Burial Mounds of the Northern Sections of the United States

by Cyrus Thomas

The simple and most natural explanation would be that it was derived from European traders and early adventurers; and such, I am disposed to believe, is the correct one. The distinction between the sheets and ornaments hammered from native copper with the rude implements of the aborigines, and many specimens made of this smooth sheet-copper found in mounds, is too apparent to be overlooked. But of this more hereafter, as I shall have occasion again to refer to the subject.

In another mound, 8 or 9 feet high, in the same county, he found near the top a considerable bed of kitchen refuse; at the bottom, on the original surface, ashes and burnt human bones. "These bones," he remarks, "had evidently been burned before burial, and had been gathered in miscellaneous confusion and placed in a narrow space 5 or 6 inches wide and from 2 to 3 feet long. The ashes were doubtless brought with them, at least there appeared to be no evidences of a local fire in the reddening or hardening of the clay or in remnants of charcoal."

As bearing upon a suggestion made by Colonel Norris, and previously referred to,[31] in regard to the probable use of copper beads found across the limbs of a skeleton, I call attention to another statement of Professor Andrews. Speaking of the School-house mound he says:

At a point near the northwestern corner of the school-house and perhaps 15 feet from the center of the mound, there was plowed up, in extremely hard and dry dirt, a large piece of what I suppose to have been an ornamented dress. It was covered with copper beads, which were strung on a buckskin string and placed on four layers of the same skin. It was found 8 feet below the original surface of the mound and in extremely hard, dry dirt which had never been disturbed.

From the figure and the description we can have but little doubt that this was a buckskin hunting-shirt, which gives support to Colonel Norris's suggestion.

Recently some interesting burial mounds near Madisonville have been carefully explored by Dr. C. L. Metz in the interest of the Peabody Museum. Only partial notices of these explorations, which are not yet completed, have been published, but we deem these of sufficient importance in this connection to quote freely from them,[32] so far as they serve to illustrate the modes of burial and construction of burial mounds of this region.

Speaking of one of the mounds of a group situated in Anderson Township, Professor Putnam remarks:

Mound 21 of Group C was about 4 feet high and 50 in diameter. It proved to be made entirely of the sandy loam of the immediate vicinity. The remains of five skeletons were discovered at different points in the lower portion of the mound. The bones were nearly all reduced to dust, and only a fragment here and there could be saved. There was not a single relic found with the skeletons, and a few flint chips and a broken arrow-head were the only artificial objects found in the earth composing the mound. The condition of the bones showed considerable antiquity, but their advanced decay and friability were probably largely due to the character of the soil in which they were enclosed. The position of the skeletons rather goes to show that the several bodies were buried at different times, and that the mound was gradually constructed as the burials took place. For the present we are inclined to consider this mound, with some others in the valley, as a place of sepulcher by tribes of a more recent time than the builders of the earthworks of the Turner group.

Mound No. 22 proved to be of a more interesting character than the last. This mound was 14 feet high and about 100 in diameter. It was composed of pure clay, except in the central portion. Five feet from the top there was found a hard mass of burnt earth and ashes, 7 feet deep and a little over 9 feet in width and length. Resting on top of this, about in the center, and covered in part by the overlying clay, lay a large stone celt. A foot below this, in the burnt material, was a stone implement perforated at its upper end. Below this, at points several feet apart, in the burnt mass, were three holes or pockets, each of which contained the remains of portions of human skeletons, surrounded by a thin layer of clay. Near the bones in the lowest pocket were three spear-heads or chipped points. A few potsherds and several flint chips were found throughout the burnt mass. Under it was a circular bed of black soil and ashes, 13 inches thick in the center and 14 feet in diameter, beneath which was a layer of fine sand and gravel, 3 inches thick, which covered another circular bed of black soil and ashes, 14 inches thick in the center and 15 feet in diameter. Directly under the center of this lower layer was a pit 4 feet deep and 10 feet 4 inches long, 4 feet wide at the ends and 3 feet 5 inches wide at the center. This pit probably had contained a wooden structure, as its sides showed rough striations, as if large logs had once rested against them. The pit had been dug in the drift gravel upon which the mound was built, and was nearly filled with soft, spongy ashes mixed with a reddish substance. Extended at full length at the bottom of the pit was a human skeleton, with the head to the west. Among the bones of the neck a single shell bead was found; at the feet were ten stones or small bowlders, such as are common in the drift gravel. It is evident that this interesting tumulus was erected over the grave which was dug in the underlying gravel, and that the human bones placed in the burnt mass above the grave, with the few stone implements found in or on the mass, had some connection with the funeral ceremonies which took place in connection with the burial of the body in the pit below. The regularity of the deposits over the pit, which was under the center of the mound, seems to be sufficient proof of this.

Another mound, nearer the river, situated on an elevated portion of bottom land, was found to differ in construction from any of the others explored in this vicinity. This is described as follows:[33]