Rensselaer Republican, Volume 22, Number 6, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 October 1889 — A PILE OF HUMAS BOSES. [ARTICLE]

A PILE OF HUMAS BOSES.

On Wednesday, Thursday and Friday of last week, Willard H. Davis, of Lowell, Ohio, and R. R Wilson, of this place, opened a mound located on the east bank of the Iroquois river, about two miles southwest of Rensselaer, on the Eiglesbaeh farm, now owned by Mr. Miller, who kindly gave them permission to make the exploration. The mound is about four feet in heigbt by about fifty feet in diameter, and is situated on a sandy point bluff, covered with black oak timber. Excavating was begun on the west side to the center. About eighteen inches from the surface they took out some pieces of femur bones; at about three feet another small piece was found. 'The earth appeared to be surface soil mixed with small pieces of oak charcoal. At about three feet deep the earth was packed so solid that it was difficult to dig it up with the spade and was mottled Avith darker eaitb. At four feet they came to a bed of charcoal which had been burned in a place hollowed out for that purpose, in the bottom of which Avas found the partly burned femur and pelvic bones of another skeleton, which were covered with a dark brown, tenacious gluey sand. About a foot below were found a I mass of bones containing the | crushed remains of not less than ten or twelve skulls, of all ages, from babes without teeth to adults, which were piled on top of the other bones; the larger bones were mostly placed east and west, but the smaller ones were lying in every direction, and all were mixed with a sticky sand, which was very hard to remove from the bones without washing. The bones covered a space about three by four feet, and were about eighteen inches deep, the lower ohes being

about eight feet from. the top of the mound and four feet below ’the base. One nearly perfect skull and a few femnrs and some parts of jaw bones and teeth, and a few of the infant bones were kept and the others were replaced in the excavation and covered op. The skulls that were perfect enough to show their shape resemble those taken from the mounds in Southeastern Ohio, by Mr. Davis, who has a number of them in his cabinet of Mound Builders relics; his theory is that the bones found in the above mound were mostly those of women and children and of one family, that at the death of the head of the family, their bones had been taken from their original burial place and deposited in a pile in a deep grave which was partly filled and the body of the deceased head of the family placed in the hole and cremated, after which the mound was built over them. Mr. Davis took the perfect skull and a few of the infant bones for his cabinet, and the balance of the bones saved were presented to Prof. Reubelt, superintendent of Rensselaer Schools.

EIAT GULPIN.