510 QOME ABORIGINAL SITES ON RED RIVER. 
of fairly good quality, but without incised decoration. One sherd, coated with red 
paint on both sides, was encountered. 
Mounp NEAR Briar Benp LANDING, Rep River PARISH, La. 
On a high ridge, about three-quarters of a mile east from Briar Bend Landing, 
in a cultivated field forming part of the plantation of Mr. J. J. Stanfill, Sr., who 
resides upon it, is a symmetrical, conical mound of sand, 8 feet 7 inches in height 
and 55 feet in diameter of base. In the summit of the mound previous diggers had 
made an excavation 6 feet in diameter and 4.5 feet in depth, approximately. 
A central excavation 7.5 feet by 11 feet was carried by us to a depth of 12 feet 
3 inches without coming upon a distinct base-line, but at a depth of 9 feet 2 inches, 
at the central part of the mound, the red sand composing it rested upon sand, gray- 
brown in color, which apparently represented the surface upon which the mound 
had been built. From the margin of the mound on the eastern side, a trench 9 feet 
in width and extending below the base was dug in to connect with the central 
excavation. In addition, seven trial-holes were sunk in various parts of the mound. 
Although this symmetrical mound, which, judging from its measurements, 
must have been originally without a summit-plateau of any extent (the previous 
digging involved the throwing out of much material and prevented a determination 
at the time of our visit), had every appearance of having been built for burial pur- 
poses, yet but few burials, apparently, had been placed in the body of the mound. 
In sand cast out by previous diggers were small fragments of human bones, 
and a skull (all that remained of a skeleton) was encountered at a depth of 4.5 feet, 
at the margin of the previous excavation. 
` Of nineteen burials found by us in place! the two shallowest were 6 feet in 
depth, and these, found where the mound sloped considerably, were not far from the 
base. Other burials were from 7 feet to 12 feet 3 inches in depth—a number being 
from 10 to 11 feet down. : 
In view of the fact that so large a proportion of burials found by us lay con- 
siderably below the original surface of the ground, it seemed possible that the 
mound had been built above a cemetery, but various trial-holes put down in the 
level ground around the mound failed to reveal any indication of one. 
The burials, which were so.badly decayed that at times it was hard to dis- 
tinguish traces of them, were as follows: 
Partly flexed on the right side, 1 
Partly flexed on the left side, 1 
Closely flexed on the right side, 8 
Closely flexed on the left side, 3 
Aboriginal disturbance, 1 
Bones in caved sand, 1 
Cremations, 4 
1 Some scattered bones fell in caved sand. 
