1018 The Peabody Museum's Explorations in Ohio. [December, 
cotta representing men and women. All these objects had been 
thrown into the fires upon the altars, evidently as sacrifices or 
burnt offerings during an important ceremony. The thirty-seven 
pits with the singular tubes or “ flues” connected with them; the 
concrete layer of gravel and iron over them; the singular struc- 
ture of the great mound, a hundred feet in diameter and twenty 
feet high; the great pit containing the many skulls, some of 
which had holes drilled in them, arranged around two skeletons 
placed in ashes, all serve to show that connected with this group , 
of mounds were extensive ceremonies of the deepest import to 
the people. - 
These extensive earthworks, made on such an elaborate scale, 
and containing evidence of the wealth of the builders as well as 
of the ceremonial character of the works themselves, necessarily 
lead to the conclusion that there must have been a large number 
of people connected with their construction. The beautiful loca- 
tion of this group of earthworks on the level second terrace 
which extends for miles in the fertile valley, and is surrounded 
by hills from which flow never-failing springs, indicate that in this 
region there must have been a large population; yet the few 
human remains which we found in the mounds within and with- 
out the encircling wall are not sufficient to meet the require- 
ments. Such remains were probably those of distinguished per- 
sons, buried with special honors ; but where were the other dead? 
i Then the many altars, or basins of burned clay, which evidently 
had been used over and over again, and were, with two excep 
tions, empty when the mounds were erected over them, are indi- 
cations of cremation, and yet where were the burnt human re- 
mains? Cremation in open fires will, necessarily, leave many 
fragments of calcined bones with the ashes, unless such remains 
~ are burnt over and over again, and special pains taken to reduce 
all to ashes, and yet we had found, in a niche of the stone wall 
~ about the large altar mound, the burnt bones and ashes of but 
= One individual. If these altars were the places where cremation 
took place, what then had become of the remains? These were 
questions which Dr. Metz and myself often asked of each other, 
and we felt confident that somewhere near by there must be 4 
general burial place for the common dead, and many a hunt was 
3 for surface indications. On the north and south sides of 
‘urner’s barn, and west of the large circle, are two scarcely 
