60 CERTAIN SAND MOUNDS OF 



mound in Jefferson Co., Tenn. Professor Haynes is of the opinion that objects of 

 this type were used in the weaving of baskets. 1 



In some of the western mounds we learn of their manufacture from the bone 

 of the elk. A peculiar interest attaches itself to the specimen at Tick Island. 

 Professor Cope is of the opinion that in all probability this implement was made 

 from the delicate femur of a young person or of a woman, from which continued 

 scraping has removed all traces of the linea aspera. 



We have seen that objects, probably used as gorgets, were made from the human 

 skull, but the record of implements wrought from the shaft of human long bones is 

 meager indeed in this country. Professor Wyman reports 2 the finding of a worked 

 humerus in a Massachusetts shell heap. Professor Haynes exhibited to the Boston 

 Society of Natural History 3 an implement made from the upper half of a human 

 humerus. " The ball of the joint forms the handle, while the shank has been cut 

 down one-half and sharpened to a point." 



The use of human bones as implements was not unknown in pre-historic Europe. 



During the first excavation two portions of the human skull were found, one 

 with two perforations of about the diameter of an ordinary lead pencil, the second 

 with a similar hole in the center and the evidence of another on its margin. 

 These perforations are too small to suggest trephining. The fragments were 

 probably portions of gorgets or head ornaments. We are told of perforated por- 

 tions of crania found in Canada, of one of which we read that it " may have been 

 interlaced with brightly dyed grasses, feathers or porcupine quills, and thus worn on 

 the breast, or it may have formed a base of adornment for head gear. 4 



Six and one-half feet from the surface, in the white sand layer, with a 

 quantity of shell beads, was a lump of galena, coated with carbonate. One foot 

 above in the brown sand layer was an interesting deposit of long pins and bodkins 

 of bone. With one exception, all were in fragmentary condition, though three per- 

 mitted of subsequent restoration (Figs. 26-31). 



One long pointed implement, broken near the head, had been repaired by the 

 aid of perforations drilled in either fragment near the fracture, for the purpose of 

 attachment through the medium of a cord or sinew for which a groove had been 

 worked on either side (Fig. 26). The head of one needle, the point of which was 

 unfortunately missing, showed considerable artistic taste (Fig. 27). 



Six feet seven inches from the surface, beneath human remains, was a large 

 Fidgur perversum, fashioned into a drinking cup by the removal of the columella 

 and the inner whorls. The aperture was turned toward the surface of the mound, 

 while above it, as if a species of cover, was a large sherd in fragments. Carefully packed 

 within the shell were two small marine shells ; a Fulgur, species canaliculate/,, and 

 a young Murex spinacostata from which the spines had been carefully removed by 

 grinding ; one bone awl, grooved around the head ; a pendant ornament fashioned 



1 Proceedings Boston Society of Natural History, Feb. 15, 1893. 



2 Op. eit., foot note, page 51. 

 ;i Feb. 15, 1893. 



4 Annual Report of the Canadian Institute, 1887, page 53, fig. 107. 



