134 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. 118 



feet in diameter and 10 feet high at the center, is situated on a 

 bluff overlooking the river on the north side. The mound lies on a 

 part of the old Cross estate which was purchased by Dr. Taylor. 

 In the Cross family, the history of the mound goes back well over 

 100 years. One of the Cross heirs who lived nearby said that, to 

 the best of his knowledge, it had never been disturbed or cultivated. 



The mound was evidently constructed as a burial mound. The 

 burials were at all levels, varying from the original ground surface 

 to within a few inches of the present mound surface. The mound 

 was in a woodland, and growing on it were 12 large trees — hickory, 

 oak, pine, cedar, and elm — the largest of which was 17 inches in 

 diameter, as shown in plate 88, b. The roots of these trees had 

 penetrated the mound in all directions, which permitted the en- 

 trance of water and disturbed the arrangement of the burials. In 

 consequence of this root penetration, the skeletal material was, in 

 general, in very poor condition. 



The mound rested partly upon a well-defined humus layer of the 

 old forest floor, which was 6 inches thick, but within the mound 

 no stratification was discernible. The earth forming the mound 

 was clean clay mixed with humus and containing many large stones. 

 It contained no charcoal, shell, potsherds, or other evidence of 

 having been gathered from a village site. In fact, neither in the 

 mound nor in its vicinity was there any evidence that a village site 

 had existed in the immediate neighborhood. Sixteen adult burials, 

 which were surprisingly devoid of artifacts, were found in the 

 mound. The vertical profiles above the burials showed no evidence 

 of intrusion; that is, there seemed to be no evidence that graves 

 were dug into the mound after its completion. The evidence, on 

 the other hand, seemed to show that the bodies were laid on the 

 surface of the ground and covered with earth. The repetition of 

 this process produced the mound as it existed when excavation 

 was begun. 



The mound was staked in 5-foot blocks, as shown in the ground 

 plat (fig. 56), and a trench 5 feet wide was cut down on all four 

 sides of the staked area. The northeast corner stake was designated 

 0.0, the integers marking blocks southward and the decimals desig- 

 nating blocks westward. This photograph is a view of the south- 

 west of the 0.6 wall and the humus line is clearly shown by the 

 dark band 6 inches above the trench floor on the vertical profile. 

 However, on the 0.7 wall many large native rocks — the outcropping 

 from lower ledges — were encountered with no humus line above 

 them. When the south trench, shown in plate 89, a, and the east 

 trench, shown in plate 89, 5, were cut down, a much larger number 

 of these native stones was encountered. They were weathered, and 



