Burial Mounds of the Northern Sections of the United States

by Cyrus Thomas

The second in size, 18 feet in diameter and 3 feet high, although covered with a layer of sand, was mainly a loose cairn of sandstones, covering traces of human bones, charcoal, and ashes. The third was found to be similar to the second, but in this case the pile of stones was heaped over a mass of charred human bones, mingled with which were charcoal, ashes, and fragments of pottery.

Fragments of pottery were found in abundance in the circle, in the mounds, in the washouts, and in fact at almost every point in the area covered by the group. Judging by the fragments, for not a single entire vessel was obtained, the prevailing forms were the ordinary earthen pot with ears, and a flask or gourd-shaped vase with a rather broad and short neck, often furnished with a lid. The paste with which this pottery was made had evidently been mixed with pounded shells. The only ornamentation observed consisted in the varied forms given the handles or ears and indentations and scratched lines.

Nearly all the implements found were of stone, exceedingly rude, being little else than stone flakes with one sharp edge; many of them having been resharpened and used as knives, scrapers, and skinners. Some had been worked into moderately fair perforators or drills for making holes in horn, bone, and shell—specimens of all these, with such holes, having been found here.

The immense quantity of charred and fractured bones, not only of fish, birds, and the smaller quadrupeds, such as the rabbit and the fox, but also of the bear, wolf, elk, deer, and buffalo, shows that the occupants of this place lived chiefly by the chase, and hence must have used the bow and arrow and spear; yet, strange to say, although careful search was made for them, less than a dozen arrow and spear heads were found, and these so rude as scarcely to deserve the name. A single true chipped celt, three sandstones with mortar-shaped cavities, and a few mullers or stones used for grinding were obtained; also, some fragments of deer-horn, evidently cut round by some rude implement and then broken off, and several horn and bone punches and awls, one barbed and another with a hole through the larger end.

The object in view in presenting these details is to give the reader an opportunity of judging for himself in reference to some inferences drawn from them.

The form of the circular enclosure reminds us at the first glance of the palisade enclosures figured by De Bry,[16] which, according to Lafitau,[17] was the form usually adopted by the Indian tribes who were accustomed to erect such structures. We have here the almost exact circle, save where interrupted by the margin of the bluff, the overlapping of the ends, and the narrow entrance-way. We have here also the clay with which it was the custom, at least in the southern section, to plaster the palisades or which was cast against their bases as a means of supporting or bracing them at the bottom, a custom not entirely unknown among the northern tribes in former times.

The indications are therefore very strong that this enclosing wall was originally a palisade which had been in part plastered with clay, or against which clay had been heaped to assist in rendering it firm and secure, and, if so, then it is probable it was built by Indians.

Be this supposition right or wrong the evidence is conclusive that the area on which this group is situated has been the abode of at least two tribes or peoples: first, it was occupied by the authors of the enclosures, whose stay was probably not very protracted, and after they had abandoned the locality or been driven from it by a second tribe, evidently comparatively numerous, that made it for a long time a dwelling place; a tribe differing in customs from its predecessor, and one that did not rely upon enclosures for protection. By no other supposition can we account for the fact that the refuse layer which covers the interior of the circle also spreads in equal depth over the ditch and clay remains of the enclosing wall, as those who left this refuse layer could have made no possible use of the wall as a defensive work, for which the position chosen and other particulars show it was designed.

The form of this enclosure, as we have before intimated, seems to connect it with some one of the Indian tribes; its age is uncertain but the accumulation of refuse matter and sand since the abandonment by the first occupants indicates considerable antiquity.

Although we cannot say positively that the second occupants were the builders of the mounds, as the investigation was not as thorough as it should have been, still I think we may assume, with almost absolute certainty, that such was the fact. The mounds in the square work marked D, in [Plate I], present considerable differences from those in the group, and are probably the work of those who built the enclosures.