webb] ARCHAEOLOGICAL SURVEY OP NORRIS BASIN 25 



these sherds were soft and crumbling and many were on the point 

 of complete disintegration. This condition may point to a consider- 

 able age for the site, or it may indicate a soil particularly active 

 chemically. From the nature of the sherds found one would not 

 suspect that their present condition could be attributed to the poor 

 quality of the original product. The sherds found seemed to indi- 

 cate only large vessels of utility of coarse texture. There was no 

 evidence of tempering other than shell. Plain ware, textile im- 

 pressed, and grass-paddled sherds were about equally distributed. 

 The only other form of exterior decoration consisted of handles. 

 All handles were round in cross section and had an extension above 

 the rim. 



No burials were found in this site, although there was a local 

 history of skeletons having been plowed up in this field some 10 

 years prior to this investigation. 



Conclusion 



Site No. 2 seems to have been a village of sufficient importance to 

 warrant the erection of a town house in its midst. Town houses 

 were earth-covered, and when the first town house was destroyed by 

 fire a second was erected on the same spot. A village had existed at 

 this location prior to the erection of a town house. 



Where post-mold patterns were discernible such patterns were 

 rectangular in both town houses and dwelling houses in the village. 

 There is no positive evidence that dwelling houses were earth-cov- 

 ered. The opinion is expressed that the mound was formed solely 

 by the collapse of earth-covered town houses erected in succession 

 on the same spot. 



Site No. 3.— SALTPETER CAVE 



This cave, which was located on the land of Mr. Stoke Meredith, 

 was 11 miles east of La Follette, in Campbell County, Tenn. It was 

 2 miles west of Powell River and about 5 miles up the river from its 

 mouth. About 50 yards from the entrance to the cave there was a 

 spring which might have been used by the prehistoric inhabitants of 

 the site. 



The cave faces nearly due east. Its appearance was very different 

 from that which it must have presented in prehistoric times. The 

 bank of earth in front of the entrance was caused in part by the 

 erosion of soil from the hillside above the cave mouth and in part by 

 other factors. During the Civil War the Confederate Army used 

 the cave as a source of saltpeter. Large piles of earth and ashes, 

 the by-products of the process of extracting the niter from the soil, 



