SKULLS FROM THE MOUNDS. 529 



covered with them."* It will be observed from the preceding plates, that the 

 people who interred their dead in the mounds were in the practice of distorting 

 the skull by art, both in the horizontal and vertical methods ; and if I may judge 

 from the nine adult mound skulls now in my possession, and sufficiently perfect 

 for measurement, the people whom they represent were one and the same with 

 the American race, and probably of the Toltecan branch. Thus, the mean 

 internal capacity of these heads is but eighty-one cubic inches, or a little more 

 than the mean of the American race, while the facial angle does not exceed the 

 average of that people, or seventy-five degrees. These facts, together with an 

 inspection of many of the long bones found in the mounds, satisfy me that the 

 constructors were neither a gigantic race as asserted by some writers, nor a 

 diminutive people as averred by others ;t but of the ordinary stature of the 

 American Indians. The preceding data are to me also conclusive evidence that 

 the occupants of the mounds were not Mongols, nor Hindoos, nor Jews : yet there 

 are two articles found in these sepulchres which are not readily accounted for. 

 One of these is the ivory beads described by Dr. Clemens : that gentleman declares 

 that he is not mistaken in the material, and from his account the ornamental use 

 of it must have been by no means inconsiderable. The other objects to which I 

 allude are stones of a discoidal form, with or without a central hole, between 

 which and the margin is a circular groove ; the periphery being mostly convex. 

 Now it is remarkable that these quoit-like stones (which moreover closely resemble 

 the calculi of the Romans) are not unfrequently found among the antiquities of 

 Scandinavia.f Those found in Europe and America differ in nothing from each 

 other, but the uses to which they were put are unknown. The discovery and 

 partial occupancy of this country by the Scandinavians, long before the time of 

 Columbus, is now well established ; and this fact may possibly account for the 

 occurrence, in the mounds, of the apparently exotic articles of which we have just 

 spoken. 



That the fortifications and other ancient structures of our western country, 

 belong to the same era and people with the mounds, seems probable from the 

 circumstance of their almost constantly occurring together ; nor is there any thing 



* Voy. I, p. 366. — For recent mounds in Florida, see Bartram, Trav. in Florida, p. 517. — Bossu, 

 Trav. p. 298. 



t Atwater, Silliman's Amer. Joiir. of Science and Art, II, p. 224. 



X See Journal of the Antiquarian Society of Denmark, published in Copenhagen in the Danish 

 language, Vol. I, Tab. II, Fig. S2, 53. 

 58 



