Burial Mounds of the Northern Sections of the United StatesThomas, Cyrus
History
Burial Mounds of the Northern Sections of the United States
Thomas, Cyrus
Indians of North America -- Funeral customs and rites; Mounds -- United States; Wyandot Indians
and under the surface of the plateau, though none were discovered in the
circle or nearer than 200 yards of it. They were sometimes mingled
promiscuously with charcoal and ashes, but were usually in whole
skeletons lying horizontally, though some were in a sitting posture;
they were within from 1 to 3 feet of the surface, without any apparent
system, except that they were always covered with a layer of hard earth.
A trench cut through the long mound of this group, No. 1, revealed near
the center an oblong pile of sandstones, beneath which was found a rude
stone coffin, formed by first placing flat sandstone slabs on the
natural surface of the ground, then other slabs at the sides and ends,
and a covering of similar stones, thus forming a cist or coffin about 6
feet long and 18 inches wide. Within this, extended at full length, with
the head west, was the skeleton of an adult, but too much decayed for
preservation. With it were some stone chips, rude stone scrapers, a
_Unio_ shell, and some fragments of pottery similar to those dug up in
the circular enclosure.
The mounds on the sand butte marked _C_, Plate I, which is something
over 100 feet high, were opened and found to be in every respect similar
to those already mentioned, showing them to be the work of the same
people who built the others.
The three mounds in the square enclosures marked _D_, (Plate I), were
also opened, with the following results: The largest, oval in form, 30
feet long, about 20 feet broad and 4 feet high, was found to consist of
a top layer of loose sand 1 foot thick, the remainder of hard yellowish
clay. In the latter were found several flat sandstone fragments, and
beneath them, on the original surface of the ground, a much decayed
skeleton, with which were a few stone chips, _Unio_ shells, and
fragments of pottery.
The second in size, 18 feet in diameter and 3 feet high, although
covered with a layer of sand, was mainly a loose cairn of sandstones,
covering traces of human bones, charcoal, and ashes. The third was found
to be similar to the second, but in this case the pile of stones was
heaped over a mass of charred human bones, mingled with which were
charcoal, ashes, and fragments of pottery.
Fragments of pottery were found in abundance in the circle, in the
mounds, in the washouts, and in fact at almost every point in the area
covered by the group. Judging by the fragments, for not a single entire
vessel was obtained, the prevailing forms were the ordinary earthen pot
with ears, and a flask or gourd-shaped vase with a rather broad and
short neck, often furnished with a lid. The paste with which this
pottery was made had evidently been mixed with pounded shells. The only
ornamentation observed consisted in the varied forms given the handles
or ears and indentations and scratched lines.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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