354 CERTAIN ABORIGINAL REMAINS OF THE NW. FLORIDA COAST. 



kind was often carefully examined by us for charcoal, but none was found, nor was 

 adjacent sand burnt or discolored as by fire. In our account of the mound at West 

 Bay post-office, in the early part of this volume, we have stated that a sample of 

 this blackened sand, examined chemically and microscopically, showed its color to be 

 due to carbonaceous matter, very probably of animal origin, and that the material, 

 in all probability, could not have come from anything in the vegetable line. As 

 this report is not intended for popular reading, in all probability our readers are as 

 able to draw conclusions as we are. It would seem to us, however, that masses of 

 animal matter, incinerated in a way to escape mixture with charcoal, have been 

 mingled with sand which was placed in that part of the mound devoted to deposits 

 of earthenware, put in for the dead in common. What these masses of flesh con- 

 sisted of we are unable to decide. If the flesh belonged to lower animals and the 

 bones were not removed before burning, and it seems unlikely that they should have 

 been, the incineration must have been complete, as particles of half-burnt bone are 

 not present in the sand. 



If we suppose, on the other hand, that the flesh which we know was some- 

 times stripped from human skeletons when taken from the dead-house, was cremated, 

 the absence of particles of bone can be accounted for. We think this latter suppo- 

 sition the more probable since aboriginal cremation did not seem to reduce bones in 

 a thorough way, judging from our rather extensive experience of the matter in the 

 mounds of Georgia. 



Burials of human remains, also, were in greater numbers in the eastern portions 

 of the mounds, sometimes being there and in the central parts, exclusively. In 

 other cases, however, human remains were met with throughout the entire mound. 



No new feature as to form of burial was noted during this season's work. The 

 lone skull, the bunch, the flexed burial, the burial at length were met with ; also 

 loose bones scattered here and there. The urn-burial, also, was found in two locali- 

 ties. 



The question of urn-burial in Florida is an interesting (uie since we Ivnow the 

 custom to have been largely in vogue in Alabama and in Georgia, and yet there is no 

 evidence ^ of the extension of the custom into peninsular Florida. 



We have seen how large bowls were put over skulls at Perdido bay, the boun- 

 dary between Alabama and Florida, and how the custom, continuing eastward into 

 Florida, was noted along Santa Rosa sound and at the eastern extremity of Choc- 

 tawhatchee bay, where, also, in one instance, an inverted bowl was found covering 

 another bowl containing human remains. 



This season we have remarked the existence of a cemetery with urn-burials still 

 farther east, at the town of St. Andrews, and have found a single urn-burial in a 

 mound on Ocklockonee bay farther yet to th« eastward, though still on the mainland. 



Beyond this point, in all Florida, we have met with no example of urn-burial, 

 nor is there one on record. 



' With the exception of a statement made in a newspaper b_y an investigator of a single mound 

 and omitted from his official report. 



