were plainly in graves, none of which reached the sur- 
face, but were covered at different depths from the surface by unbroken layers. 
Presumably this mound had been domiciliary in character, but occupied at 
different levels, from which burials were put down. 
Fire-places were abundant throughout. 
In all, fifty-seven burials were noted, omitting from the count, however, many 
scattered bones, mainly fragmentary. 
Burials were as follows: 
Extended on the back, 9 
Closely flexed on the right side, 6 
Closely flexed on the left side, 3 
Partly flexed on the right side, 6 
Partly flexed on the left side, 5. 
Extended on the back to the knees, the legs flexed against the thighs, 1 
Single skulls, 2 
Disturbances, aboriginal and recent, 7 
Child, 1 
Bunched burials, 17 
Of the thirty-one burials of individual skeletons, the heads of which were in 
various directions, twenty-nine were of adults; one, of an adolescent; and one, of 
a child. The comparative absence of children’s skeletons, which are found so 
numerously in some aboriginal places of burial, can be accounted for, perhaps, 
by disappearance through decay, the condition of the bones from this mound being 
such that no skulls and few other bones approached a condition to enable preserva- 
tion. Curiously enough, it may be noted parenthetically, some of the bones from 
the lower part of the mound were in a less advanced state of decay than were 
many from the upper part. 
The seventeen bunched burials had with them skulls as follows: 
With one skull, 3 
With two skulls, 7 
With three skulls, 1 
With five skulls, 1 
With seven skulls, 1 
With eight skulls, 2 
With twenty-eight skulls, 1 
