SOME ABORIGINAL SITES ON RED RIVER. 505 
called the Island mound, not because it is actually an island, but for the reason that 
it forms an apex to some elevated ground which is not covered in periods of high water. 
This mound, 10 feet 6 inches in height, circular in basal outline, has a 
diameter of 95 feet. It has had a considerable summit-plateau, but its extent 
was difficult to determine owing to much digging in it in recent times, which had 
left a deposit of soil on its surface, and to the fact that it had been plowed. 
A number of trial-holes were put down from the summit-plateau, one of which 
was 18 feet 6 inches by 14 feet. Parts of this hole were carried to a depth of 
4 feet 6 inches and 6 feet respectively, and a smaller hole from the bottom was 
extended beyond the base of the mound. 
Trial-holes showed that the superficial part of the summit-plateau was filled 
with burials. These burials, which were from 20 inches to somewhat more than 
4 feet in depth, were in grave-pits, as sometimes the lower parts of the pits could 
be seen cutting through layers of clay which differed from the mixed material used 
in filling the graves, though the upper few feet of the mound had been so thoroughly 
mingled that the material composing it resembled that found to have been used in 
filling the pits. No doubt the pits had been put down from the surface. So nearly 
as could be determined (for sometimes intersecting graves could be differentiated 
owing to their bases being at different levels) thirteen graves were encountered, 
some of which, however, had been lessened as to their contents by other graves 
which had been put down through parts of them. 
The form of burial, as a rule, consisted of placing layers and heaps of bones in 
no order whatever, though in several instances a skeleton had been interred at full 
length on the back and quantities of bones had been placed in the grave alongside 
of and on top of it. 
Not needlessly to occupy space, we shall confine our account to the more 
interesting burials. 
Burial No. 1 consisted of the skeleton of an adult extended on the back, in 
connection with bones including sixteen skulls, which, like all 
crania found at this place, were past preservation. Some of 
the bones with this burial showed marks of fire, the only 
ones so treated which were encountered by us in the mound. 
At the upper part of the right humerus of the extended 
burial was an undecorated pipe of earthenware (Fig. 10), made 
without extension for the reception of the stem. Near the 
outer side of the upper part of the left humerus was a bone 
implement in fragments. 
Burial No. 2 was made up of scattered bones, including 
twelve crania, on one of which were stains of copper. Among 
these bones was an undecorated bottle of ware imperfectly 
Ето. 10.—Earthen ware pipe. * 1 
Laborde Place, La. (Full fired, and elsewhere in the deposit, together, were four pebbles 
i and a fragment of flint. 
Burial No. 3 was without a complete skeleton, being made up of eleven 
64 JOURN. A. N. S. РНША., VOL. XIV. 
