532 SOME ABORIGINAL SITES ON RED RIVER. 
On a space intervening between the layer of earthenware we have described 
and a somewhat similar one farther along on the right-hand’ side of the grave, lay 
a handsome celt of basanite, 6.8 inches in length, beneath which was part of the 
stem of an earthenware pipe. Near the celt were several small objects of shell. 
These objects—small disks, small oblong sections of shell, triangles, etc.—were 
numerously found in this mound. As a rule they are imperforate and without дес- 
oration. A few, however, have holes in them. On some are traces of asphalt, 
showing them to have been fastened to other objects. We believe them to have 
belonged to head-ornaments and perhaps to ornaments otherwise worn. 
On the second deposit of pottery to which we have referred, which was mostly 
crushed but included several entire vessels, near the right hand of the skeleton, 
were five earthenware pipes, all broken and some crushed to fragments. Two of 
these pipes, the broken parts cemented together, are 22.25 and 22.6 inches in length 
respectively. 
On this pottery deposit also lay a chisel-shaped ceremonial axe of slate, 9.1 
inches in length. А drinking-cup wrought from a conch-shell (/ulgur perversum), 
whose excellent state of preservation made us regret the entire absence of incised 
decoration upon it, was at the edge of the pottery deposit, as was a large mussel- 
shell (Unto) in fragments. 
On the base, among the pottery, resting against a water-bottle of a kind unusual 
in the region and probably brought from Missouri (Plate XX XVII), lay a human 
lower jaw having an end of the ceremonial axe we have referred to lying upon it. 
This jaw, which is in an excellent state of preservation, far better than were the 
bones of the skeleton, had no connection anatomically with the skeleton, which had 
a mandible in place. The detached jaw bears numerous scratches and marks of 
scraping, which seemingly indicate that the flesh was removed from the jaw with 
the aid of some instrument preparatory to preservation. The mandible, moreover, 
is smooth, even almost polished in places as if it had been in possession of its sec- 
ondary owner for a considerable period of time. Its excellent state of preservation 
calls to mind that of many bone tools which have thoroughly hardened before inhu- 
mation, and whose state of preservation usually excels that of the skeleton with 
which the tools are found. This human jaw was evidently a valued possession of 
the occupant of the grave, when alive, and, found under these conditions, it opens 
a wide field for speculation.  . 
Beneath the pottery deposit were a number of fragments of sandstone, several 
seemingly intentionally shaped, one being in the form of a rudely-fashioned, six- 
pointed star. One bit of sandstone in the lot was grooved by sharpening of pointed 
implements, as was a small flat mass of ferruginous sandstone that lay with it. 
Filling the western corner of the base of the pit was a layer of pottery vessels, 
badly crushed, fragments mingled together in almost inextricable confusion. These 
vessels had been piled one upon another to form a great deposit, and when the pit 
By this we do not mean the right-hand side of the observer as he stands facing the grave, but 
the side to the right of the skeleton as it lay. We shall | i -hand in this 
sense throughout our descriptions of graves: M АРУ Пиш ight. and tel aan 
