CERTAIN ABORIGINAL MOUNDS, CENTRAL FLORIDA W.-COAST. 437 



the plan of the mound as it seemed to us. The material is white sand ; the height 

 somewhat under 4 feet. The length is 100 feet; the maximum breadth, about 70 

 feet. 



Three holes, each 12 feet square, and three others, each 6 feet square, were dug 

 by us. In several places was sand tinged with hematite and one skeleton closely 

 flexed on the left side, about two feet from the surface, was met with. This burial 

 had a recent appearance and impressed us as being intrusive. 



No artifact of any sort was found. 



For accounts of additional, but unimportant mounds in this district just north 

 of Tampa hay, see our " Antiquities of the Florida West-Coast," Journal of the 

 Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, Vol. XL 



In the district of which this paper treats was no new form of burial. 



Calcined human bones were found upon several occasions, but these were prob- 

 ably connected with other burials as is usually the case when calcined remains are 

 found in peninsular Florida. 



No urn-burials were met with, nor had our previous experience in the peninsula 

 led us to anticipate their discovery. Incidentally, the southeasternmost urn-burial 

 we have found in Florida was on Marsh Island, Ocklockonee bay, which belongs to 

 the mainland portion of Florida (see outline map). 



Cranial flattening, which Bernard Romans says was practised by the Choctaws, 

 was not seen by us on any skull in the mounds of the central Florida west-coast, 

 though the reader of our reports on the northwest coast will recall that the custom 

 was extensively practised there. 



The custom to inter general deposits of earthenwai'e in blackened sand did not 

 obtain along the central west-coast, and the life-form in earthenware was not met 

 with,^ save in the case of one human effigy-vessel and a very highly conventionalized 

 life-form consisting of six protuberances representing head, tail and four legs. Bird- 

 head handles, however, were found. Loop-shaped handles were met with occa- 

 sionally and seemingly show the influence of regions farther north. 



Ceremonial vessels having, in the body, a number of large holes made before 

 the firing of the clay, were not found along the central west-coast, though, as the 

 reader may recall, they are present in numbers in the mounds of the northwest 

 coast of Florida. 



The small check-stamp was everywhere met with, and the complicated stamp 

 was found once as far south as the Pithlochascootie river, which is considerably 

 farther south than it was found by us on the St. Johns river. The complicated 

 stamp, however, varies but slightly in pattern along the central west-coast where 

 but little is met with that does not consist of combinations of concentric circles. 



While, as we have stated, the ware, as a rule, was inferior, yet excellent ware 

 with artistic decoration, punctate and incised, was in the possession of the aborigines 



' Life forms in earthenware are not met with, practically, south of the Warrior river (see outline 

 map). 



