Page 5 - philipmillsjones1923

116 University of California Publications in Am. Arch. and Ethn. [Vol. 20
2 and 3, about a mile and a half downstream on the north side of
the same slough, near a house, were of the same general character
as mounid 1, but had been much more disturbed by extensive plough-
ing and by scraping off the top.
These three mounds were in most resp.ects very similar; they will
therefore be considered together. The surface soil to a depth of from
a few inches to 2½/2 feet is loose and largely mixed with ashes and
refuse; at the central portions but few ashes are encountered in dig-
ging down, but toward the edges of the more elevated portion the
ashes become plentiful. No human bones were found in these mounds
with the exception mentioned below, though the bones of deer, elk,
sheep, duck, wild goose, and rabbit were noted. Mixed with the
kitchen refuse, ashes, and charcoal, were a great many fragments
and a few unbroken specimens of rudely made baked clay balls,
together with an occasional rude bone or horn implement and some
partly worked flint flakes. All the long bones of game animals were
split and most of them showed traces of fire.
On the surface of mound 2 were found several fragments of human
bones, and the man who lived in the nearby house told me that, in
scraping away the top of the mound some years ago, several skeletons
were unearthed. The mounds themselves seem to be natural slight
elevations which have been utilized by the Indians as camping places
or village sites; they show no evidence of artificial formation.

MOUND 4
On August 2 I moved camp to a large mound, no. 4, on French
Camp slough, three miles south of Stockton and about a quarter of
a mile west of this and Mormon slough. This mound has been dug
into rather extensively by Barr, Meredith, and others, and from
the statements made to me by Barr I judged that practically the
whole of that portion north of the levee which traverses the top had
been disturbed at one time or another during the past four or five
years. A large number of bodies had been disinterred, but I could
not obtain sufficient data to form a reliable estimate of the total
number. With the bodies which they have exhumed near the top
of the mound, shell ornaments, beads, and worked flints were found,
while very little seemed to have been buried with the bodies of those
who had been interred at the outer edges of the area used as a ceme-
tery. Barr further informed me that some of the bodies at or near