492 SOME ABORIGINAL SITES ON RED RIVER. 
Мосхрѕ NEAR THE Могтн оғ L'Eau Norre Bayou, AVOYELLES PARISH, La. 
About one mile westerly from the mouth of L'Eau Noire Bayou, which is 
now crossed by the levee, in woods, is a mound mainly on property of Mr. C. P. 
Voisel, of Marksville, La., but in part on land belonging to Mr. William T. Guillot, 
living nearby. These gentlemen joined in cordial consent to our investigation. 
The mound, about square, the sides facing the cardinal points of the compass, 
has a basal diameter of about 165 feet; that of the summit-plateau is 82 feet. 
The height of the mound, determined from the southern side, where the ground 
is level, is 8 feet. The northern side is on the crest of sloping ground which gives 
the mound an appearance of added height. 
Trial-holes almost at once came upon many burials. Continued investigation 
indicated that much of the summit-plateau centrally had been used for burial to a 
considerable extent to about 3 feet below the surface. The soil contained quanti- 
ties of scattered human bones, whole and fragmentary, while burials, and parts of 
burials, left where other interments had cut through, were numerous. In fact the 
area in question to the depth we have named, seemed to have been dug and redug 
in the making of graves until almost all trace of individual pits had been obliterated. 
The soil was much darker in this area than it was found to be superficially in that 
part of the plateau that bordered its margin, or than was the light-colored alluvial 
material that underlay the superficial 3 feet of the plateau. 
A very limited number of burials were found in the outer parts of the plateau, 
but it was evident that this space had not been used for burial purposes to 
any extent. 
In order to ascertain the nature of the mound, an excavation 6 feet by 8 feet 
and 8 feet in depth was made centrally in the plateau, proving, as at the Keller 
Place, to be a somewhat difficult task, as the lower 5 feet of the mound could be 
removed only with the aid of a pick. | 
In the upper 3 feet of this excavation burials were numerous, as might have 
been expected from the results obtained by the trial-holes. There were found also, 
however, three burials, each about 4 feet 5 inches from the surface, all beneath an 
unbroken layer which commenced about 3.5 feet down. One of these burials lay 
in a small but clearly distinguishable pit which extended down about one foot 
below the bottom of the stratum in question. 
Still another burial was encountered 5 feet 8 inches from the surface. Below 
this depth no bones were met. 
It does not seem likely that this mound was constructed for burial purposes. 
It is on land subject to overflow, and one of the owners of the mound informed us 
that he had seen the water almost reach the level of the summit-plateau. Presuma- 
bly a domiciliary mound of insufficient height was occupied for a time and buried in 
superficially to a limited extent, and was then increased in height, and graves were 
dug from the surface, as was sometimes done in the case of domiciliary mounds. 
