The one numbered 16, of the Courtois group, is about 20 feet in diameter, and at present scarcely more than 1 foot high, the ground having been in cultivation for several years and the mound considerably lowered by the plow. A vertical section is given in [Fig. 2], a a, indicating the natural surface of the ground, b the part of the mound removed, and c the original circular excavation in the natural soil to the depth of 2 feet.
Four skeletons were found in this excavation, two side by side near the center, with heads south, faces up, one near the north margin with head west, and the other on the south side with head east, all stretched at full length.
In another mound of the same group with a similar excavation nothing save a single skull was found. In another of exactly the same kind some of the skeletons were folded, while others were extended at full length.
In all these cases, and in a majority of the small burial mounds opened in this western part of the State, there was no stratification; still there were found some exceptions to this rule.
Vestiges of art were comparatively rare in them, yet here and there were found an arrow-point, a chipped flint scraper or celt—in some instances remarkably fine specimens—a few large copper gorgets, evidently hammered from native copper, copper beads, etc. Very few vessels of pottery were obtained from them, but one was discovered, shown in [Fig. 3], which I believe is of the finest quality of this ware so far obtained from the mounds of the United States. There were intrusive burials in a few of these mounds, but these have been wholly omitted from consideration in the descriptions given.
In a few instances the mounds seem to have been built solely for the purpose of covering a confused mass of human bones gathered together after the flesh had disappeared or had been removed. Similar mounds are described by Mr. Thomas Armstrong as found near Ripon, Fond du Lac County. Speaking of these, Mr. Armstrong says:
As to how these bones came to be placed in these mounds, we can of course only conjecture; but from their want of arrangement, from the lack of ornaments and implements, and from their having been placed on the original surface, we are inclined to believe that the dry bones were gathered together—those in the large mounds first and those in the smaller ones afterwards—and placed in loose piles on the ground and the earth heaped over them until the mounds were formed.[5]
There can be no doubt that the bones in this case were gathered up from other temporary burial places or depositories, as was the custom of several tribes of Indians.
