Observations on the uses of the mounds of the west, with an attempt at their classification / By E.G. Squier.

  • Ephraim George Squier
Date:
1847
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Observations on the uses of the mounds of the west, with an attempt at their classification / By E.G. Squier. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    14/18 page 14
    square, was observed with the bones, leading to the conclusion that they were taken up from the altars, in the adjacent larger mounds, and afterwards finally deposited here. General Observations.—Whether these classes are maintained throughout the West, is a question which a systematic examina¬ tion, carried on over a wide field, alone can determine. In al¬ most every case, falling within our knowledge, when mounds have been thoroughly examined by competent persons, some of the features here marked, have been noticed. It is conjectured, that the “ brick hearths,” of which mention has occasionally been made, were the “ altars,” already described as belonging to a certain class of mounds. Nothing is more likely than that some of them were left uncovered by the builders, and subsequently hidden by natural accumulations, to be again exposed by the in¬ vading plough or the recession of the banks of streams. The indentations occasioned by the passage of roots across them, or by other causes, would naturally suggest the notion of rude brick hearths.
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