514 CERTAIN ABORIGINAL REMAINS OF THE TOMBIGBEE RIVER, 



they are on the Alabama, but there is no history of their discovery and nowhere 

 along the river, on the surface, did we find fragments of vessels that seemed to 

 have been for other than household use, judging from the fact that they formed 

 parts of comparatively small vessels. 



Readers of our Report on the Alabama river may recall that in connection 

 with one burial only on all that river was cremation met with by us. On the 

 Tombigbee, it was not found at all. Now, in peninsular Florida, cremation is 

 met with to a certain extent. Cremated bones are found sometimes lying mixed 

 with unburnt bones and calcined fragments of human bones lie in or near fire- 

 places, though we do not recall having met with there on any occasion, masses 

 of calcined fragments away from unburnt bones and with no fire-place in the 

 vicinity, such as we found so often in Georgia. Still, the use of fire in connection 

 with burials obtained at times in the mounds of the peninsula, though it was far 

 from general. Cremation then, in the peninsula, such as it was, can hardly have 

 reached there from southern Alabama where its use was so extremely limited, 

 especially as the use of fire in connection with human remains was not met with 

 by us in that portion of northwestern Florida through which it would have to 

 pass to reach the peninsula from Alabama, We must look, therefore, we think, 

 to Georgia as the territory through which cremation passed to reach Florida for. in 

 Georgia, isolated pockets of fragments of cremated bones ; masses of cremated 

 fragments, placed on the ground and covered with inverted vessels ; and vessels 

 filled with cremated remains and capped by inverted bowls were plentifully met 

 with by us. 



