CERTAIN ABORIGINAL MOUNDS, COAST OF SOUTH CAROLINA. 165 



Near the mound was a considerable rise in the ground having a height of about 

 2 feet. It was dug through to a certain extent and proved to be a dwelling site 

 made up of rich clayey sand filled with organic matter and containing many bones 

 of lower animals, also numerous sherds and a slight sprinkling of oyster-shells. 



Mound on Polleewahnee Island, Beaufort County. 



Polleewahnee island, practically a part of St. Helena, is separated from that 

 island by a small run. In a cultivated field containing shell deposits and having 

 others in the vicinity, on the property of a colored family named Williams, about 

 one mile north-northwest from Indian hill, is a mound 5 feet 10 inches in height, the 

 sides of which, toward the base, have undergone extended cultivation. On the 

 upper portion were good sized live-oaks and a palmetto. The mound was so spread 

 out through continuous ploughing that it was impossible to determine its boundaries. 

 A point judged to be the center of the summit was taken as the center of a circle 

 having a diameter of 80 feet. The mound, thoroughly examined, proved to be 

 without artifacts or burials. 



A short distance away was a midden deposit similar to that near Indian hill. 



The deposits of oyster-shells, evidence of dwelling sites throughout all the 

 territory visited by us along the South Carolina coast were comparatively insignifi- 

 cant, being mainly confined to shells scattered over fields. It would seem then that 

 the use of the oyster as an article of diet by the coast Indians decreased going 

 northward, since the shell deposits of South Carolina are greatly exceeded by those 

 of Georgia, which, in their turn, yield the palm to the mighty masses of shell along 

 the Florida coast. Whether the restricted use of shell-fish for food on the South 

 Carolina coast arose from a less bountiful supply of molluscs, a preference for other 

 articles of diet on the part of the aborigines, or a sparse population, we are unable 

 to decide. 



A limited habitation would account for the scarcity of mounds domiciliary and 

 sepulchral. The small number of mounds, however, could be explained under 

 another hypothesis. The sea-islands of the Georgia coast in entirety or in large 

 tracts are held by individual owners. Some islands are kept as game preserves and 

 large parts of others lie fallow. Mounds on these islands have suffered less by 

 cultivation than many on the sea-islands of South Carolina, where often the 

 territory is divided into very small tracts, which are carefully and continuously 

 tilled by their owners whose whole support they are. It is not unlikely, then, that 

 what is left of some places of aboriginal sepulture along the South Carolina coast is 

 no longer visible. Still, such mounds as have been investigated would doubtless be 

 representative of those no longer evident. 



These mounds, as may be seen from their description, may be divided into two 

 classes : larger mounds used for domiciliary purposes and low mounds used for burial. 



In the low burial mounds, as an almost invariable rule, burials were found 

 well in toward the center, the only exceptions being a mound at Hasell point and 



