Low Mounds near Point La Vista, Duval County
Partly on the property of Mr. Shad, resident near by, and of Mrs. J. R. Hunter, of Albany, N. Y., about one mile in a southerly direction from Point La Vista, were three low intersecting mounds (Fig. [2]) all showing signs of former cultivation. By arrangement with Mr. Shad, and with kind consent of George M. Wyeth, M. D., of Jacksonville, in charge of the Hunter property, these mounds were totally dug through at a depth of three to four feet below the level of the surrounding territory.
They contained the usual charcoal and many fireplaces and were composed of yellowish-brown sand unstratified.
Mound A.
Diameter of base, 29 feet; height, 2 feet 5 inches.
No skeletal remains were encountered until the central portion of the mound was reached when small fragments of mouldering human bones were met with at four different points, from one foot to three feet nine inches from the surface. No artifacts were in association save in one instance when a small stone “celt” lay near bones.
Fig. 2.—Plan of mounds south of Point La Vista.
With the exception of a nest of many fragments of earthenware, in the southern margin, sherds were infrequent. Certain fragments of earthenware were undecorated, while others bore a complicated stamped decoration, several of these being additionally decorated with crimson pigment—the first occurrence in our experience of the combined ornamentation.
Four small arrowheads, too rude for aught save mortuary deposits, were found separately. A bit of chert came from a depth of 5 feet.
Singly were: one pebble-hammer; one rude piercing implement of chipped chert and one pebble about 2 by 2.5 inches by one inch in thickness, worked into an oblong shape with rounded corners.
Mound B.
Diameter of base, 52 feet; height, 2 feet 1 inch. In this mound interments, consisting, as in the other, of mouldering fragments, were met with at six different points.
Three and one-half feet from the surface, with human remains, were: one bit of chipped chert; a few marine mussel shells; a piece of sandstone; part of a columella of a marine univalve; and a small Fulgur carica with a hole knocked through one side. These all lay in a pocket of sand dyed scarlet with red oxide of iron.
Also in the scarlet sand, 4.5 feet from the surface, with a few bits of human bone, were: a small sheet of mica; a smoothing stone of chert; a perforated Fulgur and several molars and incisors and one canine of some carnivore.
A streak of red sand beneath a seam of charcoal led to a large cockle shell (Cardium) badly decayed, and a small vessel of earthenware with two compartments and a handle on either end, very similar in type to one taken by us from the Hopson mound, Lake County, and figured by us (pl. LXXXV, fig. 2) in our Report on the mounds of the Ocklawaha river. Apparently no human remains were with these objects.
A small imperforate undecorated bowl of ordinary type lay one foot from the surface with fragments of parts of a large undecorated clay vessel, near human remains.
Three feet from the surface, apparently unassociated with skeletal remains, were portions of a vessel of about six quarts capacity, with complicated stamped decoration. The base showed perforation after manufacture.
Several pebble-hammers lay singly loose in the sand.
Mound C.
Diameter of base, 58 feet; height, 2 feet 2 inches. Human remains, mere fractional parts of the skeleton, present at ten different points, were confined to the southern portion and the eastern margin of the mound.
Three feet, eight inches from the surface, in the southern margin, with several large shell beads and one small shell (Marginella) longitudinally pierced, were portions of a cranium of a child about nine years of age; also several molars and one vertebra. In the vicinity lay a hatchet of polished stone.
Together were: three pebble-hammers, one pitted on one side and neatly rounded; one small pebble; a cutting implement of chipped chert, 6 inches in length, possibly incomplete; several conchs (Fulgur carica) badly decayed, perforated in the body whorl opposite the aperture; bits of columella of large marine univalves; several mussel shells, fragmentary through decay; and what decay had spared of one piercing implement of bone. All these lay with human remains in the eastern margin of the mound, about 3 feet from the surface.
PLATE I
EARTHENWARE VESSEL WITH FIVE COMPARTMENTS. MOUND SOUTH OF POINT LA VISTA
PLATE II
OUTLINE VIEW FROM ABOVE OF VESSEL SHOWN IN PLATE I
In close proximity to the deposit just described were human remains at about the same depth. With them were one lance head, two arrowheads and eleven chips, all of chert.
In various parts of the mound were nests of many fragments of various vessels, buried in close contact, as we have described elsewhere as present in numbers of low mounds of Duval County.
Three and one-half feet from the surface, beginning almost at the southern margin and extending in for about 6 feet, was a large log or several smaller ones pressed together with lines of separation no longer distinguishable, in the last stage of decay. The upper surface was considerably charred.
About 5 feet in from the southern margin and 1 foot, 8 inches from the surface, unassociated with human remains, was a vessel of heavy earthenware, unique so far as our experience extends. This interesting vessel, entirely intact, consists of four irregular compartments joined together on the same plane. From their point of union a fifth compartment rises as shown in Plates [I] and [II].
We are indebted to Professor Holmes for a sketch of a five-chambered vessel about 5.25 inches square, from a mound in Franklin County, Florida. The central compartment is not raised above the other four, as is the case in our specimen, but is on the same plane and surrounded by them. Various high authorities consulted by us express ignorance of the discovery within the limits of the United States of five-chambered vessels other than the two here recorded.
Nothing in these mounds gave any evidence of intercourse with the Whites.