The larger mound was irregular in shape; its major and minor axes being respectively 72 feet and 50 feet. Its height was 3 feet 3 inches. Its general appearance called to mind the low mound at Floral Bluff, Duval County, and the largest of the low mounds south of the great Grant mound, where our investigation was so richly rewarded. Our hopes in respect to this mound, however, were doomed to disappointment, for mound work is a lottery where blanks largely predominate.
The central portion of the mound was entirely dug through, yielding one interment badly decayed and apparently previously disturbed. A few sherds with complicated stamped decoration were met with.
Low Mound at Point La Vista, Duval County
Point La Vista, on the eastern bank of the St. Johns, is about four miles above Jacksonville.
In a cultivated field about one-half mile in a northerly direction from the landing was a mound much reduced in height by the plow. Its diameter of base, at the time of its total demolition by us, was 55 feet; its height, 2 feet 4 inches. The mound at the central portion had a thickness of 5 feet between the surface and where the sand ceased to show an admixture of charcoal, that is to say about 2.5 feet above the level of the surrounding territory and an equal distance below it. Yellow sand with no traces of charcoal or sherds, marked the bottom of the mound and into this again certain small pits had been dug, as was shown by the darker color of the sand employed to fill them.
Somewhat below the level of the surrounding territory was a stratum over one foot in thickness of sand blackened by fire, containing abundant particles of charcoal. Above this layer were brown sand and white sand intermingled at places, surmounted by a stratum of cherry-colored sand owing its tint to the use of Hematite, of irregular thickness—averaging, perhaps, 1 foot. This bright colored stratum lay beneath a superficial layer of brownish sand about 1 foot in thickness.
Interments were in considerable numbers—between thirty and forty—and in the last stage of decay, some in fact so far gone that the method of burial was not determined, but in all cases where sufficient evidence remained the burial in anatomical order was indicated.
Quantities of sherds were in every portion of the mound; some plain, others with punctate decoration, and others again bearing the square or the diamond-shaped stamp common to Florida ware. Intricate stamped decoration, prevalent in Georgia and present in many mounds of Duval County, was not met with.
About 3 feet from the surface was a bowl of approximately one gallon capacity, of ordinary type, bearing the square stamped decoration. The bottom had been intentionally knocked out. No human remains were discovered in the immediate neighborhood.
In a pocket of brownish sand, extending into the untouched sand below the mound, seemingly a small grave, over 5 feet from the surface, in the central portion of the base, with human remains, was an undecorated earthenware pipe (Fig. [1]) of the usual type of the mounds of Duval County.