Mound No. 32 was situated quite close to No. 31, which it very closely
resembled in both size and construction. At a depth of 9 feet the
end of a small building constructed of squared blocks of limestone
was brought to light. The walls were still standing to a height of 2
to 3 feet, and showed traces of a red stucco covering on their inner
surfaces. The cement floor of the building and the platform upon
which it stood could also be traced. Lying upon this floor were five
pottery vessels and an unfinished flint celt. Two of these vessels were
precisely similar to that shown in figure 73, _a_; one is a large,
circular, shallow plaque, of rather thick reddish-brown pottery, in
the center of which a small hole has been made, evidently with the
object of rendering the plaque useless. The last two vessels are
illustrated in figure 75, _a_, _b_. _A_ is an unusually large vessel
of very coarse, thick, red pottery, 18 inches high, which had probably
been used to contain corn or some such dry material, as the pottery
was too friable and soft for a cooking pot, or even to hold water.
_B_ is a small three-legged vase, 4 inches high, of coarse, unpainted
pottery. Each of these five vessels, with the exception of the plaque,
contained a single polished greenstone bead. The celt was roughly
blocked out of yellowish flint. No objects except those above described
were found with these vessels, nor were there any traces of human
burial. Excavations were made in the mound to the ground level, and it
was found to be composed below the platform upon which the building
stood of a solid mass of rubble and limestone held together by loose,
friable mortar. There are numerous groups of mounds of all sizes in
the neighborhood, and judging by these, and by the potsherds and flint
and obsidian chips which one finds strewn over the surface of the soil
in great profusion, it must have been a densely populated region at
one time. The two life-size human heads shown in figures 76 and 77
were found close to these two mounds in digging a posthole. Figure
76 represents a grotesque head cut from a solid block of crystalline
limestone. Figure 77 is a mask, rather crudely cut from greenstone and
unpolished. Both were buried in the marl and were unaccompanied by
other objects.
[Illustration: FIG. 76.--Head cut from limestone found in Mound
No. 32.]
[Illustration: FIG. 77.--Greenstone mask found in Mound No. 32.]
MOUND NO. 33
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