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Show MOUND BUEIAL- TENNESSEE. 19 tained 60 human skeletons, each in a carefully- made stone grave, the graves being arranged in two rows, forming the four sides of a square, and in three layers. * * * The most important discovery he made within the inclosure was that of finding the remains of the houses of the people who lived in this old town. Of them about 70 were traced out and located on the map by Professor Buchanan, of Lebanon, who made the survey for Mr. Putnam. Under the floors of hard clay, which was in places much burnt, Mr. Putnam found the graves of children. As only the bodies of adults had been placed in the one mound devoted to burial, and as nearly every site of a house he explored had from one to four graves of children under the clay floor, he was convinced that it was a regular ' custom to bury the children in that way. He also found that the children had been undoubtedly treated with affection, as in their small graves were found many of the best pieces of pottery he obtained, and also quantities of shell-beads, several large pearls, and many other objects which were probably the playthings of the little ones while living.* This cist mode of burial is by no means uncommon in Tennessee, as they are frequently mentioned by writers on North American archaeology. The examples which follow are specially characteristic, some of them serving to add strength to the theory that mounds were for the most part used for secondary burial, although intrusions were doubtless common. Of the burial mounds of Ohio, Caleb Atwaterf gives this description : " Near the center of the round fort * * * was a tumulus of earth about 10 feet in height and several rods in diameter at its base. On its eastern side, and extending six rods from it, was a semicircular pavement composed of pebbles such as are now found in the bed of the Scioto River, from whence they appear to have been brought. The summit of this tumulus was nearly 30 feet in diameter, and there was a raised way to it, leading from the east, like a modern turnpike. The summit was level. The outline of the semicircular pavement and the walk is still discernible. The earth composing this mound was entirely removed several years since. * A detailed account of this exploration, with many illustrations, will be fonnd in the Eleventh Annual Report of the Peabody Museum, Cambridge, 1878. t Trans. Amer. Antiq. Soc, 1820, i, p. 174 et seq. |
