The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1897-06-27
PREHISTORIC BONES.
Nuggets of Silver and Human Skele-
tons in Ohio Mounds.


ticed cremation and erected stone ere
mafories to accomplish the desired re
suit.
Professor Loveberry is the assistant
curator of the Chic. State Archaeology.
cal and Historical society. He is one
of the most able of the modern schoo
of archaeOlogisss, and the discovery
referred to will bring him lasting
fame, for 1T has been equalled only by
the famous Hopweu finds. Professor
Loveberry relates the story of the fine
in the following statement:
The group upon which / worked fol
several weeks before making the dis
covery OF the skeletons of the mound
builders is located on the farm of Dill
dine Snyder near East Ringgold. il
! Pickaway county. The group oil
mounds is located. on a hill over 100 feet
in height. commanding a beautiful 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 connect
! ing link between the stone mound on
the west and the earth mound on the
east. The stone mound is u feet high
and 125 feet in diameter. The circle
I is 10 feet in diameter and the clay
mound is LOG feet in diameter.
About 20 feet east OF the group is
another circle $50 feet in diameter
| Within the wall is a ditch which 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 II
feet high and 1870 feet in diameter.
North of this mound is a third circle
$50 feet in diameter This circle and
mound are generally considered part of
the snake den group, though they do
not really belong to it.
I'VE commenced work first on the
earth mound, running a trench from
east to west ten feet in width. We
dug in about % feet, making an 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
child's skeleton we found a handsome
bone awl and a small piece of graphite
with the other bones.
Leaving the earth mound, two of
our party started to work on the cir
Gle, 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 work
men found some half dozen concreta-
tons which are various sized round
shaped solid stone-like formations. By
placing two halves of these concen-
trations together, a dish-shaped article
was formed, resembling one inverted
dish over another. I believe these were
intended as receptacles for small 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 de-
post of geological and archaeological
70 vr~t1f 7 mill e, I,+-
we uncovered a box two feet long by
eighteen inches wide, formed of large
fiat 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 beer a great chief among
the mound builders. Ar. Dr. Orion
laughingly said to me, he must have
been great prehistoric geologist
"A remarkable fact which caught my
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 we'll borne out by further
exploration OF what appears to be
large stone crematory within the circle
on the west side. I found this to be
made up of burnt stones. 1 looked in
vain for a wall or traces of some sys-
TEN regarding the laying of the stone,
but | found none. The crematory was
l. feet long, feet wide, feet deep on
the east side, and feet deep on the
west side. 1t looked to me as if the
mound builders had given the crema-
tory this slope in order to make it draw
vel, 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 sand
stone. limestone, quartz. granite. etc,
and there were found in it many glacial
powders commonly called niger
heads All the stones had evidently
ben carried to the place, as none OF
them would have proved an excessive
burden for a man. They were burnt all
conceivable colors. black, yellow, red
and gray. Some We're melted into a
CLASSY lava or cinder while others had
melted together, forming a conglomer-
ate. Still others were made friable by
the fire and broke into little spalls,
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 eff
fects of an intense fire, long continued.
We also unearthed on the south part
of the circle SO concretions ranging in
size from that of a common marble to
specimens a foot in diameter, in weight
from half an ounce to 10 pounds. The
largest concreti0ns were found toward
the north. With them were found AZ
fossils of the variety commonly known
as cows horn, two septaria, three fossil
plants, one piece Of granite, a specimen
of quartz crystal and 80 peculiar forma-
tons. Among the geological specimens
were u different varieties of fossil
coral
with these specimens we found the
following relics of the mound builders:
Six hammers. five Destles, one tube
pipe, one unfinished pipe. one large
stone bead. one gulf shell bead, three
paint grinders, ten round paint grind
ers of plumb hobs, one stone punch or
awl, and one unfinished effigy. In the
southern part of the collection of relics
1 found the most important and inter
esting object in all this valuable 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 sill |
YER Three of the latter were coated
with some sort of black paint, while |
the other two were covered with pink
ochre.
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 CT the archaeology
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 imporfan = cannot |
be attached TO the value Of this unique |
discovery, which is certainly as aston |
shing as it is mysterious. The nuggets |
and box weigh 1524 ounces and The sill |