114 CERTAIN ABORIGINAL MOUNDS OF THE GEORGIA COAST. 



The mound, as the detailed description will show, was riddled with pits, the 

 lower parts of which were clearly distinguishable when extending into undisturbed 

 sand. The parts of the pits in the body of the mound, having been filled with the 

 sand removed during their excavation, resembled so closely the sand surrounding 

 them, that the exact limits were impossible to define. These pits', it was quite 

 evident, were of the period of the mound, many showing no admixture with the 

 dark sand of the upper layer or of shell, though a layer or layers of shell often lay 

 above them. Some, however, showed dark sand in places, but these also at times 

 were underneath undisturbed shell and were doubtless made prior to the completion 

 of the mound. In almost no case could we distinguish the exact beginning of a pit. 



Skeletal remains, so numerous in this mound (we have reference to those 

 outside the mortuary vessels), were in a fairly good state of preservation compared 

 to many we have encountered elsewhere, though with one exception, which is 

 particularly noted in the detailed description, no crania were saved, owing to their 

 crushed condition. 



In following the detailed description, whose numbering corresponds with that 

 of the diagram (Fig. 66), the lay reader must not confuse the three forms of urn- 



•-X&S 



yellow sclkcL. 





Mixed s<W 



Fig. 65. — Section of central portion of Mound D.i 



burial present in this mound ; namely, skeletal remains of infants, unaffected by 

 fire ; the remains of single individuals, which had undergone cremation, and urns 

 filled with a confused mass of fragments of calcined human bones belonging to 

 individuals of all ages. Where fire had been employed it is distinctly stated. 



Two arrowheads or knives of chert, several bits of chert and pebble-hammers, 

 some fragmentary, lay loose in the sand, as also the lower part of a broad chisel of 

 ferruginous shale, having a thin section and a sharp cutting edge. 



Burial No. 1, a pit, or grave, located 24 feet W. by N. from the point taken 

 as the center of the surface of the mound, as are all other similar measurements of 

 superficial distance in our detailed account, was in a portion of the mound where 

 the central shell layer had not begun, the shell layer X shown in the diagram and 

 in Fig. 67, which gives an accurate idea of the grave, being of a purely local 

 character. In the bottom of this grave, which extended into the undisturbed 



1 The " yellow sand " in the section is undisturbed sand. 



