Archeologic investigations in James and Potomac valleys / by Gerard Fowke.

  • Gerard Fowke
Date:
1894
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Archeologic investigations in James and Potomac valleys / by Gerard Fowke. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    FOWKE J EXCAVATIONS AT LINVILLE 43 Coincident with the face at the western side was the edge of a saucer - shape depression in the original soil, a little more than 4 feet across and 16 inches deep at the center. It contained a bed of ashes and charcoal 3 inches thick at the middle and gradually thinning toward the sides. On this and nearly parallel lay the arm and leg bones of 2 adults, burned black, with no traces of other bones belonging to the same bodies. Lying on them, in contact, was the spinal column of an adult, very soft from decay, not in the least degree charred or even smoke-stained. The skull lay at one side of the depression; at the opposite side was the head of a humerus; between these were many other bones so decayed that their character could not be ascertained. As the vertebrae were in their proper position, the unburned bones must have belonged to more than one individual, whose remains had evidently been placed on the cremated bones after the latter had become cold. North of the center, 6 feet from the cremated bones, was a skeleton a foot and a half above the bottom of the mound, with a number of shell beads. A few feet east of this was a grave 8 inches deep, large enough to contain only a body closely folded, which rested on its left side, with head toward the south. At the top of the skull was a broken clay pipe. A foot lower down and almost at the limit of the burials was a large mortar, concave on both sidesJbut not otherwise dressed. In the funnel-shape pit which terminated the large bone stratum, as well as in a few places in the mass itself, were found bones which, judging from their position, may have belonged to a bundled or doubled skeleton, but the evidence is too slight to state this as a fact. Only one relic was found in the northern half of this bone-bed—a dressed piece of mussel shell an inch and a half square with a hole drilled near the center. Under the pit was the end of a grave a little more than a foot deep, barely 3 feet wide, and extending 12J feet on a line exactly east and west. In it were 19 skeletons, including those of 3 infants and of 2 or 3 older children. Only one was doubled, all the other bones having been promiscuously thrown in. The only specimens found were a few Mar- ginella shells and disk beads. The soil of the bottom is the black loam found along water courses which overflow frequently; it is very inuddy when wet, but easily dug when dry. This probably accounts for the location of the mound. Many higher places close by on each side of the creek afford ample level space for the construction of such a tumulus, but the soil is a limestone clay, difficult to work by aboriginal methods. The many ways in which the remains were deposited are explicable only by the supposition that this was long a general burial place. But there was no village or camp in the immediate vicinity, for no burned earth or stones, no ashes or animal bones, very few pottery fragments, and not half a dozen Hint Hakes were found in theentire structure. The dismembered condition of
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