134 CERTAIN ABORIGINAL MOUNDS OF THE GEORGIA COAST. 



Ossabaw Island, Bryan County. Bluff Field, Mound C. 



This mound, in a portion of the field used for the cultivation of rice, lay in low 

 ground which was drained by us before proceeding to investigate, and even then the 

 presence of water was a hindrance. The mound, which had been much dug into by 

 negroes living on the island, was about 150 yards N. of Mound B and had a height 

 of 30 inches, which in no wise represented its original altitude. A diameter of 50 

 feet, which more than included the mound, was taken, and the circumference dug 

 through with the exception of where a former trench had been excavated. 



The mound offered no structural feature of interest. Sherds were fairly 

 abundant, the majority decorated with the complicated stamp. 



A mass of coral, about thrice the size of a clenched hand, lay, unassociated. 



With no interment, but doubtless belonging to one previously removed, were a 

 number of shell beads. 



A grooved pebble-hammer and one-half of a sandstone hone lay separately, 

 loose in the sand. A portion of a tobacco pipe, with projecting knobs upon the 

 bowl, came from midden refuse. 



In the entire mound human remains were met with at but three points. 



Burial No. 1, Vessel A, the lower portion of a large imperforate vessel with 

 complicated stamp, the upper part plowed away, filled with calcined human bones. 

 With them were : a chert nodule ; an oblong piece of chert, showing a certain 

 amount of chipping ; a fragment of chert ; and part of a lance head of the same 

 material. 



Burial No. 2, 5 feet W., 1 foot down, on the bottom of a small pit was a deposit 

 of fragments of calcined human bones, 1.5 inches thick at the start, 18 inches across 

 and extending inward 17 inches where it attained a thickness of 3 inches. Above 

 a portion of this deposit were a number of good sized fragments from several 

 vessels. The decoration on two sherds was of interest. On one (Fig. 78), in relief, 

 was an encircled point, sometimes an emblem of the sun-god, also a symbol of the 

 Mayas and found in Europe on the painted pebbles of Mas d'Azil. 1 The other is 

 shown in Fig. 79. 



Professor Holmes, "considering the locality," is "inclined to regard them as 

 merely ornaments or parts of patterns." 



Thomas Wilson, Esq., writes of them as follows : 



" The signs or marks which you have found on the pottery in * * * * * 

 Georgia, and about which you wrote me, have been noticed by me during my inves- 

 tigations of the Swastika sign. But I have never been able to find any connection 

 between them and the Swastika, nor to find them in such association as to induce 

 me to believe that they had either a symbolic or ideographic character, or were other 

 than the mere decoration or ornamentation which we find in so many hundreds of 

 other forms on the respective implements and objects of prehistoric times." 

 Professor Putnam takes a different view. He says : 



1 Of, and after, the period of the reindeer. " Les Galets Colories du Mas d'Azil" IJ Anthropo- 

 logic (supplement). Juillet-AoiU, 1896. PI. XI, Fig. 9. 



