Primitive man in Ohio / by Warren K. Moorehead.

  • Warren K. Moorehead
Date:
1892
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Primitive man in Ohio / by Warren K. Moorehead. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    place and put where the rays of the sun would not fall upon it; we hoped to preserve it entire, but ex- posure to the atmosphere caused the stone to crumble rapidly, and the bones to scale off bit by bit, until at last nothing remained but a shapeless mass. On the east and west sides, at very nearly equal distances (about ten feet) from the central pit, were two small boles, eight inches in diameter and four- teen inches deep, which were very smooth and sym- metrical ; a small amount of ashes lay at the bottom of each. Holes of this description are called “pockets,” or “post-holes,” and are of frequent oc- currence in the mounds. In them posts or logs were frequently placed as supports for small struc- tures.1 2 Other holes, or pockets, similar to these, were found above the lower stratum. Each was neatly covered with a chunk of hard-burned clay, and had in it a few shells and a small amount of fine black earth. • At the centre' of the mound, just below the dark stratum, lay a decomposed skeleton. Above this stratum, and a few feet west of the first, lay another skeleton; this was so much decayed that we could only save a portion of the lower jaw. Still farther west, just above the edge of the red clay stratum, 1 At the Hopewell group, in 1891, we came upon numerous burials in holes or caves three by five or four by seven feet in extent. 1 he skeletons were usually covered by logs and saplings, placed two or three feet abo\e them, and resting upon post supports. When the coverings decayed, con- siderable earth would fall into the interior. But so long had the logs supported the earth above that it formed a partial arch, the remains lying in the caves thus formed. 2 It may be well to explain that by “ centre ” is meant the line extending from the summit to the middle point of the area covered by the mound. —W. K. M.
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