Low Mound at Mulberry Grove, Duval County
About ten miles south of Jacksonville, on the west bank of the St. Johns, is the estate of A. M. Reed, Esq., known as Mulberry Grove. We are particularly indebted to Mr. Reed for permission to investigate his mound inasmuch as it was under cultivation at the time of our visit. The mound is reported to have been ploughed down for thirty years and materially reduced in height. Its diameter of base was 46 feet; its height, 2 feet.
A central excavation, 32 feet in diameter (and this, we think, included the original mound) was carried through at a depth of about 5 feet. The mound was of brown sand, unstratified, and contained great numbers of fireplaces with charcoal. The form of burial, with one exception, was in anatomical order, about two dozen skeletons being met with, all much decayed. The crania were also badly crushed. About 2.5 feet from the surface was a heap of calcined human bones with charcoal.
Some of the crumbling skeletons lay at a depth of 5 feet from the surface.
Sherds were infrequent and probably of accidental introduction.
Fig. 3.—Earthenware vessel with incised decoration. Mound at Mulberry Grove. (½ size.)
With a skeleton, 3.5 feet from the surface, were two vessels of earthenware and a pipe of the same material. The larger vessel lay on its side across the right forearm; the smaller vessel, on its base, with the tobacco pipe, was on the right hand side of the cranium. Beneath the skull, were two piercing implements of bone. Both vessels are virtually intact and imperforate as to their bases. Each has a small hole on either side beneath the margin, for suspension. The larger has two incised parallel lines beneath the margin of the opening. Its dimensions are approximately: height, 4.5 inches; maximum diameter, 3.25 inches; across mouth, 2.5 inches. The smaller vessel, almost cylindrical (Fig. [3]), has an interesting incised decoration. Approximate measurements: height, 4.25 inches; maximum diameter, at mouth, 2.75 inches; at base, or minimum diameter, 2.25 inches.
Five feet down, near a fragmentary skull, were one arrowhead and twenty-six small fragments of chert. We have before made reference in our paper on certain mounds in Duval County to the placing of numbers of such fragments together in the mounds.
In another portion of the mound, at about the same depth as the previously mentioned deposit, with human remains, were eleven small bits of chert and one shell gouge.
Near the surface as it was at the period of excavation, lay a small “celt” with human remains.
Loose in the sand were several bits of chert and a portion of a polished stone hatchet, found separately.
What this mound may have contained at the period of its abandonment, it is, of course, impossible to say. Nothing discovered by us pointed to intercourse with the Whites.