CERTAIN ABORIGINAL MOUNDS, CENTRAL FLORIDA W.-COAST. 425 



Mound xeak the Wekhvachee River, Pasco County.^ 



The mound, in pine woods, in full view from the Tampa road, was about two 

 miles in a SSE. direction from the mouth of the Wekiwachee river, also called 

 Hammock creek. 



At one side of the mound was a depression whence the sand had been taken, 

 and about 100 yards distant was a fresh-water pond where the aborigines found a 

 supply of w'ater. 



The mound had been dug into, centrally, to a certain extent before we came 

 and bits of bone and fragments of pottery were scattered on the surface. The area 

 of the base, which seemed to have been extended somewhat by the trampling of 

 cattle, was 86 feet by 64 feet. The height of the mound was a tritle over 4 feet. 

 What seemed to be the mound proper, was entirely dug down by us, except small • 

 parts around certain trees. Sand, apparently washed and trampled from above, 

 presumably not belonging to the mound, though in appearance a part of it, was 

 excluded from the investigation. 



Burials were met with from the very start and continued in until a deposit of 

 bones, spread in a layer, was encountered, which occupied all the central part of the 

 mound, at a depth of about two feet from the surface. In this layer, with other 

 bones, were seventy-six skulls, and, doubtless, the digging preceding our own 

 removed certain others. 



The sole, and rather incommensurate, votive offering with this great deposit of 

 bones was a vessel of earthenware, of about one quart capacity, a flattened sphere in 

 shape, having traces of red paint on the exterior and a small mortuary perforation 

 in the base. 



There were also in the mound : 



Bunched burials each having one skull, 

 Bunched burials with two skulls each, . 

 Bunched burials with three skulls each, 

 Bunched burials with four skulls each, . 

 Skeletons closely flexed on the right side, 

 Skeletons closely flexed on the left side, 

 Bunched burial with no skull, 



40 

 11 

 2 

 2 

 5 

 3 

 1 



Four additional burials, each with a single skull, fell with caved sand. 



There was also a small pocket of calcined fragments of human bone, perhaps 

 about one quart in all, present in the mound. 



The condition of the bones was such that no skull was saved. No cranial 

 flattening was noticed on any of the fragments. 



The aborigines who built this mound were not liberal in offerings to the 

 departed, as was indicated by the comparative lack of artifacts with the great 

 deposit. The skeleton of a child had three shell drinking-cups and two unwrought 



' This river must not be confounded with the Wekiwoochee river, some eight miles away. 



54 JOUEN. A. N. S. PHILA., VOL. XII. 



