290 CERTAIN ABORIGINAL REMAINS OF THE ALABAMA RIVER. 



The Mobile river, running mainly through swamps, could have offered few sites 

 for aboriginal abode ; but the banks of the Alabama, though swampy in places, often 

 rise into lofty bluffs, and on them might be expected mounds far exceeding in 

 number those which seem to be present. In many places pebbles, chips of stone, 

 sherds, arrowpoints, mussel-shells, indicating dwelling sites, strew the surface, and 

 we think it likely that, as mounds are so often wanting near such sites, the people 

 who lived there buried rather in cemeteries, which, unmarked above the surface, 

 have escaped notice. 



But even allowing for many places of sepulture not located by us, it is not 

 likely the borders of the Mobile and Alabama rivers were as thickly settled as were 

 those of Florida's greatest river. The shad which visit the St. Johns, the bass so 

 abundant in its clear waters, are wanting in the Mobile and Alabama rivers. In 

 the great Florida stream, shell-fish were so abundant that shell-heaps covering acres 

 remain along the banks, some a score of feet in thickness. Along the Mobile are 

 shell-heaps of insignificant size, while on the Alabama scattered shells only mark 

 former places of abode. But even apart from these considerations, it must be borne 

 in mind that the Mobile and lower Alabama run largely through swampy ground, 

 malarial in summer, a fact which aborigines choosing a place of abode would doubt- 

 less take into consideration. Yet we are told 1 that De Soto found the Mobilian 

 Indians living along the banks of the Alabama, between the present sites of Mont- 

 gomery and Mobile, and later, remnants of the Mobilians dwelt near the coast ; 

 bands of Alabamas were settled from the union of the Coosa and Tallapoosa to 

 below where Montgomery now stands ; Creeks and Choctaws occupied other portions 

 of the river. Still these Indians had villages on elevated points, doubtless avoiding 

 the swamps, and did not line the banks as did the Indians of the St. Johns. 



No systematic investigation of the Mobile and Alabama rivers has been made 

 previous to our own. In the Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology 2 we find 

 brief notices of investigation conducted at two points on the Alabama river, one of 

 which is not definitely located ; but beyond this we believe excavations have been 

 limited to ignorant search for treasure or to the spasmodic digging of the seeker 

 after relics. 



Aboriginal Remains Investigated. 



Mound near Twenty-One-Mile Bluff, Mobile county (Mobile river). 



Mound near Twenty-Four-Mile Bend, Mobile county (Mobile river). 



Mound near Little river, Monroe county. 



Mound near Potts' Landing, Monroe county. 



Morrisette Mound, Clarke county. 



Cemetery at Nancy Harris Landing, Monroe county. 



Mound near Webb's Landing, Wilcox county. 



Mound near Burford's Landing, Wilcox county. 



1 "The History of Alabama," Pickett. Reprinted 1896. 



2 1890-91, page 289-290. 



