webb] ARCHAEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF NORRIS BASIN 217 



Annual Report. This disturbance of these mounds has assisted ero- 

 sion during the last half century. This erosion has reduced their 

 height ; and, in some ways, the mounds were practically destroyed at 

 the time of investigation. Even in the case of those mounds which 

 suffered considerable disturbance, however, enough evidence of their 

 location remains today to easily check the map of Timberlake and to 

 demonstrate its accuracy. 



Because of this disturbance, which, according to the report of 

 Thomas, was very general and thorough in most of the larger mounds, 

 there remains but little hope of finding evidence in the mounds men- 

 tioned of town-house structures. The evidence sought — of structures, 

 which were raised of logs, thatched with cane, covered with earth, and 

 perhaps burned and allowed to collapse so that the earth on the roof 

 might permit another structure to be built on the same site — has been 

 destroyed. However, a careful study of the reports of these excava- 

 tions as presented by Thomas seems definitely to show that the 

 excavators did find collapsed and burned town houses in these mounds, 

 although they did not recognize their finds as such, and seemingly had 

 little idea of the real significance of their observations. Although 

 they found burials in a number of these mounds, the interpretation 

 seems to be in error, for the excavators appear to have regarded the 

 burials, where they were found, as the chief features. The opinion is 

 here ventured that the burials were probably intrusive into a mound 

 formed by the collapse of one or more structures which had been built 

 on the site. The burials were not, as the excavators seemed to think, 

 the most important features of the mounds and the reason for their 

 erection. That is to say, no matter how many burials may have been 

 found in any of the larger mounds, the mounds were not properly 

 called burial mounds; i. e., they were not erected for the primary 

 purpose of making a place for burials. They rather represent the 

 collapse of one or more village town houses. 



In this connection it is interesting to examine Thomas' report on 

 several of these mounds, and to suggest a reinterpretation of his find- 

 ings in the light of the facts obtained from the Norris Basin. These 

 extracts of the reports of Thomas are taken from the Twelfth Annual 

 Eeport of the Bureau of American Ethnology. 



Mound No. 1, on the farm of Mr. Boyd McMurray, was known 

 to have been on the site of Chilhowey. Of this mound Thomas says : 



Mound No. 1, circular in form, 4 feet high, and with an average diameter 

 of about 100 feet, was examined by cutting a broad trench through the center 

 from side to side and down to the original soil. No indications of burial were 

 observed nor anything of interest found, except a large fire bed. This was 

 on the original surface of the ground exactly at the center of the mound. It 

 consisted of a layer of burnt clay between 7 and 8 feet in diameter and from 

 4 to 6 inches thick, and was covered with ashes ; encircling the margin was a 



