The Dragon Stone

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Archaeological finds at the conical mound of 'The Serpent Mound of Ohio' written by Frederic Ward Putnam (1890).

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We must now turn our attention to the conical mound (26 on map), on the southeastern portion of the plateau, which is shown in a preceding illustration. This proved to be a monument over the body of a man who was buried in connection with important ceremonies.

First an area seventy by seventy-one feet in diameter was cleared of all the dark soil, and the clay was also removed for several inches in depth, making a clear, level floor. Eleven feet northwest of the center a trench was dug, 14 inches deep, 2 feet wide, and 5 feet long, and again filled with loose clay, in which were a few small stones and several broken bones of animals. On the south side, from 6 to 11 feet from the center, and from 1 to 5 feet apart, were four small holes in the clay, and 14 inches southeast of the center was another. Each contained stones or a few animal bones or ashes. On the north side, from two to six feet from the center, were four more of these holes, in which were small stones and animal bones. These holes varied from a few inches to over a foot in depth, and from two feet to nearly seven feet in diameter. Their position, and the fact that they each contained something intentionally placed in them, shows that they were made for a purpose. It was evident from their character that they were not places where posts had stood, forming part of a wooden structure.¹⁴ Over this cleared area, and of course covering all these holes and the trench, clay was placed, forming a level platform eighteen inches high. In the central portion of this platform, covering a space thirty by thirty-five feet in diameter, a fire had been kindled and kept burning until a bed of ashes a few inches in thickness was made, to which may have been added ashes brought from other places, perhaps in great part from the burnt area extending for nearly one hundred feet north of the mound as indicated by the dotted lines at 25 on the map. In this ash bed were found many small bits of pottery, pieces of burnt bone, and many stone chips; several broken stone implements and about a dozen perfect ones; also pieces of the shells of fresh-water clams; all of which is suggestive of scraping up ashes from various hearths and depositing all upon the heap. That a large part of the ashes was made on the spot was evident from the burnt clay below, and from the several continuous masses of charcoal, the remains of logs from two to four inches in diameter. When this ceremony was finished and enough ashes for the desired purpose had been obtained, the body of an adult man, nearly six feet tall, was placed, with the head to the east, at full length upon the hot ashes, and at once covered with clay, smothering the still smoldering logs and changing the embers to charcoal. Objects of a lasting nature do not seem to have been placed with the body, unless some of the chipped flint points found near it in the ashes may be so considered. It may be asked if this was not an unsuccessful case of cremation, but I think that question may be answered in the negative; for while cremation was often practiced, as I have found on other occasions, it was by different methods, and the ashes and calcined bones were afterwards gathered up for burial, or buried in a peculiar manner at the place of burning.

Several peculiarities of this skeleton are worthy of notice. It was that of a well-developed man of ordinary size. The skull was crushed by the weight of the earth above, as shown in the photograph here reproduced. While this man was fully grown and probably about twenty-five or thirty years of age, he never had any wisdom teeth, and a search in the maxillary bone of one side showed that there was no wisdom tooth forming in the jaw.¹⁵ With this exception he had a fine set of teeth, and still embedded in the premaxillary bone is a partly formed left incisor tooth. No corresponding formation can be seen on the opposite side of the suture, and this is probably a supernumerary tooth, although the small size of the lateral incisors is suggestive of their being persistent first teeth. As is often the case in skulls of this race, the crowns of the incisors are distinctly folded. All the sutures of this brachycephalic skull are unusually open and denticulated. Along the suture uniting the occipital bone with the posterior part of tile two parietal bones there are several intercalated pieces, or "Wormian bones." Such bones are more common in the American brachycephalic skulls than in the dolichocephalic, and in this skull they are so numerous as to cause the division of the upper portion of the occipital bone into several small pieces.¹⁶ At the time of birth the frontal bone in mane is still in two pieces, which gradually close by a central suture. Normally this frontal suture is obliterated in a few years and the frontal becomes a single bone. Occasionally this suture persists through life, and such crania are called metopic. This occurs more often in the white race than in any other, and seldom in the lower races. It is therefore of interest to note the existence of this anatomical feature in an individual at whose burial so considerable a ceremony took place, and over whose body such an imposing monument was erected.

After the immediate covering of the body with clay, the mound was raised, a symmetrical conical heap of clay, to the height of ten or twelve feet.¹⁷ Some time subsequent to the building of the mound, and after the clay had settled into a compact mass, graves were dug upon its sides and top, and nine burials had taken place. Some of the intrusive graves were so near the surface that in plowing over the mound the bones had been disturbed, while others were much deeper. One skeleton was found on the eastern side of the mound, and four feet from the exterior. As shown in the illustration, the skeleton was extended at full length nearly north and south. At a little greater depth from the top of the mound another skeleton was found, extended nearly east and west. Woodchucks had made their burrows in this part of the mound and had thrown out portions of the skull and other parts of this skeleton, among the bones of which they had made their nest. The stones seen in the illustration, near the surface of the mound, mark another grave over which the four stones had been placed. The bones in this and in the six other graves near the surface of the mound were much decayed, and only fragments of the skeletons could be traced. In one instance only was anything found with the skeleton, and that was a fine stone hatchet resting, with its edge outward, on the bones of the left forearm, as if the handle had been placed along the arm and held in the hand. This implement is shown, with others from the mound, in the illustration above, all of which are represented of half size.

During the exploration of the mound a number of stone implements were found, principally near the bottom on a level with the ash bed, but several chipped points, or "arrow-heads," were also discovered at various depths in the clay, as if they had been lost during the erection of the mound. Among the objects of special interest found in or near the ash bed, and thus associated with the first burial, were a hemisphere of hematite, a plummet-shaped implement, a small hatchet, and several perfect points chipped from flint. Two finely finished and polished stone axes with straight backs, and grooves around them for holding the withes by which they were fastened to handles, were also found at the bottom of the mound. A few points made of splinters of bone were found in the ashes; and near the edge of the ashes, but not in it, was a plate of copper, slightly irregular in outline, nine and a half inches long, three and a half to four inches wide, and one-eighth to nearly one-quarter of an inch thick, unquestionably hammered out of a mass of native copper.¹⁸

Footnotes

14 Post-holes, regularly placed, are often found under burial-mounds, but any one familiar with such holes would not mistake these strange little pits for them.

15 The late development of the third molars, or "wisdom teeth," in the ancient brachycephalic skulls of Ohio seems to be a decidedly marked characteristic of this people, and in this instance there was none forming. It has been remarked that among the Hindus a large proportion never have wisdom teeth.

16 The frequent occurrence of these subdivisions of the occipital bone in the short-headed race of the south is a marked characteristic of the race. It was long ago pointed out that in the skulls of the ancient Peruvians (short-heads) there was often a suture across the upper portion of the occipital bone, thus leaving a triangular bone between the parietals, to which the name "Inca bone" was given. The large number of skulls of brachycephalic Americans now brought together in the Peabody Musuem shows that this tendency to subdivision of the occipital is common to the race, and occurs in the short skulls from Ohio as well as in those of Peru and all the intermediate regions.

17 Previously to the time of my first visit the mound had been plowed and cultivated for several years, thus reducing its highest point to nine feet, to which height I restored the mound after exploration.

18 Similar plates, but having two holes, probably for suspending them from the neck, have heen fonnd in other mounds and with skeletons. In one case we found such a plate lying upon the breast-bone of a skeleton in a mound in the Scioto Valley. In several instances we have found them covered on one side with cloth, which was preserved by the copper salts, thus enabling us to study the method of weaving the cloth made from twisted vegetable fiber. One of these plates is figured in the "Eighteenth Report" of the Peabody Museum, Cambridge, 1886. On this plate a lock of hair has heen preserved by the copper. I have recently seen a remarkable instance of the preservation of tissues by the salts of copper, in the skull of a Massachusetts Indian, found at Winthrop, and given to the Museum by Mr. Charles A. Hammond of Lynn. This Indian had been buried with a broad thin plate of copper fastened as an ornament over the forehead. Over this had been placed a piece of woven native cloth, over which at the time of burial a mat of braided cedar bark had been laid. The action of the copper, which was very much oxidized and decomposed had preserved portions of each of these fabrics, as well as the hair and scalp on one side of the head, and the skin of a large part of the face. The bones below, even including half of the under jaw, were colored green by the carbonate of copper that had penetrated through the cells to the inner table of the skull, which was also colored green; and portions of the brain, or at least its surrounding tissues, now exist as a hard dark mass in the cavity of the skull. We have historical evidence that this Indian must have been buried as early as 1650; but probably it was before that time, and in its present condition there is every reason to believe that the skull would have lasted for centuries to come.

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