SOME ABORIGINAL SITES ON RED RIVER. 511 
The cremations were all small deposits of calcined human bones, попе of which 
had been burnt where found. 
The comparative absence of artifacts in this mound which had so promising an 
appearance, was a great disappointment. With one burial was a rude arrowhead 
of flint; with another burial lay а flat pebble of irregular ош пе. Still another 
burial had in association a small mass of galena (lead sulphide) with a perforation 
countersunk at each side, for use as a bead. 
In the sand thrown out by the previous digging were three pairs of copper ear- 
ornaments of the spool-shaped variety, some broken into two parts. Each of these 
ornaments is made of two cones of sheet-copper, the apices of the cones apparently 
connected by inserting the apex of one cone into that of the companion cone and 
spreading the sheet-copper on the inside to hold it in place. The concave part of 
each cone has been covered with a second thickness of sheet-copper which is held 
in place by an overlapping margin. 
There was also found near the ear-ornaments what seems to be the lower half 
of an ill-made, ceremonial axe belonging to the hoe-shaped class, having part of a 
perforation in the blade. The material apparently is a soft claystone which would 
unfit the axe for any practical use. 
Throughout the digging there were found in the mound only two small frag- 
ments of earthenware, both undecorated. 
The surrounding area showed no evidence of having served as a place of abode. 
MOUND AT GAHAGAN, Rep River PARISH, La. 
At Gahagan, a settlement near Red river, is the plantation of Mr. W. R. 
Hollingsworth, of that place. In aboriginal times a considerable population must 
have inhabited this place, to judge from the number of remnants of mounds that are 
scattered throughout the fields. | 
In sight from Gahagan, and also from the river, in the middle of a cultivated 
field, is a mound of clay with a small admixture of sand, which has suffered greatly 
from the plow and from wash of rain on the loosened soil. Presumably the diam- 
eters of the mound at one time were approximately 80 and 110 feet, but at present 
so much has been plowed and washed from its sides that it appears like a peak of 
much less diameter placed on the central part of a platform from 2 to 4 feet in 
height. On this platform are stumps of small trees, recently cut, whose roots are 
denuded of soil from 1 to 3 feet above the surface, showing how much the mound 
has lost in height in its outer parts even in very recent times. 
The height of the mound from the level ground to the summit of the peak is 
slightly more than 11 feet, measured from the outside. 
Various trial-holes in the lower parts of the mound were without result, but an 
excavation 12 feet square, put down about centrally in the peak we have described, 
intersected a grave-pit. This pit was not noticed by us at first, as the upper 5 feet 
of soil on the mound was moist and was approximately uniform in color, but below 
