ANTHROPOLOGY: A. HRDLICKA 
33 
course of time by agriculture. The tops of several of the mounds were 
covered with stone, which must have been brought from a distance. 
The number of human burials encountered in these mounds was up- 
wards of 70. They were located generally about or not far from the 
center of the mound and at varying depths, from a few inches to nearly 
15 feet beneath the summit. Some of the burials were plainly intrusive. 
The old burials included individuals of both sexes and all ages. The 
bodies were as a rule in moderately contracted position. In the ma- 
jority of cases the bones were colored more or less red, due to the inclu- 
sion in the graves of red ochre. The mode of burial differed. In one 
mound it was by incineration of several individuals; in others a fossa 
had been made in the surface of the ground, in which the body or bodies 
were placed, the grave being covered by a low shelter of wood, about and 
over which was piled the soil from the immediate neighborhood. In 
still other instances the body was simply buried in the earth. Most of 
the mounds contained also traces of ceremonial fire and of animal 
bones, some of accidental inclusion, but some probably from offerings. 
The archeological remains were scarce, though many may have been 
removed by treasure hunters previously. With two skeletons, in tw6 
separate but adjacent mounds, there was found iron; with three or pos- 
sibly four, were traces (stains) of brass or copper; with one a small orna- 
ment of gold; with six there were old articles of bronze such as ear pen- 
dants and bracelets; with six there were objects of bone, such as heads, 
or artificially perforated teeth of carnivores; with two burials there were 
implements of stone, and fourteen of the mounds yielded primitive 
hand-made pottery. The older skeletal remains of man are of special 
interest. Although in poor condition, they show a uniform dolicho- 
cephalic type of people, of good stature; there is no evidence of any su- 
perposition of t3^es or even mixture until we come to relatively recent 
burials. The animal bones recovered from the various mounds comprise 
those of three or four species now extinct in these regions, namely: Bison 
bonasus, Equus (prob. gmelini), Ochotona pusilla, and Marmota hohak; 
and those of some of the common living ungulates and carnivora, a few 
birds, with a variety of rodents. Detailed report on these finds is in 
preparation by Professor Stolyhwo. 
Explorations in the Birusa caves and rock shelters on the Yenisei River , 
Siberia. — During my trip along the Yenisei River in 1912, my attention 
was forcibly attracted by a large number of caves showing from a dis*- 
tance in the cliffs of a wild region about the mouth of a small stream 
known as the Birusa, on the left bank of the river about 50 miles south 
of Krasnoyarsk. The whole locahty is known as Birusa and, as I 
