Black Vase from an Aboriginal Cemetery, Nine Miles from Nashville.
In September, 1877, Prof. F. W. Putnam and Mr. Edwin Curtiss, also a party under Major Powell excavated a large number of mounds and stone graves, mostly in the neighborhood of Nashville, Tennessee. The results were substantially the same as those obtained by Prof. Jones. Prof. Putnam found within an earthwork near Lebanon, in Wilson County, sixty miles east of Nashville, what he considers to be the remains of dwellings of the Mound-builders. There were circular ridges of earth varying from a few inches to a little over three feet in height, with diameters ranging from ten to fifty feet. Within these enclosures, a few inches below the surface, hard floors, upon which fires had been made, were discovered. Under these floors, in many instances, infants and children had been buried, while the adults had been interred in a neighboring mound. Accompanying the skeletons of the children, many beautiful vessels of strange and artistic forms were found (cuts of three of these were kindly furnished by Prof. Putnam for this work), all evincing the tenderness with which the offspring of this people were regarded. Prof. Putnam examined nineteen of the earth-circles, which he adds, “proved to my satisfaction that the ridges were formed by the decay of the walls of a circular dwelling. * * * These houses had probably consisted of a frail circular structure, the decay of which would only leave a slight elevation, the formation of the ridge being assisted by the refuse from the house.”[46]
Painted Jar from Child’s Grave (Tennessee).
(Prof. Putnam’s Exploration.)
Dish from Child’s Grave (Tennessee).
(Prof. Putnam’s Exploration.)
Colonies of Mound-builders seem to have passed the great natural barrier into North Carolina and left remains in Marion County, while still others penetrated into South Carolina and built on the Wateree River. In March, 1873, Mr. Jas. R. Page examined several mounds in Washington and Issaquena Counties in the State of Mississippi. One mound explored in Washington County on the old bank of the Mississippi River, was a truncated cone eighty feet in diameter by forty feet high. A mound in the neighborhood, only eleven feet high, yielded rich returns for the labors of excavation. A white oak on its summit measured thirty-six inches in diameter. This mound yielded twelve skeletons with their crania. The group was in a sitting posture around a circle, with their faces looking toward its centre. Directly in front of the mouth of each skeleton were placed two or three vessels of pottery, beautifully ornamented with etchings and graceful lines. The object of the vessels, placed in such near proximity to the mouths of the buried remains, can only be conjectured. We regret that no measurements of the crania are given, and what is more, we deplore the loss of most of the crania in the course of their transportation.[47] Mr. W. Marshall Anderson, of Circleville, Ohio, examined Mounds in Issaquena County, Miss., with interesting results; in one mound opened, not far from its outer edge, three skeletons were found buried in a standing position, as though they had acted as the guards of a more distinguished person deposited in the centre. Penetrating the mound still farther by means of a trench, Mr. Anderson reached a large deposit of ashes and burnt earth. Near the centre of the mound and five feet above the level of the earth, upwards of twenty-five unbroken specimens of fine pottery were discovered. At the very centre three individuals had been buried apparently in great state, with all the insignia of their important positions in life. These were ornaments, urns, vases, beads, and arrow-points; while adjoining the heads of each were food and drinking vessels. Not far removed from these, two skeletons were found with bowls placed upon their heads like helmets. Mr. Anderson is the possessor of a very remarkable stone disk obtained for him by Dr. Robinson from a Issaquena mound near Lake Washington, Miss. The disk is nearly eight and a half inches in diameter and three-quarters of an inch thick, of fine-grained sandstone. The device which it bears upon its face is composed of two entwined rattlesnakes. A trifling ornamental border is graven on the reverse side of the disk. When found it was broken in two pieces. Mr. Anderson, in comparing its strange device to the Aztec Calendar Stone, remarks: “Here are the eighteen pipes of the border corresponding to the eighteen months of the year, but the twenty days of the month and the five intercalaries are not to be found. The thirteen hieroglyphical figures, and the four zodiacal signs, which as multiples give the fifty-two years of the Aztec cycle, are also absent on the Mississippi stone.”[48] The serpent-symbol appears to have played its part among the Mound-builders, as well as in Mexico and Central America. The great serpent of Adams County, Ohio, is the most extensive delineation of the all-important symbol on the continent. Out of eighteen engraved circular plates made of the shell of the Pyrula and taken from Brakebill and Lick Creek Mounds in East Tennessee (and now deposited in the Peabody Museum of Archæology) thirteen bear the device of a rattlesnake. In one of the mounds of “Mound City,” Ross County, Ohio, several small tablets representing the rattlesnake were unearthed, while other mounds in the same locality yielded pipes bearing the same representation.[49]
Jar from Child’s Grave (Tennessee).
(Prof. Putnam’s Exploration.)
