2L0 CERTAIN SAND MOUNDS OF 



to time articles of value, doubtless through accident, found their way into the heaps 

 of debris, and it is fair to suppose that long-continued and persistent investigation, 

 involving the careful removal of great masses of shell, should yield a representative 

 collection of objects, many, of course, fragmentary, formerly possessed by the 

 makers of the shell-heaps. Beyond a very occasional arrow head, shell-heaps 

 devoid of pottery are Actually barren of relics of aboriginal art, nor in the heaps 

 containing earthenware is the search of the investigator as a rule much more 

 richly rewarded. Possibly an awl of bone or a gouge of shell may be brought to 

 light, but articles of luxury and of adornment are conspicuous by their absence. 



To this there is one marked exception, Mulberry Mound, an island shell-heap 

 near Lake Poinsett, on the southern border of Orange County, rising sixteen feet 

 from the level of the river. This heap, which since our report in the " Naturalist," 

 has again been thoroughly investigated by us during a number of days of April, 

 1894, when an excavation 16 by 24 by 165 feet deep was made, furnished a 

 bewildering list of objects hitherto undiscovered in the river heaps, including 

 gracefully shaped arrow heads; sherds decorated with crimson pigment; imple- 

 ments of bone, including long pins with head decoration ; a fragment of a gorget of 

 shell ; shell chisels and drinking cups ; a rude hatchet of polished stone ; the 

 human figure scratched upon earthenware j 1 a graceful tobacco pipe, 2 and other 

 objects occasionally found in the sand mounds and on the surface of the shell-heaps. 



We believe, therefore, that a considerable divergence of time marks the period 

 of the construction of the shell-heaps. As we have stated, we are unable to deter- 

 mine whether the makers of the earliest shell-heaps interred their dead in mounds 

 of sand. 



It may be suggested by a close reader of this report that certain sand mounds 

 have contained no pottery, and that these mounds may have been the work of the 

 men of presumably the earliest shell-heaps. To this we would reply that, save with 

 burials, no incentive existed for the inhumation of pottery, whole or in sherds, in 

 the sand mounds, and that even in the burial mounds it was simply a matter of 

 custom, almost universally followed, it is true, but still not without exceptions. 

 We have seen how, in the large mound near Thornhill Lake, but two sherds were 

 encountered, evidently of accidental introduction, but undoubtedly of original 

 deposit. The absence of earthenware in a sand mound is no proof that the makers 

 did not possess it. 



It is true we have discovered in Persimmon Mound, a shell-heap, burials 

 on sand in anatomical order, and in Orange Mound, another shell-heap, beneath 

 three feet of shell, a small stratified sand mound containing skeletons, and in 

 neither of these cases were sherds or other objects in association, though in Orange 

 Mound fragmentary potter}' is found with the shell to a certain depth below the 

 surface. We cannot, however, determine these shell-heaps as positively belonging 

 to the oldest shell-heaps of the river. 



1 This unique object is figured and described in the Naturalist, August, 1893. 



2 American Naturalist, July, 1894. 



