Show I PREHISTORIC BONES I Nuggets of Silver and Human Skeletons Skele-tons in Ohio Mounds I The most remarkable find of prehistoric prehis-toric skeletons made fcr many years was accomplished by Professor CIa j ence Loveberry a few days ago near I Rlnsgold Pickaway county Ohio The discovery of the skeletons establishes the fact that the mound builders prac j tlced cremation and erected stone crematories cre-matories to accomplish the desired result re-sult Professor Loveberry is the assistant curalor of the Ohio state Archaeological Archaeologi-cal and Historical society He is one of the most able of the modern school of archaeologists and the discovery referred to will bring him lasting fame fur it has been equalled only by the famous Hopwell finds Professor Loveberry relates the story of the find I in the following statement I The group upon which I worked for several weeks before making the discovery dis-covery of the skeletons of the mound builders is located on the farm of Dil dine Snyder near East JUnggold in Pickaway county The group of mounds located on a hill over 150 feet in height commanding a beautiful outlook out-look over the surrounding valleys and consisting of a stone mound a circle of half stone and half clay and a clay mound the circle forming the connecting connect-ing link between the stone mound on the west and the earth mound on the east The stone mound is 12 feet high and 125 feet in diameter The circle is 110 feet in diameter and the clay mound is 106 feet in diameter About 20 feet east of the group iso is-o n n ft n 1it th lt dltch whi h Within the wall is a ditch which surrounds sur-rounds a large platform about three feet lower than the outer bank and perfectly level on the surface The hill curves around hiding part of the view On the other bank about 200 yards east of this circle is another clay mound 12 feet high and 130 feet in diameter North of this mound is a third circle 150 feet in diameter This circle and mound are generally considered part of the snake den group though they do not really belong to It We commenced work first on the earth mound running a trench from east to west ten feet in width We dug in about 25 feet making an excavation ex-cavation about 20 feet square At the bottom of the mound we found eight skeletons the skeletons being those Of seven adults and one child With the childs skeleton we found a handsome bone awl and a small piece of graphite with the other bones Leaving the earth mound two four f-our party started to work on the circle cir-cle one on the west side and one on the south After some digging on the south side a layer of large black stones was removed below which the workmen work-men found some half dozen concreta tions which are varioussized round shaped solid stonelike formations By placing two halves of these concentrations concen-trations together a dishshaped article was formed resembling one inverted dish over another I believe these were Intended as receptacles for small articles ar-ticles of value of sacredness which could be thus hidden and preserved The entire exploring force then went to work on the south part of this circle After uncovering a large deposit de-posit of geological and archaeological specimens to which I will refer later we uncovered a box two feet long by eighteen inches wide formed of large flat stones Within this box were the remains of a cremated skeleton some burnt bones and perhaps a shovelful of ashes all that remained of what must have been a great chief among themound builders Ar Dr Orton laughingly said to me he must have been a great prehistoric geologist I A remarkable fact which caught my 1 attention at once was that the earth In and about the box showed no signs whatever of any action by fire from which am forced to conclude that the body was cremated before burial This conclusion is well borne out by further exploration of what appears to be a large stone crematory within the circle Ion I-on the west side I found this to be I made up of burnt stones I looked in vain for a wall or traces of some sys j tem regarding the laying of the stone i but I found none The crematory was 1 12 feet long 9 feet wide 9 feet deep on the east side and 5 feet deep on the west side It looked to me as if the mound builders had given the crematory crema-tory this slope in order to make it draw wel > and undoubtedly it was fired from the east end as that was near the center of the mound while the west end came up near the wall The crematory was formed of sandstone sand-stone limestone quartz granite etc and there were found in it many glacial bowlders commonly called nigger heads All the stones had evidently n n ucn iciiijcu IIP nil inaut ia iiune 01 them would have proved an excessive burden for a man They were burnt all conceivable colors black yellow red and gray Some were melted into a glassy lava or cinder while others had melted together forming a conglomerate conglomer-ate Still others were made friable by the fire and broke into little snaIls showing the grain of the stone when removed But little charcoal and no bones were found in the oven although we discovered what seemed to be ashes All this must have been due to the effects ef-fects of an intense fire long continued S We also unearthed on the south part of the circle 55 concretions ranging in size from that of a common marble to specimens a foot in diameter in weight from half an ounce to 75 pounds The largest concretions were found toward the north With them were found 47 fossils of the variety commonly known as cows horn two septaria three fossil plants one piece of granite a specimen of quartz crystal and 50 peculiar forma I ions Among the geological specimens coral were 12 different varieties of fossil I coralWith With these specimens we found the following relics of the mound builders Six hammers five pestles one tube pipe one unfinished pipe one large stone bead one gulf shell bead three paint grinders ten round paint grinders grind-ers of plumb bobs one stone punch or awl and one unfinished effigy In the southern part of the collection of relics I found the most important and interesting inter-esting object In all this valuable discovery dis-covery In a peculiar mussel shell shaped box of stone three and a half Inches in width and three in width protected by a separate stone cover of similar form were five nuggets of silver sil-ver Three of the latter were coated with some sort of a black paint while the other two were covered with pink ochre ISo I-So far as is known this is the only nugget silver ever found in a burial A European archaeologist to whom the relic was shown said that gold had been found in some cf the archaeological archaeologi-cal surveys in Europe but so far as he knew native silver had never been dis covered in any of the prehistoric ruins there Too much imporfau 3 cannot be attached to the value of this unique discovery which is certainly as astonishing aston-ishing as it is mysterious The nuggets and box weigh 15i ounces and tha silver sil-ver 6 ounces The largest piece of s lIver lI-ver weighs two ounces The Ohio State Archaeological and Historical society has alT gel for excavations ex-cavations in several promisinr lielJs this coming summer I looic fo discoveries discov-eries of farreaching Importance CLARENCE LOVEEI3URY Assistant Curator Ohio Archaeological Archaeologi-cal and Historical Society |