430 CERTAIN ABORIGINAL REMAINS OF THE N. W. FLORIDA COAST. 



imperforate, has incised decoration. Its maximum diameter is 5.1 inches; its 

 height, 3 inches. This vase lay inverted, but unassociated with human remains. 

 Probably recent digging had removed them. 



In form and style of decoration the vessels surmounting burials in the Bear 

 Point mound resemble somewhat those found by us capping urns on the Alabama 

 river, but while the earthenware on the Alabama usually contains a large admix- 

 ture of pounded shell, that of Bear Point, as a rule, has no shell, and where it is 

 present, it is finely powdered and appears here and there in the vessel sparsely. 



Sherds came from the mound in great numbers and in considerable variety. 

 Some had been dropped singly during the making of 

 the mound, while others lay 

 together in undisturbed sand. 

 On the surface, where diggers 

 had thrown it, was much bro- 

 ken ware, and quantities lay 

 in their refilled excavations. 



lune-tmra size.; p IG 9._D eC oration on sherd. Mound at 



Among the Sherds, loose in the Bear Point, (One-third size.) 



sand, were several with complicated stamp decoration. 



Others had the loop-shaped handle so common in the middle Mississippi district 

 and which we found along the Alabama river. Fig. 8 shows a "wall of Troy" 

 decoration from a sherd in the Bear Point mound. Another sherd has a complica- 

 ted and very neatly incised decoration as shown in Fig. 9. Various animal heads, 

 handles of vessels, were met with, several together beneath the roots of a large tree. 



In Fig. 10 we show a number of these handles of vessels : a, probably the head 

 of a deer ; b, a human head with the ears pierced, a duplicate to one found near by, 

 doubtless from the same vessel; c, a quail's head; d, undetermined; e, head of a 

 duck ; /, a rabbit's head. 



Throughout the mound, with human remains at times and again loose in the 

 sand, where perhaps they had been thrown by recent digging, were many pieces of 

 red oxide of iron of a bright crimson color, some showing where parts had been 

 chipped off, probably for grinding, and others having a concave surface where 

 material had been rubbed out for use as paint. With the red oxide, at places, was 

 limonite for yellow paint. When Cabeca de Vaca was living with the aborigines of 

 Charruco he made little trading trips to the westward going to the same Perdido 

 bay where we found this paint in such abundance. He tells us (page 54), "such 

 were what I carried into the interior * * * [conches that are used for cutting, 

 etc.] , and in barter for them I brought back skins, ochre with which they rub and 

 color their faces, and flint for arrow T points, cement and hard canes of which to make 

 arrows, and tassels that are made of the hair of deer, ornamented and dyed red." 



Five hammer-stones lay together. 



Loose in the sand, but probably in many cases disassociated from human 

 remains by the constant digging to which the mound had been subjected, were : 

 many hammer-stones ; pebble-hammers ; hones deeply grooved by sharpening of 



