The Halifax, Hillsboro’ and Indian rivers, so-called, are not rivers strictly speaking, but long and comparatively narrow stretches of salt water, connected with the Atlantic Ocean by various inlets and separated from the sea by a comparatively narrow strip of sand, at no place five miles in breadth. They extend north and south and their total length in a direct line is about 187 miles.
The Banana river is simply a portion of the Indian river, lying east of Merritt’s Island.
Tomoka and Spruce creeks and St. Lucie river, at a certain distance above their outlets, are fresh water streams.
The aboriginal mounds bordering the Halifax, Hillsboro’ and Indian rivers, while examined with considerable care, were by no means so exhaustively investigated by us as have been the mounds of the St. Johns river and of other parts of Florida, and our conclusions must not be regarded as final but rather taken as indications.
It would seem that the mounds of this region, considerable in number and some of great size, were mostly erected for other than sepulchral purposes, inasmuch as human remains appear to be absent from the bodies of the mounds though in some cases numerous interments were present near the surface, sometimes associated with art relics of European manufacture, such as glass beads, silver beads and the like.[1] These burials we look upon as intrusive, made by Indians coming later than the makers of the mounds.
In certain cases smaller mounds contained human remains down to the base, but in every case these remains, where any other objects were found at all, were associated only with bits of shell or of coquina.
Mr. Andrew E. Douglass, of the Museum of Natural History, New York, who has spent a number of seasons on the east coast and has published various valuable papers descriptive of his work,[2] reached virtually the same conclusions as ourselves, and we are strongly of opinion that a more thorough investigation of these mounds, though earnestly to be desired, will not be fruitful of results.
Another point strongly impressing itself upon us was the almost entire absence of stone (unless coquina[3] may be so termed) in the territory bordering the Halifax, the Hillsboro’ and the Indian rivers, the mounds being entirely free from chips, cores, and other refuse material of chert so abundant in mounds of the St. Johns river.
Large fields of shell, denoting aboriginal dwelling sites, are numerous, yet upon them we found not a single arrowhead or fragment of hard stone, while persons cultivating these fields invariably expressed ignorance as to the discovery of stone upon them. Upon similar fields and shell heaps of the St. Johns arrowheads and flint chips are abundant; this absence of stone on the east coast is certainly worthy of remark considering its comparative abundance on a river not over thirty, and at one point only five, miles away.
Mr. Douglass has remarked the absence on the east coast of the polished stone hatchet, or “celt,” from mounds south of St. John County, or about where the Halifax river begins, and we have not in our experience learned of the occurrence of this implement on the east coast south of the point referred to by him, though on the St. Johns river a number were taken by us from Thursby Mound, about twenty-seven miles farther south, while one small hatchet was found on the surface not far north of Lake Monroe. Beyond this point, even on the St. Johns, the stone “celt” seemed to be absent with the exception of one rude cutting implement of the polished “celt” type[4] taken by us from the island shell heap known as Mulberry Mound, situate where the St. Johns river leaves Lake Poinsett, about six miles west of Cocoa on the Indian river.