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



tools; over one dozen arrowheads or knives; two "celts" apparently of sedimen- 

 tary rock, each over five inches in length ; two small chisels , seven discoidal 

 stones of various rocks, including porphyry 1 and shaly ferruginous sandstone, 1.1 

 to 2.75 inches in diameter. 



In this mound, for the first time in our experience, we met with a form of 

 burial where a solitary skull, or a skull with a few bones, is covered by an inverted 

 bowl. In peninsular Florida w T e have not found vessels used to cover interments. 

 In Georgia, urns containing single skeletons and capped by inverted bowls are 

 found, also cremated remains similarly treated or placed upon the ground with a 

 bowl turned over them. On the Alabama river, where we met with crema- 

 tion but once, we found large vessels, capped by others inverted, sometimes 

 containing remains of several individuals. The reader will see that the form of 

 burial noticed at the Bear Point mound continues along the upper part of the 

 Florida coast. 



In the Bear Point mound were many objects of European provenance, showing- 

 some of the burials at least to be of post-Columbian date. This mound clearly 

 adds to the force of what we have always maintained, that when articles were 

 valued by the aborigines, they were interred with the dead, and that it is unlikely 

 that a mound of any size containing no objects showing white contact, was made 

 after intercourse with whites was begun. 



Mound near Bear Point, Perdido Bay, Baldwin County, Ala. 



About one mile W. S. W. from Bear Point, in a garden belonging to Mr. Bill, 

 resident on the place, is a mound with shell-fields adjoining. The mound, much 

 spread by continual ploughing, has a present height of 30 inches, a base diameter 

 of 48 feet. It is impossible to estimate the original dimensions and inadvisable to 

 give them from hearsay. The entire southern half of the mound, from the margin 

 and central parts of the northern portion, were dug through by us showing the 

 mound to be of unstratified sand. There had been some comparatively recent 

 disturbance. 



Burials were first encountered 19 feet from the center. Seven in all were met 

 with, consisting of bunches of bones badly decayed, rather loosely deposited, some- 

 times with, and sometimes without, the skull. 



Two arrowheads, one of quartz, were with the burials, also numerous sherds, 

 the small check-stamp predominating. Others were undecorated or had incised 

 lines or punctate markings, or a larger check-stamp. Several bits of fine, smooth 

 ware bore bright crimson paint. None of the sherds, so far as noticed, had inter- 

 mixture of pounded shell, though ware of this kind lay on the surface of adjacent 

 shell-heaps. 



In the mound, also, were hammer-stones, hones and bitumen which, as we 

 have said, was used as cement. 



1 Theodore D. Rand, Esq., of the Academy of Natural Sciences, has kindly determined for us 

 the rocks mentioned in this Report, as accurately as possible without mutilation of specimens. 



