206 CERTAIN SAND MOUNDS OF 



NOTES AND CONCLUSIONS. 

 Period of Construction of the Mounds of the St. John's. 



That the reader may be placed on an equal footing with ourselves in consider- 

 ing the probable age of the sand mounds of the St. John's River, we will give a 

 brief resume of the results of all our investigations. During the years devoted by 

 us to mound exploration on the river, we have seriously investigated about seventy- 

 five sand mounds, the majority of which we have levelled to the base, while the 

 remainder have received far from superficial attention. 



In a number of these mounds, possibly half a dozen, we have found, super- 

 ficially, articles of iron, glass, etc., buried with later Indians, presumably in pre- 

 existing mounds, since, with other burials in the body of these mounds, articles of a 

 like nature were not encountered. Thursby Mound was a good example of this, 

 where, it will be remembered, iron implements lay near the surface, while at 

 greater depth none but objects of aboriginal manufacture were met with, though the 

 mound was completely demolished. 



At Raulerson's, burials had been made at a late period on a pre-existing shell 

 heap, and covered with a foot or two of sand. 



But one mound on the St. John's has shown human remains, other than super- 

 ficial, associated with objects of European manufacture, namely, the low mound at 

 Bayard Point. 



The reader, turning to our description of this mound, will find that muskets? 

 tools of iron, bullets, bits of glass, and beads of the same material, with a red paint 

 of commerce, cinnabar, lay in association with the dead, and it is our opinion that 

 the discovery of this small mound, with its profusion of articles obtained from the 

 Whites, serves clearly to illustrate the tendency of the Indians to inter such pos- 

 sessions with the departed, and emphasizes the character of the mound. 



In considering the question of the period of the construction of the mounds of 

 the St. John's, having no data as to their existence at the time of the Discovery, 

 though others are reported in regions not far removed, we are compelled to rely 

 mainly on negative evidence. 



Now negative evidence, while not absolutely final, is generally accepted where 

 a sufficient amount is confronted by none of a positive character, and many things 

 universally admitted as facts are established by negative evidence alone. In this 

 dearth of positive information the story of the mounds must be told by the char- 

 acter of their contents, and inferred from what they do not contain. 



We know it to have been a common custom to inter with the dead, possessions 

 in general use. With superficial burials we find a great variety of articles furnished 

 by the Whites, and highly prized by the aborigines. 



We think then, it must be admitted that on the St. John's, as elsewhere, what 

 the Indians had they interred with the departed, and that when in an entire mound 

 no articles of European manufacture are met with, an explanation must be sought 



